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Wicked Prey by John Sandford (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 5/12)

New York Times #1 bestselling author John Sandford’s new novel starring Lucas Davenport is Wicked Prey, on sale from Putnam on May 12th. Booklist raved that “Sandford’s track record as a best-selling author is amazing, but it’s not an accident. His plotting is sharp, his villains are extraordinarily layered, and his good guys are always evolving.”

Set in Minneapolis-St. Paul against the backdrop of the Republican National Convention, where the convention brings more than just delegates to St. Paul and Davenport must outsmart a whole new set of cunning criminals.

Next week, Sandford will embark on a 6-city tour which will include events at Poisoned Pen, Warwick’s, Barnes & Noble in Minneapolis and Los Angeles and Borders in Chicago.
 

Street Fighters by Kate Kelly (Portfolio, 5/12)

In Street Fighters: The Last 72 Hours of Bear Stearns, The Toughest Firm on Wall Street, Kate Kelly takes us inside Bear’s walls during its final, frenzied 72 hours as an independent firm. Expanding with fresh detail from her acclaimed front-page series in The Wall Street Journal, she captures every sight, sound, and smell of those three unbelievable days. With a style as riveting as it is enlightening, Street Fighters is the definitive account of a once-great firm’s demise and of the human folly that led to the worst financial crisis since the 1930s. The book is launching with major media including “Fresh Air” and “Marketplace” on NPR, “Squawk Box “on CNBC, “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, and a big excerpt in The Wall Street Journal.

Love and Obstacles by Aleksandar Hemon (Riverhead, 5/14)

On May 14th, Riverhead will publish Aleksandar Hemon's highly-anticipated new collection of short stories, Love and Obstacles. Hemon's debut novel, The Lazarus Project, which just came out in paperback, was a hit with the critics. Not only was it a National Book Award Finalist, a National Book Critics' Circle Finalist, and a New York Times Notable Book, but it was also one of Amazon’s Top Ten Books of 2008 and was named New York magazine’s Top Novel of the Year.

Love and Obstacles has already received starred advance reviews from three of the trade publications. In its starred review, Booklist said: "Possessed of a phenomenal gift for translating feelings into concrete imagery in masterfully structured tales that end in stunning crescendos, Hemon infuses everything, from a freezer to bees in a hive, with barbed insights into our instinct for aggression, longing for connection, and unquenchable need to tell our stories, whether in poems, letters, drunken orations, or confessions to strangers. Hemon is a world-class writer of seismic depth, riptide humor, wine-dark language, and unflinching candor.”

The publicity campaign will launch with a profile in the New York Times the week of on-sale, as well as an article on "Hemon's Chicago" in the Wall Street Journal's Weekend Journal on Friday, May 15th, and a Q&A on The Daily Beast. The national book tour launches in New York with an appearance at Barnes & Noble's "Upstairs at the Square" series, at Union Square on Thursday, May 14 at 7 PM. He will read from his book, musician Alina Simone perform, and both artists will be interviewed on-stage by Katherine Lanpher. You can also hear Hemon on the air earlier that day, in an interview on WNYC's "Leonard Lopate Show." Reviews will appear in O Magazine, Vogue, Vanity Fair, Details, The New York Times Book Review, San Francisco Chronicle, Slate.com, Chicago Sun-Times, Miami Herald, Portland Oregonian, and Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and more to come. Hemon's book tour will take him to Atlanta for a special event hosted by the Georgia Center for the Book, as well as bookstores in St. Louis, Chicago, Seattle and Portland. Full tour schedule on the Penguin website or at aleksandarhemon.com

Penguin Weekly Update, New Next Week, Penguin Books