Annie Prouix
Bad Dirt

This remarkable collection of stories includes The Contest, in which the male population of Elk Tooth, Wyoming, vows to put aside their razors for two seasons and see who can grow the longest beard by July 4, while in That Trickle Down Effect, Deb Sipple finds that his opportunism - and his smoking habit -lead to a massive destruction. In every story Proulx displays her wit and her knowledge of the West, of history, and most of all of characters who must use sheer will and courage to make it in tough territory.

Michael Gruber
Valley Of Bones

When a wealthy oilman plunges to his death from a hotel balcony, Detective Jimmy Paz's only suspect is Emmylou Dideroff, an eerily pious young woman. Eager to confess, she begins the bizarre tale of despair and degradation that led her into the service of God. But when people associated with Emmylou start turning up dead, Paz and Lorna begin to suspect that there's something much larger at stake than Emmylou's guilt or innocence, and that the search for justice might bring them all face to face with an elemental and terrifying force.

In deep retirement in the English countryside, an 89-year-old man, vaguely recollected by the locals as a former detective, is more concerned with his beekeeping than his fellow man. Into his life wanders Linus Steinman, nine years old and mute, who has escaped from Nazi Germany with his sole companion, an African grey parrot. What is the meaning of the mysterious strings of numbers the bird spews out? Is it a top secret SS code? A Swiss bank account? Or do they hold a more sinister significance? The solution may be beyond the reach of the once-famed sleuth, but the true story of the boy and his parrot will be wrenchingly resolved.