The Jesus Cow

Michael Perry

Harper

Life is suddenly full of drama for low-key Harley Jackson: A woman in a big red pickup has stolen his bachelor's heart; a Hummer- driving developer hooked on self-improvement audiobooks is threatening to pave the last vestiges of his family farm; and inside his barn lies a calf bearing the image of Jesus Christ. Harley's best friend, Billy, a giant of a man who shares his trailer house with a herd of cats and tries to pass off country music lyrics as philosophy, urges him to sidestep the woman, fight the developer, and get rich off the calf. But Harley takes the opposite tack, hoping to avoid what his devout, dearly departed mother would have called "a scene." Then the secret gets out--right through the barn door--and Harley's "miracle" goes viral. Within hours, pilgrims, grifters, and the media have descended on his quiet patch of Swivel, Wisconsin, looking for a glimpse (and a per- centage) of the calf. Does Harley hide the famous, possibly holy, calf and risk a riot, or give the people what they want--and in the process raise enough money to keep his land and, just maybe, win the woman in the big red pickup? Harley goes all in, cutting a deal with a major Hollywood agent that transforms his little farm into an international spiritual theme park--think Lourdes, only with cheese curds and souvenir snow globes. Soon, Harley has lots of money . . . and more trouble than he ever dreamed.

War of the Encyclopaedists

Gavin Kovite & Chris Robinson

Scribner Book Company

In a superb, rare literary collaboration, two major new talents join their voices to tell the story of a generation at a crossroads, and a friendship that stretches over continents and crises--from the liberal arena of Boston academia to the military occupation of Iraq--in this ambitious and electrifying debut novel. On a summer night, in the arty enclave of Capitol Hill, Seattle, best friends Mickey Montauk and Halifax Corderoy throw one last blowout party before their lives part ways. At twenty-three, they had planned to move together to Boston for graduate school, but global events have intervened: Montauk has just learned that his National Guard unit will deploy to Baghdad at the end of the summer. In the confusion of this altered future, Corderoy is faced with a moral dilemma: his girlfriend Mani has just been evicted and he must decide whether or not to abandon her when she needs him most. He turns to Montauk for help. His decision that night, and its harrowing outcome, sets in motion a year that will transform all three of them. Months later, Corderoy and Montauk grapple with their new identities as each deals with his own muted disappointment. In Boston, Corderoy finds himself unable to play the game of intellectual one-upmanship with the ease and grace of his new roommate Tricia, a Harvard graduate student and budding human rights activist. Half a world away, in Baghdad, Montauk struggles to lead his platoon safely through an increasingly violent and irrational war. As their lives move further away from their shared dream, Corderoy and Montauk keep in touch with one another by editing a Wikipedia article about themselves: smart and funny updates that morph and deepen throughout the year, culminating in a document that is both devastatingly tragic and profoundly poetic.

The Harvest Man

Alex Grecian

G.P. Putnam's Sons

In "The Devil's Workshop," London discovered that Jack the Ripper was back, sending the city--and Scotland Yard's Murder Squad--into chaos. But now it is even worse. Not only is the Ripper still at large, but so is another killer just as bad. For Inspector Walter Day, it has been a difficult time. His wife has given birth to twins, his hostile in-laws have come to stay, and a leg injury has kept him at his desk. But when the Harvest Man begins killing, carving people's faces off their skulls, the Yard knows they need Day in the field. Not so Sergeant Nevil Hammersmith. Rash actions have cost him his job, but that doesn't stop his obsessive hunt for the Ripper. When the mutilated bodies of prostitutes start turning up again, Hammersmith enlists the help of a criminal network to stop Saucy Jack, his methods carrying him further and further from the ideals of the Yard, so far in fact that he may never be able to find his way back. Of course, the Ripper's been playing a game with him--with Walter Day, as well. He is pushing both of them to their limits, and what happens when they get there . . . no one can say.

The Knockoff

Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza

Doubleday Books

An outrageously stylish, wickedly funny novel of fashion in the digital age, "The Knockoff" is the story of Imogen Tate, editor in chief of "Glossy" magazine, who finds her twentysomething former assistant Eve Morton plotting to knock Imogen off her pedestal, take over her job, and reduce the magazine, famous for its lavish 768-page September issue, into an app. When Imogen returns to work at "Glossy "after six months away, she can barely recognize her own magazine. Eve, fresh out of Harvard Business School, has fired the gray hairs, put the managing editor in a supply closet, stopped using the landlines, and hired a bevy of manicured and questionably attired underlings who text and tweet their way through meetings. Imogen, darling of the fashion world, may have Alexander Wang and Diane von Furstenberg on speed dial, but she can t tell Facebook from Foursquare and once got her iPhone stuck in Japanese for two days. Under Eve's reign, "Glossy" is rapidly becoming a digital sweatshop hackathons rage all night, girls who sleep get fired, and fun means mandatory, company-wide coordinated dances to Beyonce. Wildly out of her depth, Imogen faces a choice pack up her Smythson notebooks and quit, or channel her inner geek and take on Eve to save both the magazine and her career. A glittering, uproarious, sharply drawn story filled with thinly veiled fashion personalities, "The Knockoff" is an insider's look at the ever-changing world of fashion and a fabulous romp for our Internet-addicted age.