Is the biblically inspired Angelology the next Da Vinci Code? James Hynes' Next causes us to inaugurate the genre "Mick lit" (think middle-aged men and the Rolling Stones). A prominent advocate of No Child Left Behind reverses course. And ace spy John Wells is back, undercover and in deep.
Angelology
A Novel
By Danielle Trussoni
The young author of an acclaimed memoir (Falling Through the Earth), Danielle Trussoni tries her hand at fiction with the ambitious goal of writing a second Da Vinci Code. The story revolves around Sister Evangeline, a young and beautiful nun whose discovery of a 1943 letter from the famous philanthropist Abigail Rockefeller plunges her into the world of "angelology," the study of angels. Like Dan Brown before her, Trussoni builds her supernatural thriller around puzzling lines in the Bible: specifically, the verse in Genesis that details how "the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them." In an eventful 48 hours, Sister Evangeline discovers that the descendents of those angel-human unions — the monstrously beautiful Nephilim — have been at war with mankind ever since. Evangeline's mission is to find a hidden artifact before the Nephilim do. Naturally, the fate of humanity rests on the outcome.
Hardcover, 464 pages; Viking; list price, $27.95; publication date, March 9
Next
A Novel
By James Hynes
James Hynes' Next traces a few hours — critical hours, to be sure — in the life of Kevin Quinn, an academic publications editor on a trip to Austin, Texas, for a job interview — an interview that happens to be taking place in the middle of a terrorism scare. His early arrival and his preoccupation with a young woman seated next to him on the plane lead him on an amble around Austin and an in-depth consideration of his life and history with women. Hynes writes anecdote after anecdote, slowly constructing Quinn's past and fleshing out what initially seems to be simply an unseemly preoccupation with a stranger. Quinn's obsessive self-examination is cut with the tension that comes from a few brushes against the terrorism angle, until the pieces of the story start to meet up in the final act.
Hardcover, 320 pages; Reagan Arthur; list price, $23.99; publication date, March 9
The Death and Life of the Great American School System
How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education
By Diane Ravitch
Diane Ravitch is a prominent education historian, and her new book is a thorough critique of some recent history that's partly of her own making — the No Child Left Behind law. Ravitch's personal history with the Department of Education is bipartisan; she served under Presidents Bush (the elder) and Clinton. But she's best known as a conservative critic of the nation's public schools, and she was one of the most influential proponents of No Child Left Behind. NCLB requires states to test and improve students' math and reading skills as a condition of receiving federal education funding. Schools that fall short must give students the option of transferring to better public schools or charter schools. Ravitch's new book describes how she came to completely reverse her position on NCLB. Some of Ravitch's former opponents are clearly delighted by her change of heart — the American Federation of Teachers scheduled a book party for her — and the response to Ravitch's book seems to be taking the form of a which-side-are-you-on debate about President George W. Bush's education policies. But as Ravitch points out, the No Child Left Behind Act was a bipartisan bill co-sponsored by Sen. Ted Kennedy. And President Obama is at least as fervent an advocate as President Bush of charter schools.
Hardcover, 296 pages; Basic Books; list price, $26.95; publication date, March 2
The Midnight House
By Alex Berenson
The Midnight House is the fourth spy novel by Alex Berenson, a talented prodigy who somehow manages a day job as a reporter at The New York Times . The star of Berenson's thrillers is John Wells, a former Dartmouth football player and the only spook ever to infiltrate al-Qaida. Wells' handler is the morally ambiguous Ellis Shafer — "George Smiley as played by Larry David," as Berenson describes him. In this latest installment, Wells is called out of hibernation by Shafer to unravel a trail of murder and mystery emanating from the closed-up Midnight House, a rendition prison somewhere in Poland. The book ends with the mysteries solved and Wells poised for action in Berenson's next novel.
Hardcover, 400 pages; Putnam; list price, $25.95; publication date, Feb. 9
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