From Rob Reuland and Lisa Scottoline, a couple of books that blow away your average beach reads.
Hollowpoint
Hollowpoint is a dark and heartbreaking novel, a literary thriller with a kick-ass soul. First-time author Rob Reuland, a senior district attorney in the homicide bureau of the Brooklyn D.A.'s office, knows his terrain-the perps, the cops, the pross, and the grimy back rooms and backstreets of Brooklyn. But more than that, the guy can write. In his world, boys "harden into stringy vessels of tightly sprung hatred" and men fall upon women "with their teeth showing." Hollowpoint is the bastard child of Raymond Chandler and Ernest Hemingway, and Reuland skillfully brings it to life.
The Vendetta Defense
Call Lisa Scottoline the thinking man's-uh, woman's-John Grisham. With seven books under her belt, including the best-sellers Moment of Truth and Mistaken Identity, she has established herself as a writer who knows her way around the law and can spin a good, if sometimes improbable, yarn. In her latest, The Vendetta Defense, attorney Judy Carrier must defend 70-year-old pigeon racer (we did say improbable) Anthony Lucia, a.k.a. "Pigeon Tony," against charges that he killed his lifelong enemy, Angelo Coluzzi, who may or may not be a mobster. Along the way, the bad guys decide that they want Lucia and his attorney dead. Somehow, Scottoline brings a deft sense of humor to all this. The Vendetta Defense definitely won't dissatisfy her gender-bending fans.