House Rules: A Joe DeMarco Thriller by Lawson, Mike Mike Lawson's fine new Joe DeMarco thriller -- set against the Washington, D.C., political backdrop -- tackles what seems to be a new set of terrorist attacks in the U.S. The novel works on several levels -- including vivid characters and fine and complex plotting -- and Lawson addresses how fear is used to manipulate national politics.--Dan Domike, Jackson Street Books (Seattle, WA)

A Yes-Or-No Answer: Poems by Shore, Jane In her acclaimed collections Happy Family and Music Minus One, Jane Shore traced her life from childhood to coming of age to parenthood. Now, in A Yes-or-No Answer, Shore etches the persistence of the past in a life that has moved into a mature new phase as a member of the baby boom generation. Recalling her Jewish childhood in New Jersey, living in the apartment above the family's clothing store, Shore lovingly imagines her parents, now gone, reunited with relatives over a Scrabble board in the afterlife. The poet's teenage daughter sorts through the "vintage" clothes of her mother's own hippie days. Cherished items left behind -- an address book, a piano, an easy chair, a favorite doll -- continue to haunt the living. The poems in A Yes-or-No Answer dignify memory through precise detail, with a voice that will resonate for a generation at a crossroads.