AP - "Fever of the Bone" (HarperCollins, $14.99), by Val McDermid: When serial crime fiction is done well, readers can drop into any installment and within a few chapters, understand nearly everything about the primary characters and their relationship with one another.

AP - "Pretty Little Things" (Vanguard Press, $25.95), by Jilliane Hoffman: Jilliane Hoffman takes the standard "To Catch a Predator" plot — adult male sex offender ensnaring unsuspecting teens by various online chat rooms or social networks — and escalates it to a thoroughly creepy serial killer level.

AP - "The Elephant's Journey" (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $24), by Jose Saramago: This is a book Serious Readers should love. Consider the pedigree: a recently deceased Nobel Prize-winning author, a benevolent animal protagonist and a space on bookstore and library shelves in the hot category Historical Fiction.

AP - Video-game wars, like those in "Halo" or "Call of Duty," are usually seen from the grunt's-eye view.

AP - Stone Sour, "Audio Secrecy" (Roadrunner)

AP - Sara Bareilles, "Kaleidoscope Heart" (Epic)

AP - Lady Saw, "My Way" (Toasting Music/Diva Records)

AP - "The Grand Design" (Random House, $28), by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow: Cosmologists, the people who study the entire cosmos, will want to read British physicist and mathematician Stephen Hawking's new book.

AP - "Trail of Blood" (William Morrow, $24.99), by Lisa Black: The discovery of a body that appears to have been hidden for over 70 years spurs a contemporary murder spree in "Trail of Blood," Lisa Black's latest novel featuring forensic scientist Theresa MacLean.