Summer is still sizzling…

The Year That Follows

By Scott Lasser

Knopf, $23.95

This is a warm, sensitive and poignant story of love, separation and reconciliation.

Cat, a single mother whose brother, Kyle, was killed on 9/11, is determined to find the infant son he left. The mother, he had told her, worked in the towers and is presumed dead.

Meanwhile, her 80-year-old father, Sam, who is dying of congestive heart failure, seeks to reconcile with Cat. He invites her to visit. There he plans to reveal a secret he’s kept from her all her life.

Sam plays a large part in this story, an irascible but lovable old man hoping to repair fractured family relations.

Running from the Devil

By Jamie Freveletti

William Morrow, $24.99

When an airliner crashes on a make-shift runway in the Colombian jungle, FARC guerrillas standing in wait take the survivors as hostages; all, except one, Emma Caldridge, a cosmetic company biochemist on a covert personal mission.

An elite marathon runner, Emma escapes and tracks the guerillas hoping to find help from friendly villagers. In the meantime, the Department of Defense sends military contractor Edward Banner to find and rescue the hostages. Although Banner finds Emma, he doesn’t realize she carries a volatile biological weapon to be auctioned by her enemies.

Starvation Lake

By Bryan Gruley

Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, $14

Years after Starvation Lake’s legendary hockey coach disappeared in the lake and was presumed drowned, his snowmobile washes up in a lake miles away, empty and sporting a bullet hole. Was it an accident or was he murdered?

Gus Carpenter, editor of the local paper who, in his youth, was the star goalie who let the state championship get away, intends to find out. What he discovers instead are dark and disturbing secrets.

It’s a thrilling, and chilling, (pun intended) debut by Gruley who, as an avid amateur hockey player, creates realistic game action sure to please fans of the sport.

Gone Tomorrow

By Lee Child

Delacorte Press, $27

Former MP Jack Reacher, trained to spot suicide bombers, sees one on the 2 a.m. subway car he’s riding. A young woman fits the description exactly and Jack decides to confront her before she can detonate the bomb.

What happens next has Jack racing to elude the NYPD, FBI, Homeland Security and a host of killers – led by an extraordinarily beautiful and evil woman – who all want the same thing: to find and kill Jack.

Jack, as usual, uses both brains and brawn to escape entrapments and put away the would-be killers.

BALLISTICS

By Billy Collins

Random House, $24

While not a huge fan of poetry, I admit to getting a kick out of Collins’ imaginative, down-to-earth and clever wit.

For instance, from “A Dog on His Master”:

As young as I look, I am growing older faster than he, seven to one is the ratio they tend to say. Whatever the number, I will pass him one day and take the lead the way I do on our walk in the woods. And if this ever manages to cross his mind it would be the sweetest shadow I have ever cast on snow or grass.”

And the single-lined, “Divorce:”

“Once, two spoons in bed, now tined forks – across a granite table, and the knives they have hired. “

You’ve got to love him.

REAL CAJUN

By Donald Link with Paul Disbrowe

Potter, $35

Donald Link’s restaurant, Herbsaint, is justifiably rated among the best in New Orleans and I agree. But he leaves it behind, returning to his Acadiana roots for down-to-earth Cajun cooking.

Among the recipes gathered from friends and family are his Uncle Robert’s smoked brisket, his Aunt Sally’s black-eyed peas and his mother-in-law Cathy’s cornbread dressing.

Chris Granger’s color photos had my mouth watering, but sadly, my favorite Herbsaint dish, frog legs, is not included. Well, guess I’ll have to take a trip to the Big Easy.

Bon Appetit!