On shelf this week

The President Is Missing
by James Patterson and Bill Clinton.
Little, Brown and Company and Knopf. 
Pages 528. $30 (Rs 2,040 approx)

The President is Missing has been dubbed as the publishing event of 2018 due to the celebrity status of its authors — Bill Clinton and James Patterson. Former president Clinton has penned several non-fiction books, this is his first novel. Patterson has written several bestselling thrillers, co-authored with other lesser-known authors before.

The President is Missing confronts a threat so huge that it jeopardises not just Pennsylvania Avenue and Wall Street, but all of America. Uncertainty and fear grip the nation. There are whispers of cyberterror and espionage and a traitor in the cabinet. Even the President himself becomes a suspect, and then he disappears from public view . . .

Set over the course of three days, the novel reveals the inner workings and vulnerabilities of America, filled with details and information that only a former president could know. 

(To hit the stands from June 4 onwards).

Shelter in Place
by Nora Roberts.  
St. Martin’s Press. 
Pages 448.
$27.99 (Rs 1,904 approx)

Nora roberts is a bestselling author with more than 200 books. Shelter in Place is based on a malady that America is facing almost regularly — mass shooting. It was a typical evening at a mall outside Portland, Maine. Then the shooters arrived. The chaos and carnage lasted only eight minutes before the killers were taken down. But for those who lived through it, the effects would last forever. In the years that followed, one would dedicate himself to a law enforcement career. Another would close herself off, until she finally found a way to pour her emotions into her art. But one person wasn’t satisfied with the shockingly high death toll at the DownEast Mall. And as the survivors slowly heal, they will discover that another conspirator is lying in wait — and this time, there might be nowhere safe to hide.

(To hit the stands from May 29 onwards)