Steamy, exotic locale? Check. Love on the rocks? Check. Mud, blood, and much, much drink? Check, check, and check again. Add the fact that this is by the same cat who penned both Dark Passage and Shoot the Piano Player, and that makes checkmate. Pure, unadulterated noir from a very hard place, indeed.

-JH

Eric Saunderson is being hunted by a conceptual shark that devours identity with the zeal of a Great White loosed on Fourth-of-July beachgoers. Take an icy plunge into the seas of memory loss with Steven Hall's radical and entertaining debut.

-SD

Sicilian journalist Ottavio Cappellani has penned a hardboiled yet knowing mob caper, perfect for our post-Sopranos age. Who Is Lou Sciortino? is a clever pastiche of mafioso tropes that's never too hip to deliver the goods — goombah wisdom, plot twists, and plenty of ice-cold vengeance.

-TW

There's no better seaside companion than a blockbuster page-turner — save maybe a sci-fi smash wherein the consciousness of the ocean enacts savage vengeance on humankind. Shiver over the ocean's revenge before Schätzing's bestselling tale of coastal terror goes Hollywood — Uma Thurman bought the rights and the film is due next year.

-NP

The latest by the brilliant and irascible Houellebecq has two narrators: a present-day comedian and, from the distant future, his 24th clone; the pair collaborates to explain how humanity transformed from a race that had proven itself incapable of treating each other decently to one that has removed the need to reproduce sexually, thus eliminating the need for anything but virtual interaction. It sounds depressing, of course, but look deeper and you'll see that Houellebecq has both hope and confidence in humanity.

-TR