New and noteworthy books for week of July 1: Chris Cleave

New and noteworthy books for week of July 1: Chris Cleave

1. Gold by Chris Cleave (Simon Schuster, $27, fiction, on sale July 3

What it's about: A novel about three British friends, each a world-class cyclist, competing for their last chance at an Olympic medal.

The buzz: In time for the 2012 Olympics in London, it's Cleve's first novel since Little Bee, which hit No. 14 on USA TODAY's Best-selling Books list and has sold more than 2 million copies, according to the publisher.

2. Criminal by Karin Slaughter (Delacorte, $27, fiction, on sale July 3)

What it's about: The novel, set in Atlanta in both the present and 1974, imagines two murder cases that entangle and test a brilliant young detective and his mentor and boss, one of the first women on the Atlanta Police Department.

The buzz:|-|Booklist calls it "a fascinating backward glance at sexual politics in the workplace." Slaughter has had 12 novels in the top 50 on USA TODAY's list.

3. Not Working: People Talk About Losing a Job and Finding Their Way in Today's Changing Economy by DW Gibson (Penguin, $17 paperback original, non-fiction, on sale July 3)

What it's about: Gibson, a magazine writer who's also worked on TV documentaries, drove across the country last summer and fall, interviewing a wide range of people who've lost their jobs.

The buzz: Inspired by Studs Terkel's Working and James Agee< /a> and Walker Evan's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, it's been praised by Ken Burns, the master documentarian, as "a powerful and heart-wrenching story."

4. Imperfect Bliss by Susan Fales-Hill (Atria, $24, fiction, on sale July 3)

What it's about: A respectable, middle-class, middle-age, mixed-race couple in Chevy Chase, Md., with four marriageable daughters get mixed up with a Bachelorette-style reality TV show called The Virgin.

The buzz: Novelist Adriana Trigiani (who like Fales-Hill was a writer on The Cosby Show) calls it "the perfect summer read. … that will make Jane Austen fans swoon."

5. Jack 1939 by Francine Mathews (Riverhead, $26.95, fiction, on sale July 5)

What it's about: Historical thriller that imagines John F. Kennedy at 22, loose in Europe and secretly working as President Roosevelt's personal spy.

The buzz: Mathews, a former CIA analyst turned n ovelist (The Alibi Club), has written what Booklist calls a "vivid and sexy historical thriller."