September Publications

Readers looking for stylish, old-fashioned fun will find it in the late Leo Bruce's Death in the Middle Watch: A Carolus Deene Mystery, set aboard an English cruise ship on the Mediterranean. A man overboard and a subsequent murder keep gentleman sleuth Deene, his fellow passengers and the crew gossiping and guessing until the ship's return to London, where Deene can take suitable action. (Academy, $21.95 148p ISBN 0-89733-523-6)

Five Star rolls out two stand-alone novels by American writers: Shamus-winner Sandra Scoppetone's Beautiful Rage, in which Virginia sheriff Lucia Dove discovers romance with Lt. Jack Fincham while they both look into a series of killings in Florida ($25.95 320p ISBN 1-4101-0201-0), and T.D. Patterson's The Vote, a debut political thriller in which a virtuous congressman stands up to a U.S. president who'll do anything to assure his re-election after a tie in the Electoral College ($25.95 372p ISBN1-59414-239-4).

Pointblank Press (www.pointblankpress.com), a new imprint from Wildside, offers two titles of interest to crime aficionados: James Sallis's A City Equal to My Desire, this respected author's latest story collection ($29.95 172p ISBN 1-930997-68-X; $15.95 paper ISBN 1-930997-67-1), and Dave Zeltserman's Fast Lane, a noir novel in the Jim Thompson tradition that comes with an endorsement from Ken Bruen ($29.95 200p ISBN 1-930997-62-0; $15.95 paper ISBN 1-930997-63-9).