Christian Von Ditfurth is a popular writer of thrillers in Germany. Now, for the first time, one of his book is available in an English translation. “A Paragon of Virtue” is about a rich Hamburg resident who, over the years, has been stalked by someone who is killing off his wife and children. Ditfurth, a historian, often takes his stories back to some root in history, and in this case it’s the Nazi regime in Germany.

Also new this week is “Last Last Chance” by Fiona Maazel, her debut novel. It’s, um, crazy. How’s that for authoritative review? OK, you tell me — the plot involves a plague unleashed on Washington D.C., the daughter of the man accused of letting it loose, the mother of that same woman, who is a crackhead and “pagan theologian,” and throughout a theme of reincarnitation. Sweet. Reviewers are raving, mosting because Maazel — a young New Yorker who has an author photo like he’s ready to be the Next Big Thing — writes with verve and wit.

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Last time around — with “A Slight Trick of the Mind” — author Mitch Cullin brought back the character of Sherlock Holmes, bewildered by the post-World War II world (particularly how progressive science led to so much death and destruction). In his new novel, “The Post-War Dream,” Cullin once again takes on the issues of aging and loss. He uses his father’s Korean War service and his mother’s cancer in this work of fiction, set in a retirement community in Arizona.

Also new in fiction is “Mudbound,” in which author Hillary Jordan — who won the Bellwether Prize for the unpublished manuscript of this work — sets a story about six individuals in the post-World War II American South. The novel tackles racism and life in rural American.

In nonfiction, “Twenty Chickens For A Saddle: The Story of an African Childhood” is Robin Scott’s memoir about growing up in Botswana, living first in a converted cowshed and later on their own farm in South Africa. In their second home, they find the apartheid mentality lives on, despite the fact that it has been technically ended.

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Andrew Britton continues on a roll with his third novel, “The Invisible.” After his debut novel, “The American,” was a success (Britton wrote it when he was only 21), he was since produced a sophomore effort, “The Assassin,” which also was a success. In the new book, the central character continues to be CIA agent Ryan Healey. This time, Healey is wandering the world after being dumped by his girlfriend and fellow agent, Naomi Kharmai. But when he has a chance to win her back, he accepts an assignment to track down an assassin who has kidnapped several Americans in Pakistan. Complications — as well as explosions — will ensue. Think of Britton as a modern updating of Robert Ludlum or John le Carre.

As usual, there is a bevy of nonfiction (which outsells fiction about 9 to 1, according to estimates I’ve seen) and as usual, a lot of it is about war. In “Roll Call To Destiny,” Brent Nosworthy looks at Civil War battles through the eyes of the front line soldiers. And in “The Complex,” Nick Turse offers some scary examples of how the military “invades our everyday lives.” For example, Turse explains that many of the products you use every day — from toothpaste to the television network you watch — are contractors with the military and benefit with expanded military action. He proposes that the “military-industrial complex” actually be called “the military-industrial-technological-entertainment-scientific-media-corporate complex.” Thanks, we’ll all sleep better for knowing that, eh?

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Ed Gorman has a lot of history in politics. The Iowa resident has worked as a speechwriter and campaign commercial producer, so he knew the background when he wrote “Sleeping Dogs: A Mystery, which is a thriller set during the re-election campaign of a senator with a, ah, “zipper problem.”

There are several new nonfiction books that look promising. In “Italy’s Sorrow: A Year of War, 1944-45,” author James Holland offers a harrowing look at the World War II in Italy, especially at the suffering of civilians. Speaking of war, in “Going to War,” author Russ Hoyle examines the “misinformation” and “disinformation” that resulted in the United States invading Iraq. And, closer to home, Martin A. Dyckman looks at scandal in the Florida judiciary in “A Most Disorderly Court.”

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Thanks to the popularity of his earlier book, “Armageddon,” about the battle against Germany in World War II, there is quite a bit of anticipation for Max Hastings’ “Retribution: The Battle for Japan, 1944-45.” (A starred early review from Booklist didn’t hurt, either). Part of Hastings’ goal is to refute the characterization of the Japanese as victims, and the consequences of the Japanese refusing to acknowledge defeat.

In another book about war, but on a much more sweeping scale, historian Anthony Pagden explores 2,500 years of clashes between the Western and the Eastern worlds in “Worlds at War.” He starts all the way back when Greece and the Persian Empire were at war, then moves forward through the Crusades, the first world war, up the current war in Iraq.

For a more modern look at warfare, there’s “Trigger Men” by Hans Halberstadt, which takes a detailed look at people who serve as American combat snipers. Yes, there’s a book about everything.

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Two harrowing works of nonfiction are available this week.

In “The Translator: A Tribesman’s Memoir of Darfur,” Daoud Hari takes the readers where he has taken journalists — behind the scenes in a country where a war between rebels and government-backed militia has led to the deaths of 200,000 people since 2003, as well as the displacement of 2.5 million people.

In “Not My Turn To Die: Memoirs of a Broken Childhood in Bosnia,” author Savo Heleta takes us to another hot spot, where his Muslim village was destroyed and he endured a “two-year nightmare of living with terror, starvation, and humiliation.” But it ends in a better place, as Heleta goes from an angry young man to a person able to forgive and move on with life.

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In 2002, Jose Latour fled Cuba with his family, ending his long career in finance with the Cuban Treasury, its Central Bank and its Ministry of Sugar. Latour had started writing while still in Cuba — even serving as vice president for the Latin American branch of the International Association of Crime Writers. Now a resident of Toronto, Latour is considered one of the premiere writers of hardboiled fiction, and his later, “Hidden in Havana,” looks to be another winner. Besides its hardboiled plot, it also allows readers an inside look at Cuba.

Also new this month is the sophomore effort from Cecilia Samartin, also a native of Cuba. She grew up in Los Angeles, went to school at UCLA, and released a book, “Broken Paradise,” that won praise. Now she has released “Tarnished Beauty,” a novel about Jamilet, a girl born with a freakishly large birthmark that covers her like “a bloody veil.” Weary of the cruel taunts from people in her hometown, she crosses illegally into the United States, ending up as a worker in a mental hospital.

On a more academic note, Walter A. McDougall, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, offers “Throes of Democracy,” a detailed look at the turmoil experienced by the country from 1835 to 1876.

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In her debut novel, “The Outcast,” British writer Sadie Jones offers a tale set during that time in England’s history between the poverty of post World War II and the affluence ushered in during the late 1950s. The novel centers on Lewis Aldridge, a young man being released after a two-year stint in prison for arson. He returns to the upper class neighborhood of his childhood, where “tennis and cocktail parties, the sleek rituals of suburban life, mask darker realities.” Can he fit in again? Does he really want to? This novel has received excellent early reviews.

Also new this week is “Binu and the Great Wall: The Myth of Ming” by Su Tong. This new tale reinterprets the classic Chinese myth of the young girl whose tears collapsed the Great Wall of China. Binu is a village girl shunned because she continually breaks the rules against crying. But when she finally marries, she shows remarkable determination in finding her husband when he is taken and forced to work as slave labor on construction of the Great Wall. Also new in fiction is “Brett McCarthy: Work In Progress” by Maria Padian. This debut novel, aimed at young adults (and with a great title) centers on the titular character, a hero on the soccer field but a girl who is constantly putting her foot in her mouth. Hmm. Sounds like quite a few adults, as well.

Sen Arlen Specter has also released his autobiographical book, “Never Give In: Battling Cancer in the Senate,” written with Frank J. Scaturro. The book, obviously from the title, documents his battle against Hodgkins disease.

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A couple of interesting paperbacks came out earlier this month. Bantam has reprinted “The Mule” by Juan Eslava Galan (translated from the Spanish) because it is about to be made into a movie. The story, which is a satirical take on the absurdities of war, involves a simple mule driver who is determined to keep his companion — a mule named Valentina — after the end of the Spanish Civil War. The book follows the pair on their long odyssey back to their home.

Also new in paperback is “Letters to Sam: A Grandfather’s Lesson on Love, Loss and the Gifts of Life” by Daniel Gottlieb. The moving nonfiction book is about the letters Gottlieb wrote to his grandson, Sam, upon Sam’s birth. He wrote the letters because he was afraid he would not see Sam grow into adulthood, because Gottlieb is a quadriplegic. But the bond between the two grows only stronger when Sam is diagnosed with a form of autism.

Two new works of fiction are available this week from popular writers. Lisa Lutz follows up her success with “The Spellman Files” with “Curse of the Spellmans,” which again involves the antics of a dysfunctional family of detectives. This one centers on daughter Izzy and her suspicions that the next door neighbor is up to something sinister.

And Jeffrey Ford — an Edgar Award-winning author — is back with “The Shadow Year,” which is a Book Sense pick for April. In this new “literary mystery,” Ford sets a story in a 1960s-era suburb on Long Island. Told by an adult man looking back — that old unreliable narrator trick once again — the story centers on a young boy growing up with a father who always works and a mother who always drinks. The mystery involves someone who is kidnapping children in the quiet neighborhood. Now that doesn’t play into our collective suburban paranoia, does it?

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Alison Larkin had an interesting childhood. Born to Americans but adopted by British foster parents, she turned her unique perspective into a one-woman show. Now, in her debut novel, “The English American,” she gives her own background to Pippa — an adopted American who grew up in pleasant Sussex but decides later in life to investigate her American roots. But will she like what she finds?

Think Washington is wild? You should have checked out early 19th Century Vienna — which you can do in a new book by David King, “Vienna 1814.” The book details the 1814 Congress in Vienna, at which participants drew up the map of Europe following the defeat of Napoleon. And in “The Chimp Who Would Be Human,” author Elizabeth Hess provides a biography of Nim, a superstar of primate research gifted with amazing linguistic skills.

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The blame game for why we ended up fighting a long war in Iraq will be played for…well, probably the rest of our lives. In a book being released on Monday. “The Man Who Pushed America To War,” author Aram Roston — an investigative reporter who has worked for NBC, CNN and as a New York City detective — offers the suggestion that much of that blame can be laid at the feet of wealthy Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi. Those who pay attention to such things know a lot has been written about Chalabi, especially about how he influenced the Bush Administration in the build up to the war. But Roston takes it even further, offering new information about Chalabi’s connections with Iran and Islamic terrorists (among other things).

Also new in nonfiction is “Ask For It: How Women Can Use The Power of Negotiation To Get What They Really Want” by Hillary Clinton. No, just kidding! Clinton is not even at the negotiating stage, and may never reach it if she keeps winning. This book is actually by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever, two women who offer women a four-phase program that “walks women through the negotiating process.” Their theory is that women miss opportunites for negotiating all the time.

And, if your feeling more like a story, there’s “Pinkerton’s Secret” by Eric Lerner, in which he employs real historical facts from the eve of the American Civil War and incorporates them into a novel about the life of Allan Pinkerton. Pinkerton, you probably know, was the founder of the first detective agency in America.

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Does expertise in a certain field make you the best person to write about it? Yoou can find out for yourself with “Unknown Means,” the book released last month by Elizabeth Becka. Becka, a forensics specialist with the Coral Gables police department. The thriller is about wild game hunting in Africa, and how a lion terrorizes a group of rich, snobbish Americans on safari. Or it’s about a forensic expert trying to solve a murder of a wealthy socialite. One of those two. This follows Becka’s well received “Trace Evidence.”

Rhys Bowen is back with another Molly Murphy mystery, “Tell Me, Pretty Maiden.” As usual, we cannot get through a Bibliophile entry without at least one mention of a historical mystery, which are hot. And none is hotter than Bowen, the British-born California resident (another trend) who is now on the seventh novel in this award-winning series. This time, detective Murphy tracks down the attackers of a young woman she and her “beau” — Daniel Sullivan — find beaten and left for dead in Central Park.

If you want more a contemporary setting, thriller writer Dan Fesperman is back with “The Amateur Spy.” Fespersman offers upmarket thrills, with fine writing and often exotic settings. This time, the story centers on a retired aid worker living with his wife on an island in the Aegean Sea is recruited my mysterious people to spy on a former friend. Somehow, this will tie into a wealthy doctor who is planning a terrorist attack in Washington.

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Can’t get enough of the election season? Enjoy every nuance of strategy? Have you ever been diagnosed as clinically insane? Just kidding! There are worse kinds of junkies to be, so enjoy the political season. And here’s a book that you might find enticing. In “The Party Faithful: How and Why Democrats Are Closing The God Gap,” author Amy Sullivan — a Michigan-raised evangelical — writes about John Kerry lost religious voters in 2004 and how this year’s Democratic nominee (whoever that turns out to be) can get them back.

Also new in nonfiction is “The Koch Papers,” in which the former New York City mayor writes extensively about his fight against anti-semitism.

And what would a bibliophile entry be without a mention of a historical suspense novel? In ‘A Flaw In The Blood,” author Stephanie Barron offers a murder mystery set in the Victorian Age that begins with the death of the Queen’s consort, Prince Albert. The Queen asks Patrick Fitzgerald — an embittered Irishman and sometimes opponent of the queen — to investigate Albert’s death (from typhoid fever) and find out if there is more to it. This leads the Irish barrister down a path that involves the murder of an unknown woman and a conspiracy that involves the most powerful empire on Earth. Uh, at the time. Anyway, sounds like my sort of thing, but then my sort of thing might not be yours.

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You know, what I’ve really been missing is a book with “a Sapphic 16-year-old with a propensity towards pyromania.” Thank goodness, then, for Stephanie Grant, whose new novel, “Map of Ireland,” offers just that in protagonist Ann. Not helping matters for Ann, who is trying to get her head together about her own sexuality, is the fact that she is living in South Boston during the riots that took place during desegregation of the schools there in 1974. Some good buzz on this one, if you’re a contemporary lit fan.

For Julie Andrews fans: Richard Stirling, a British television and stage actor (in a country where that, by the way, is considered a great achievement), has released a new biography of Julie Andrews called, um, “Julie Andrews.” Stirling, who has known Andrews since 1986, offers insight based on their friendship, plus his research into 60 years of press clippings. My eyes are tired just thinking about it.

The other thing missing from my life is another book by a former member of the Nixon Administration explaining why he did the things he did. But this one, I’m happy to report, is different. This one is from L. Patrick Gray, the interim director of the FBI during the Watergate scandal. Although a lifelong Republican, Gray was viewed as an enemy by a paranoid President Nixon. His chief of staff once advised Nixon that Gray should be left to “slowly, slowly twist in the wind.” All these years later, Gray has told his side of the story in “In Nixon’s Web,” in which he breaks the silence about dealing with the Watergate scandal.

Finally, and perhaps depressingly, former Forbes and Financial Times editor Eamonn Fingleton offers his take on the future global economy with “In The Jaws of the Dragon: America’s Fate In The Coming Era of Chinese Hegemony.” How’s that for playing on your fears? Still, Fingleton is knowledgeable in the area of finance, and his book details what he sees as the challenges the Western World faces in dealing with a China that is still communist, but with an economy bolstered by limited capitalism.

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Circuit Judge Kip Gayden, who works in Nashville, apparently always had aspirations beyond his vocation. His debut novel came out last month to wide praise. Set in turn of the century American, it features a young couple who met at a church camp. They marry and end up living in Tennessee, but when she has a miscarriage, it sets the stage for a murder charge. The judge based the story on a true case, and reviewers say while the romantic parts are a bit flap, the court room drama (as one might expect) is well done.

Speaking on historical fiction, P.C. Doherty spins a tale that is set about as far back as it can go (unless it’s, ah, “10,000 BC”. In his latest, the British author takes us back to ancient Egypt. At treaty signing between Egypt and Libya, three scribes are poisoned. Now the case must be investigated by Amerotke — Chief Judge of the Halls of Two Truths. A mystery for those tired of having mysteries set in a world which they understand.

And, also in fiction, Julia Cameron has released Mozart’s Ghost. It’s her first novel since The Artist’s Way (from 10 years ago). It’s an unconventional romance in which a young New York woman falls for the reserved pianist who lives in the apartment below her. But the woman — who also works as a medium — finds herself having to deal with a the ghost of Mozart, who wants to play matchmaker. Charming!

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