Thieves of Book Row

New York’s Most Notorious Rare Book Ring and the Man Who Stopped It

by Travis McDade (Oxford)

Jan. 10, 1931, was a perfect day for a book heist. It was free of slippery ice but cold enough for a coat to hide three priceless first editions — “Moby Dick,” “The Scarlet Letter,” and Edgar Allan Poe’s early poems — while sprinting out of the New York Public Library, explains curator and writer McDade in his true-crime thriller. From the cutthroat second-hand booksellers on Fourth Avenue’s Book Row to the shantytown-filled Central Park teeming with desperate jobless men, here is a riveting story of Depression-era book theft, double-dealing and a determined librarian-turned-investigator who got the books back. You’ll want to walk out of the library with this one.

Dear Girls Above Me

Inspired by a True Story

by Charlie McDowell (Three Rivers Press)

Impatient for the next season of “Girls”? Comedy writer McDowell’s first novel covers similar ground — though in Los Angeles — as his fictional alter-ego eavesdrops on the life of two very loud 20-something young ladies (the same semi-fictional girls chronicled on his Twitter feed of the same name as the novel) as they talk about everything from Suri Cruise’s clothing to how to get out of a date (faux death-in-the-family call). McDowell even earned a blurb from Lena Dunham, who calls his book “pretty freaking funny.”

Taipei

by Tao Lin (Vintage)

In the newest novel from Lin, the Internet gets a starring, or at least supporting, role. When a girl is described at a party as “really hot,” protagonist Paul marvels “her blog gets a lot of hits,” giving it equal importance. Paul, a young Brooklyn hipster writer, goes to gallery and book parties. They name-drop bands like Rilo Kiley and read Gawker. And take the L train. They contemplate life. Paul goes on a book tour, has a quickie Vegas wedding and visits Taipei, Taiwan, where he confronts his roots.

Into the Abyss

An Extraordinary True Story

by Carol Shaben (Grand Central Publishing)

A 1984 commuter-plane crash in remote northern Alberta, Canada, killed six of the 10 onboard. The four survivors — a disparate group forced to rely on each other to stay alive — were the 24-year-old pilot, a rookie cop and the drifter he was bringing in to face charges, and a prominent politician. The author’s father, Larry Shaben, is the politician, and she vividly recreates how these four total strangers managed to survive the tragedy.

The Woman He Loved Before

by Dorothy Koomson (Grand Central Publishing)

Popular British writer Koomson offers a modernized interpretation of “Rebecca” in her eighth novel. Stubborn Libby, a biochemist cum beauty aesthetician, falls for Jack, the attractive but arrogant man of her dreams. But there are ghosts — namely, his first wife, Eve, who died under mysterious circumstances. When Libby almost follows suit in a near-fatal car accident, she must unearth past secrets and figure out if Jack is really the man she thought he was.