Lost Legion

By Sean E. Thomas (Whiskey Creek Press, $17.95)

The blurb: Part of the author's Robert Sable series, the Tlingit Alaska State Trooper is pulled from his honeymoon to investigate the murders of the governor's brother and the brother's friend. Along the way, Sable discovers a myth about Roman soldiers settling in Alaska 2,000 years ago to be true, and their descendants are plotting to take over Washington, D.C.

Excerpt: "Thud. Thud. Thud. The door shook.

"Something, someone pulled him from the darkness.

" 'Robert! Robert!' Sue Lake shook her husband hard. 'There's someone at the door!'

" 'Huh?' Sable's eyes popped open and swept the sleep from his eyes. Staring straight ahead, he saw the clock's flashing red numbers. His head throbbed and he felt as if he'd drunk the sands of the Mojave.

" 'Robert, go see who's there!' Sue said. 'It's two-thirty in the morning. If this is your Tlingit family playing a joke on our honeymoon..."

The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin

By Joe McGinniss (Crown Publishers, $25)

The blurb: Best-selling author and reporter Joe McGinniss offers a narrative on the former governor's rise to political prominence and worldwide celebrity.

Excerpt: "Sarah's older brother, Chuckie Heath, who lives in Anchorage, tells The Daily Caller that because I am living next door, Sarah fears for the safety of her children. I make a cup of coffee and take it onto the deck to greet yet another brilliant spring day. By midafternoon, the temperature might even hit seventy. I realize I need to buy sunblock.

"The new fence is up, and I'm grateful for it. I feel not quite so exposed to prying eyes. Chuckie says my deck 'looks right down into her kitchen and into the bedrooms and the upstairs, too.' He's wrong on all three counts. Even before the new fence went up, no one sitting on my deck -- or sitting anywhere inside my house -- could see into any of the rooms next door.

"How did my living next door get to be about the safety of Sarah's children? And why do the mainstream media, which treat every other utterance out of Sarah's mouth as preposterous, deceitful, or meretricious, now accept her allegations about me as factual."