Rollo Hemphill has a history with a life-sized rubber doll he dressed up to look like glamorous Hollywood star Monica LaMonica. For a time, the dolls worldwide travels provided convenient cover and sensational press for her living counterpart. But now, rubber-Monica has disappeared from crusty Hugo Farnsworths yacht in St. Tropez. Like it or (mostly) not, Rollo gets drafted as an unofficial government operative to deal with the kidnappers. The doll has become a pawn in an international game centered on an eccentric Turk who collects lookalikes - but who may have also collected state secrets,...

Christmas Karma is author Gerald Everett Jones's homage to Anne Tyler, whom he regards as his literary mother. It's about the travails of a dysfunctional family around the holidays, narrated by an angel who has a wicked sense of humor. Main character Willa Nawicki is bewildered by a series of curious karmic events that literally ring her doorbell during the frantic season, awakening years-old resentments and stimulating ever-more-intense personal confrontations. These bizarre visitations include a grizzled old man claiming to be her father, who has been missing for some thirty years...

In 1892 Paris, Julius Stewart painted The Baptism, a Vanderbilt family scene that contains an embarrassing secret. In the present day, art historian Grace Atwood becomes obsessed with the painting and its hidden clues for reasons that have more to do with her personal ghosts. Either her doting husband is trying to make her think she's crazy, or she really is in the early stages of dementia.

In 1945, Milton Reynolds introduced the ballpoint to the United States and triggered the biggest single-day shopping riot in history at Gimbels in Manhattan. The Reynolds International Pen Company made $5 million in eight weeks during the first non-wartime Christmas season. Thereafter, increasing competition from established companies such as Eversharp triggered several years of the "Pen Wars." An exuberant entrepreneur who had already made and lost several fortunes, Reynolds bragged that he "stole it fair and square." This novel is told from his mild-mannered son Jim's point of view, about...