10 books you should read in August, including Michael Mann’s Heat 2 and T.J. English’s Dangerous Rhythms

Also check out Scenes From My Life, a moving memoir from late actor Michael K. Williams

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10 books you should read in August, including Michael Mann’s Heat 2 and T.J. English’s Dangerous Rhythms
Clockwise from bottom left: Complicit (Image: Simon & Schuster), Witches (Image: Catapult), Didn’t Nobody Give A Shit What Happened To Carlotta (Image: Brown), Dangerous Rhythms: Jazz And The Underworld (Image: William Morrow), A Career in Books: A Novel About Friends, Money, and the Occasional Duck Bun (Image: Plume) Graphic: Libby McGuire

Every month, a deluge of new books comes flooding out from big publishers, indie houses, and self-publishing platforms. To help you navigate the wave of titles arriving in August, The A.V. Club has narrowed down the options to 10 of the books we’re most excited about, including an exploration of the ways jazz and the mob intertwined, an on-page follow-up to the on-screen classic Heat, a biography of Man Ray’s muse, and a memoir from the late Michael K. Williams.

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Heat 2
Image William Morrow

Michael Mann and Meg Gardiner (August 9, William Morrow) Nearly three decades after his 1995 instant-classic L.A. crime thriller hit theaters, writer-director is back with a prequel/sequel in novel form. Co-written with Meg Gardiner, takes us to 1988 Chicago, where methodical crook Neil McCauley and obsessive cop Vincent Hanna—opposing forces perhaps more alike than not—nearly cross paths years before their fateful L.A. encounter, as a sociopathic killer slips past Hanna and into McCauley’s blind spot. Fast-forward past L.A. and cut to South America: Chris Shirhelis, McCauley’s surviving crewman, is rebuilding his life and a new operation, unaware he’s on a collision course with old enemies. Told in a style as propulsive and cinematic as the film, Heat 2 is an exciting and engrossing tale that leaves the door open to a third installment.

6 Comments

  • teageegeepea-av says:

    Real-life Black teen Carrie Johnson, who killed an armed white cop
    entering her home during the capital’s 1919 riots (charges against her
    were ultimately dropped)

    That fits with William Stuntz’ claim about how pro-defendant the criminal justice system was in Gilded Age northern cities (although 1919 is past the Gilded Age and DC isn’t quite the north).

  • charliemeadows69420-av says:

    TJ English is the best true crime writer about the Mafia.   Havana Nocturne is a great book.   

  • naturalstatereb-av says:

    Not exactly what I’d call an exciting literary month.

  • koopatroopastupidkinja-av says:

    New Anthony Marra novel, Memory Pictures Presents, is out Aug. 2. His story collection and previous novel were amazing, so can’t wait for this.

  • djclawson-av says:

    What? Nothing about the bi-romantic asexual Obi-Wan book?!?

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