Contemporary Fiction 2016

Lou Aguilar: Jake for Mayor. Ken Miller is having a bad run of luck. After torpedoing his career as a campaign manager, he drives through tiny Erie, Colorado, when a homeless beagle named Jake causes a series of mishaps that lands him in jail. Ken is granted bail on two conditions: that he not leave town before his trial in three weeks and—much to his chagrin—that he not let Jake out of his sight until then. Stuck in Erie as it prepares for a mayoral election, he’s drawn into the local politics by a waitress who vehemently opposes incumbent Charles Dunbar, the only candidate on the ticket. Unable to resist political adventure, Ken gets a brainstorm. If he can exploit the dog’s popularity among the townspeople and get them to elect Jake as a protest candidate, the publicity will put him back on top. But things don’t go exactly as planned. Ken warms to the dog, falls for the waitress, and employs her teenage son and his gang as campaign aides in a madcap battle with Mayor Dunbar … who has no intention of losing to a dog.

Philip R Ackman: Man in a Spider Web Coat. When the United Nations adopts a historic vote spelling the end of colonialism, Professor Titus Buchanan seizes the opportunity to test his theory of revolution. His laboratory will be the Splendid Islands, a collection of palm-fringed cays scattered across three quarters of a million square miles of the South Pacific. Its inhabitants will be his lab rats. But complications arise. The Splendids belong to New Zealand, which has no intention of giving them up. The United States has a secret “space age” agenda for the islands. The Queen of England supports New Zealand, but she doesn’t want Britain to fall out with the Americans, who favor independence. Meanwhile, the islanders have their own ideas about self-rule and this unlikely crew sets out to match wits with powerful opponents.