New releases for week of Dec. 30

  Don't look now! There's a ton of self-help books making their way to stores — a little aid for your New Year's resolutions no doubt. For those wanting to distract themselves from reality instead of changing it, there are a couple of popular authors with new books being released.
  W.E.B. Griffin returns with the fifth installment of his "Presidential Agent Series." In “Black Ops," Delta Force Lt. Col. Charley Castillo is both infuriated and fascinated after receiving back-channel messages regarding covert U.S. intelligence agents all over the world being found dying or dead. Castillo figures it’s only a matter of time before he and his Office of Organizational Analysis are put on the case.
  Presidential Agent Castillo has made many enemies, both overseas and on U.S. soil. As he deals with the fallout from recent missions involving South American drug runners and the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, he receives another back-channel message, this one from a Russian arms dealer who alludes to something big coming out of the Kremlin, perhaps big enough to start another Cold War.
  Author Julie Garwood returns to romantic suspense with her latest, "Fire and Ice."
  Garwood's fans will recognize the heroine of "Fire," Sophie Rose from the popular novel "Murder List."
  Sophie, a newspaper reporter and daughter of a wanted thief, quits her job after her editors push her to write a story about her father. After quitting, she gets a job at a small newspaper and goes from covering the crime beat to doing community personality profiles.
  But after a quirky runner turns up dead with Sophie's business card tucked in his trademark red socks, the reporter finds herself on the way to Alaska on the trail of a big story, one that puts her in great danger in the middle of this perilous terrain.
    Also hitting shelves: “Best Life Diet Cookbook: More than 100 Delicious, Convenient, Family-Friendly Recipes” by Bob Greene; “The Big Idea: How to Make Your Entrepreneurial Dreams Come True, from the Aha Moment to Your First Million” by Donny Deutsch; “Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes” by Mark Bittman; “I Can Make You Thin: The Revolutionary System Used by More Than 3 Million People” by Paul McKenna; “Running Hot” by Jayne Ann Krentz; and “The UltraMind Solution: Fix Your Broken Brain by Healing Your Body First” by M.D. Mark Hyman.