Stephen King: My Summer Reading List

JULY
The Sentry
Robert Crais
Joe Pike (you'll find his picture next to ''strong silent type'' in the dictionary) intervenes when two bad boys beat up the proprietor of a sandwich shop. Sounds simple, but what results is a complex, propulsive tale. Crais is as good as anyone working the L.A. crime beat these days.

The Silent Land
Graham Joyce
Jake and Zoe Bennett are on a skiing holiday when they're caught in an avalanche. They escape the snow only to discover that everyone in the world seems to have disappeared. Scary Twilight Zone stuff, but also a sensitive exploration of love's redemptive power.

The Cypress House
Michael Koryta
Gangsters, a silent but heroic drifter with second sight, and a whopper of a Florida hurricane. How can you go wrong?

Dog on It
Spencer Quinn
A detective novel narrated by a dog? Yeah, it's cute, but not too. There's a real mystery here, and great suspense as well. This dog's-eye view of the gumshoe bit is entertaining, and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny.

AUGUST
The Accident
Linwood Barclay
I haven't read it, but after ripping through two previous Barclay novels, I can't wait. (It hits stores Aug. 9.) Listen, anyone who can make a car salesman the hero of a suspense novel (Fear the Worst) gets my vote.

Case Histories
Kate Atkinson
There's a new Atkinson out now (Started Early, Took My Dog), but I think you should begin with the first of her four novels about reluctant (and charming) private eye Jackson Brodie. Histories is about two murders and the disappearance of a little girl. These events can't possibly be related...only they are. Kate Atkinson is a faultless plotter and a brilliant stylist. A gift from God to your summer vacation, in other words.

A Test of Wills
Charles Todd
If you like English mysteries with sentences like ''He found the vicar pottering about in his garden,'' you're going to love Todd. This is the Scotland Yard inspector Ian Rutledge's debut appearance, but be warned: He's far from the usual dauntless hero. Beset by memories of the World War I trenches and tottering on the edge of mental collapse, Rutledge stars in a decidedly uncozy series of British mysteries.

The Terror of Living
Urban Waite
Phil Hunt is a decent guy who supplements his living by muling hard drugs in the Pacific Northwest. Bobby Drake is the deputy sheriff who's trying to hunt him down. The resulting chase is pure dynamite. This is one of those books you start at one in the afternoon and put down, winded, after midnight.

That's my list. Now all you have to do is make sure your hammock's in good working order.