NEW ORLEANS HURRICANES FROM THE START By David E. Bastian and Nicholas J. Meis, Pelican, $22.95

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Hundreds of books have been written about hurricanes, dozens, at least on Katrina alone. Others engraved in our memories are Betsy, Camille and Andrew as well as a long list of other storms in this definitive chronicle tracing storms from 1822 to the present. They include the mysterious collapse of Hurricane Lili just in time to save New Iberia, Franklin and Morgan City.  Former U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Bastian and Meis, not only meticulously researched past hurricanes but offer predictions for future storms.

The SILKWORM By Robert Galbraith, Mulholland Books/Little, Brown, $28

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Everyone by now knows Galbraith is the pseudonym of J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series. In this follow-up to her debut Galbraith novel, her hard-boiled detective Cormoran Strike, despite having lost half a leg in Afghanistan, is more than a match for an elusive and monstrous killer. His client is the wife of a notoriously obnoxious writer whose latest novel flagrantly maligns many of his contemporaries, making them obvious suspects – but it’s the writer’s wife police believe is the killer. Galbraith and his neophyte investigator/secretary must work fast to save their client.