Penguin Press, $28.95. Airliners crash not only into the twin towers but into a shaggy-dog tale involving a fraud investigator and a white-­collar outlaw in this vital, audacious novel. COMMAND AND CONTROL: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety, by Eric Schlosser. Penguin Press, $36. A disquieting but riveting examination of nuclear risk. NINE INCHES: Stories, by Tom Perrotta. In moments of turmoil and rupture in the suburbs, Perrotta plumbs the sweetness and violence of ordinary life. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27. An activist lawyer attempts to clear the reputation of his brother, a former New York mayor, in an energetic novel about the temptations of power in the midcentury city. MEN WE REAPED: A Memoir, by Jesmyn Ward. Bloomsbury, $26. A raw, beautiful elegy for Ward's brother and four male friends, who died young in Mississippi between 2000 and 2004. HAPPINESS, LIKE WATER: Stories, by Chinelo Okparanta. Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, paper, $14.95. A first collection of quiet yet powerful stories, set in Nigeria and the United States. Illustrated by James Proimos. Scholastic, $17.99; ages 4 and up. What life is like when a girl's father goes away to war, and when he returns. Greenwillow/HarperCollins, $16.99; ages 7 to 10. A delightfully vivid story of family love. STANDING IN FOR LINCOLN GREEN, written and illustrated by David Mackintosh. Abrams, $16.95; ages 4 to 8. He'd rather play than do chores.