Discover Finder and his latest series

Joseph Finder’s one of the leading voices when it comes to books filled with crackerjack intelligence dudes and espionage aplenty (and lots of Washington intrigue, which we Northern Virginians are familiar with), and he’s started a new series starring Nick Heller, former Special Forces operative and ace investigator. In Finder’s latest, “Vanished,” Finder’s brother has, well, vanished in Georgetown and he teams with his nephew, comes to grips with his corrupt dad and takes on a nefarious corporation. You gotta love nefarious corporations. Finder is coming to town to sign copies of the book at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Baileys Crossroads Borders.

Those who are interested in breaking down fiction, or even just writing some, may want to stop by Politics and Prose downtown at 7 p.m. Wednesday, when James Wood will be chatting about his collection of essays, “How Fiction Works.” The store also hosts local author Eugenia Kim at 7 p.m. Tuesday when she’ll be there promoting her debut novel “The Calligrapher’s Daughter,” about her mother’s struggles in Japanese-occupied Korea.

There’s been all these shakeups in Gotham City lately, with a new Batman and Robin and the town going to heck with Arkham’s finest running amok, so why not add a new Batgirl to the mix? She makes her debut this week in her own monthly title, and the Man of Steel’s got one heck of a problem in the form of Black Lantern Superman when the ring-bearing corpse shows up in Smallville in “Blackest Night: Superman.” Daredevil celebrates his 500th issue by continuing his arc with Kingpin and Lady Bullseye, “Punisher Noir” (written by the fantastic Frank Tieri) looks great with the gun-toting vigilante targeting Dutch Schultz, and the first two books from the Vertigo Crime line debut: Ian Rankin’s “Dark Entries” (starring John Constantine) and Brian Azzarello’s “Filthy Rich.”

“The Time-Traveler’s Wife” debuted in theaters on Friday, so if you’ve seen it, what’s better: the movie or the book? Let me know in the comments.

Tags: book signing, books, comics