Lovers of fiction will want to be sure to check out these 10 novels, which include some of the most interesting titles of early 2012.  - Monitor Staff

1. "The Street Sweeper," by Elliot Perlman

A paroled felon working as a street sweeper at a large city hospital meets a Holocaust survivor who tells him the story of his ordeal in a Nazi death camp, even as a struggling professor discovers evidence that black American soldiers helped to liberate a concentration camp. It may sound complicated, but Elliot Perlman ("Seven Types of Ambiguity") manages to weave these threads into a satisfying whole. (January)

2. "Running the Rift," by Naomi Benaron

Would-be Olympic runner Jean Patrick Nkuba is a talented young man — but he's a Tutsi living in Hutu-governed Rwanda. This debut novel set against the backdrop of Rwanda’s ethnic conflict is a powerful coming-of-age story that highlights the best and the worst of human nature. (January)

3. "The Flight of Gemma Hardy," by Margot Livesey

Attention Jane Eyre fans: Margot Livesey's captivating update of Charlotte Brontë's classic takes readers from the Orkney Islands to Iceland and deep into a young woman's difficult romance with a modern-day Mr. Rochester. (January)

4. "Agent 6," by Tom Robb Smith

Readers of "Child 44" (2008) and "The Secret Speech" (2009) have been eagerly awaiting this third volume of Tom Robb Smith's trilogy of Soviet-era thrillers. The stor'’s final chapters follow former KGB agent Leo Demidov from Moscow to mid-20th-century Manhattan. (January)

5. "Ragnarok: The End of the Gods," by A.S. Byatt

Booker Prize-winner A.S. Byatt combines Nordic myth and Hitler's bombing of Britain in this novel about a little girl who, during the Blitz, finds comfort in a tale of ancient gods. (February)

6. "A Walk Across the Sun," by Corban Addison

In India, a pair of sisters are swept up in a human-trafficking scheme, little knowing that their lives will soon collide with those of a Washington, D.C., attorney and his Indian wife in this ambitious, compassionate debut novel. (January)

7. "American Dervish," by Ayad Akhtar

Immigrant story meets a coming-of-age tale in this debut novel by Pakistani-American writer Ayad Akhtar. (January)

8. "Five Bells" by Gail Jones

With a plot that sounds a bit like "Mrs. Dalloway Down Under," Australian novelist Gail Jones follows four diverse characters through the course of a single day in Sydney, Australia. (February)

9. "Watergate," by Thomas Mallon

This fictionalized version of the events surrounding the 1972 Watergate break-in proves that truth is at least as interesting as fiction, if sometimes even more incredible. (February)

10. "The Invisible Ones," by Stef Penney

This detective story by accomplished novelist Stef Penney ("The Tenderness of Wolves") takes readers into the world of the Gypsies or "traveling people," offering appealing atmospherics and a white-knuckled thriller all under the same cover. (February)