WHAT'S NEW ARCHIVE

February 24, 2009

New Books - New on the Shelf

Defusing Armageddon - Jeffrey Richelson
Created in 1974 and comprising skilled scientists and engineers, the Nuclear Emergency Support Team (NEST) deals with threats of nuclear terrorism, tracks down lost or stolen nuclear material and provides technical assistance in disposing of it. In fact, according to Richelson, most threats are hoaxes or extortion schemes, and no genuine nuclear terrorist plot has come near to succeeding. Despite the lack of cliffhangers, Richelson tells plenty of gripping stories of H-bombs dropping out of planes, reactors misbehaving and a nuclear-powered Russian satellite crashing to earth. A National Security Archive senior fellow, Richelson (Spying on the Bomb) devotes most of the book to a meticulous history of NEST's makeup, training, the persistent squabbling over who controls it (currently the Department of Energy), and many important if undramatic missions such as helping ex-Soviet nations secure their nuclear stockpiles. The book makes a convincing and troubling case that much of the world's nuclear material remains in the hands of institutions and governments incompetent to protect it—a situation that promises to keep NEST busy. 16 pages of illus., 4 maps. – Publishers’ Weekly

Forced Out - Stephen Frey
Known for his financial thrillers, Frey (The Takeover) mixes baseball and crime in his less than compelling 15th novel. Arthritic, 63-year-old Jack Barrett, who lives with his grown daughter in Sarasota, Fla., where he bags groceries at a convenience store, wonders how he got sacked from his job as a respected scout for the New York Yankees and robbed of his pension. While watching a local minor league baseball game, Jack sees a player who just might be his ticket back to The Show: Mikey Clemants, a gifted centerfielder who displays his talents intermittently and doesn't seek or earn the approval of the fans or his teammates. Add to the mix Johnny Deuce Bondano, a Queens hit man hired to murder the guy who killed a Mafioso's grandson. Readers will enjoy unraveling the mysterious back stories of Barrett and Clemants, but a plethora of subplots and minor characters slow the main action.

Bulls Island - Dorothea Benton Frank
Will romance triumph over the feud between the aristocratic Langleys and the slightly lower-in-social-pecking-order McGees in Frank's latest Southern charm–filled romp? Though the answer is obvious from the get-go, the author fills this spirited tale with well-drawn characters, not the least of whom is formidable Charleston doyenne Louisa Langley. Betts McGee and J.D. Langley are uneasily headed to the altar—Louisa has a hard time with her son dating down. When Betts's mother dies in a car wreck, a generations-old grudge—abetted by Louisa—flares up, and Betts flees to Manhattan. There, she raises her son (J.D. didn't know she was pregnant when she left) solo and thrives in the distressed property turn-around business for a good 20 years until an assignment sends her back to Charleston to help develop a former wildlife refuge. The local partner in the venture is none other than J.D., who is now unhappily married and childless. Frank steers through several terrains with great aplomb as the story unfolds from both Betts's and J.D.'s points of view. Frank shines as Betts finds out if there's really no place like home. – Publishers Weekly

The Legend of Colton H. Bryant - Alexandra Fuller
Alexandra Fuller, in her inimitable poetic voice and with her pitch-perfect ear for dialogue— brings before us the life of someone much closer to home, as unexpected as he is iconic. The moving, tough, and in many ways quintessentially American story of Colton H. Bryant’s life could not be told without also telling the story of the land that grew him—the beautiful and somehow tragic Wyoming; the land where there are still such things as cowboys roaming the plains, where it’s relationships that get you through, and where a just, soulful, passionate man named Colton H. Bryant lived and died.

The Devil's Bones - Jefferson Bass
The lack of a strong central plot undercuts the third forensic thriller by bestseller Bass, the team of Dr. Bill Bass, founder of Tennessee's world-renowned Body Farm, and journalist Jon Jefferson (after 2007's Flesh and Bone). Two cases occupy Dr. Bass's fictional alter ego, Dr. Bill Brockton—the death of Mary Latham, a 47-year-old Knoxville native, whose charred remains were found in a burned-out car, and a disreputable Georgia crematorium that simply dumped bodies on its grounds. These probes soon take a backseat to a cat-and-mouse game with the doctor's arch nemesis, Garland Hamilton, who tried to frame him for murder in Flesh and Bone. When Hamilton escapes from incarceration before going to trial, Brockton must keep looking over his shoulder. While a smattering of Bass's trademark authentic forensic detail lifts this main narrative thread, a more focused look at a single case might have made the novel a better read. –Publishers Weekly

Devil Bones - Kathy Reichs
Dr. Temperance Brennan's quest to identify two corpses pits her against citizen vigilantes intent on a witch-hunt in bestseller Reichs's exciting 11th thriller to feature the forensic anthropologist (after 2007's Bones to Ashes). While working in Charlotte, N.C., Brennan investigates remains unearthed during a housing renovation and discovers disturbing clues possibly pointing to voodoo or Santeria. She must determine if the bones, including the skull of a teenage girl, are linked to an unidentified headless torso found in a nearby lake. Intent on using the deaths as the cornerstone of his crusade against immorality, fundamentalist preacher turned politician Boyce Lingo claims that the bodies bear the mark of devil worshippers. With the help of Det. Erskine Skinny Slidell, Brennan unearths a tangled web of dirty politics, religious persecution and male prostitution. Reichs, whose work inspired the hit TV series Bones, once again expertly blends science and complex character development. – Publishers Weekly

Heat Lightning - John Sandford
At the start of bestseller Sandford's solid second thriller to feature officer Virgil Flowers of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (after Dark of the Moon), a gunman shoots Bobby Sanderson as he's walking his dog one night in Stillwater, Minn., then places a lemon in the dead man's mouth. Sanderson's killing is one in a series, and Flowers soon discovers that all the victims served together in Vietnam. When Flowers learns that Vietnamese firing squads stuck lemons in the mouths of their human targets, he pursues leads in the local immigrant community, where he hooks up with the attractive daughter of a radical professor who'd written a paper about Agent Orange. Eventually, he settles on the owner of a security company involved with the upcoming Republican National Convention as his prime suspect. While the less than credible plot builds to a highly unlikely resolution, most readers will enjoy spending time in the company of the genial Flowers. –Publishers Weekly

Sinner:  A Paradise Novel - Ted Dekker
Sinner is the story of Marsuvees Black, a force of raw evil who speaks with wicked persuasion that is far more destructive than swords or guns.  Beware all who stand in his way. It's also the story of Billy Rediger and Darcy Lange, two unsuspecting survivors of a research project gone bad, who discover that they are perhaps the two most powerful souls in the land.  Listen to them or pay a terrible price.And it's the story of Johnny Drake, the one who comes out of the desert and leads the 3,000.  Follow him and die.Sinner tells the story of a free land where people who worship as they please and say what they believe are suddenly silenced in the name of tolerance.

Just After Sunset - Stephen King
 In the introduction to his first collection of short fiction since Everything's Eventual (2002), King credits editing Best American Short Stories (2007) with reigniting his interest in the short form and inducing some of this volume's contents. Most of these 13 tales show him at the top of his game, molding the themes and set pieces of horror and suspense fiction into richly nuanced blends of fantasy and psychological realism. The Things They Left Behind, a powerful study of survivor guilt, is one of several supernatural disaster stories that evoke the horrors of 9/11. Like the crime thrillers The Gingerbread Girl and A Very Tight Place, both of which feature protagonists struggling with apparently insuperable threats to life, it is laced with moving ruminations on mortality that King attributes to his own well-publicized near-death experience. Even the smattering of genre-oriented works shows King trying out provocative new vehicles for his trademark thrills, notably N., a creepy character study of an obsessive-compulsive that subtly blossoms into a tale of cosmic terror in the tradition of Arthur Machen and H.P. Lovecraft. Culled almost entirely from leading mainstream periodicals, these stories are a testament to the literary merits of the well-told macabre tale. –Publishers Weekly

Cross Country - James Patterson
Bestseller Patterson's 14th Alex Cross thriller doesn't follow up on the plot threads left dangling in 2007's Double Cross concerning still-on-the-loose serial killer Kyle Craig. Instead, Cross, a Washington, D.C., police detective, takes on a very different quarry—a human monster known as the Tiger with ties to the African underworld. When the Tiger and his teenage thugs butcher writer Ellie Cox, her husband and children in their Georgetown home, Cross is devastated because Ellie had been his girlfriend in college. The Cox family massacre proves to be just the first in a series. Cross pursues the Tiger to Nigeria, where the profiler finds himself at the mercy of corrupt government officials who may be working with the Tiger. Spending less time than usual exploring his villain’s psychological back story, Patterson delivers an atypical tale of James Bond–style revenge. Craig's brief cameo toward the end suggests the series will resume its usual path in the next book. – Publishers Weekly

Fidelity - Thomas Perry
"Irresistible . . . Silence entertains until the very last page."—New York Daily News "Perry is the grand poobah of the running-away narrative . . . and he’s at the top of his cat-and-mouse game in Silence."—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review   

February 17, 2009

DVDs – New on the Shelf

Doctor Doolittle - Rex Harrison, Samantha Eggar, Anthony Newley, and Richard Attenborough (DVD)
Get ready for the wildest adventure of a lifetime in the most ambitious musical production ever brought to film. Earning a 1967 Academy Award nomination for Best Picture, this dazzling fantasy turns both ordinary and exotic animals into talking, dancing and singing sensations! Rex Harrison is unforgettable in this inspiring adaptation of Hugh Lofting's classic stories. Step into the English country home of the good doctor as he performs remarkable treatments on the wildest variety of patients you could imagine. Discover his secret cures and watch with wide-eyed excitement as he and his four-legged, fine-feathered friends charm their way into your heart!

The Children's Hour - Audrey Hepburn, Shirley MacLaine, James Garner, and Miriam Hopkins (DVD)
A child's lie has life-shattering consequences in this Oscar®-nominated* daring adaptation of Lillian Hellman's celebrated play from legendary director William Wyler. Starring Academy Award® winners** Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine and co-starring James Garner, Miriam Hopkins and Fay Bainter, this landmark film is "one of the most finely wrought dramas in the history of the screen" (Motion Picture Herald). Karen (Hepburn) and Martha (MacLaine) are the headmistresses of an exclusive school for girls. When they discipline a malicious little girl, the vindictive child twists an overheard comment into slander and accuses her teachers of questionable behavior. Soon the scandalous gossip engulfs the school's community, with repercussions that are swift, crushing and tragic.

Roots (the full series) - LeVar Burton (DVD)
The series that captivated a nation and made television history is brought to you in a complete box set that includes everything about Alex Haley's incredible family saga. The Complete Collection includes Roots which begins with Kunte Kinte's humble beginnings in Africa and continues in Roots: The Next Generations closing with Alex Haley's own life in the 1970's as he embarks on his research to unveil his roots. The Complete Collection also includes the Christmas movie Roots: The Gift as well as specially created special features to celebrate the legacy of Roots 30 years later.

Good Will Hunting - Robin Williams, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Stellan Skarsgård (DVD)
A true motion picture phenomenon, this triumphant story was nominated for 9 Academy Awards(R) -- winning Oscars for Robin Williams (Best Supporting Actor) and hot newcomers Matt Damon and Ben Affleck (Best Original Screenplay). The most brilliant mind at America's top university isn't a student ... he's the kid who cleans the floors! Will Hunting (Damon) is a headstrong, working-class genius who's failing the lessons of life. After one too many run-ins with the law, Will's last chance is a psychology professor (Williams), who might be the only man who can reach him! With acclaimed performances from Academy Award(R)-nominee Minnie Driver (GROSSE POINTE BLANK) and Ben Affleck (ARMAGEDDON) -- you'll find GOOD WILL HUNTING a powerful and unforgettable movie experience!

Witness for the Prosecution - Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton, and Elsa Lanchester (DVD)
Tyrone Power, Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton star in this brilliantly made courtroom drama (The Film Daily) that left audiences reeling from its surprise twists and shocking climax. Directed by Billy Wilder, scripted by Wilder and Harry Kurnitz and based on Agatha Christie's hit London play, this splendid, six-time Oscar-nominated* classic crackles with emotional electricity (The New York Times) and continues to keep movie lovers riveted until the final, mesmerizing frame. When a wealthy widow is found murdered, her married suitor, Leonard Vole (Power), is accused of the crime. Vole's only hope for acquittal is the testimony of his wife (Dietrich) but his air tight alibi shatters when she reveals some shocking secrets of her own.

A Passage to India - Judy Davis, Victor Banerjee, Peggy Ashcroft, and James Fox (DVD)
This adaptation of E.M. Forster's mysterious tale of British racism in colonial India turned out to be master director David Lean's final film. Subtle and grand at the same time, Lean's adaptation is faithful to the book, rendering its blend of the mystical and the all-too human with exquisite precision. Judy Davis plays a young British woman traveling in India with her fiancé's mother. While visiting a tourist attraction, she has a frightening moment in a cave--one that she eventually spins from an instant of mental meltdown into a tale of a physical attack that ruins several lives. Lean captures Forster's sense of awe at the kind of ageless wisdom and inexplicable phenomena to be encountered in India, as well as the British tendency to dismiss it all as savage, rather than simply different. --Marshall Fine

The Dark Knight - Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Aaron Eckhart (DVD)
The Dark Knight arrives with tremendous hype (best superhero movie ever? posthumous Oscar for Heath Ledger?), and incredibly, it lives up to all of it. But calling it the best superhero movie ever seems like faint praise, since part of what makes the movie great--in addition to pitch-perfect casting, outstanding writing, and a compelling vision--is that it bypasses the normal fantasy element of the superhero genre and makes it all terrifyingly real. Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) is Gotham City's new district attorney, charged with cleaning up the crime rings that have paralyzed the city. He enters an uneasy alliance with the young police lieutenant, Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman), and Batman (Christian Bale), the caped vigilante who seems to trust only Gordon--and whom only Gordon seems to trust. They make progress until a psychotic and deadly new player enters the game: the Joker (Heath Ledger), who offers the crime bosses a solution--kill the Batman. Further complicating matters is that Dent is now dating Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal, after Katie Holmes turned down the chance to reprise her role), the longtime love of Batman's alter ego, Bruce Wayne.

The Sand Pebbles - Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough, Richard Crenna, and Candice Bergen (DVD)
"The Sand Pebbles" tells many stories. It's the story of China, a slumbering giant that rouses itself to the cries of its people - and of the Americans who are caught in its blood awakening. It's the story of Frenchy (Richard Attenborough), a crewman on the U.S.S. San Pablo who kidnaps his Chinese bride from the auction block. It's the story of Shirley (Candice Bergen), a teacher and her first unforgettable taste of love. It's the story of Captain Collins (Richard Crenna), ready to defy anyone for his country's defense. Most of all, it's the story of Jake Holman (Steve McQueen), a sailor who has given up trying to make peace with anything - including himself. McQueen gives what is probably the best performance of his career. It's not surprising that he, Mako and the movie were up for Oscars. Portraying a character with conflicting loyalties to friend and flag, McQueen expertly conveys the confusion that leads into his final line: "What the hell happened?" It's to his credit that we already know.

February 10, 2009

Foreign Films – New on the Shelf

Cries and Whispers - Harriet Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Kari Sylwan, and Ingrid Thulin
(DVD – English and Swedish with English subtitles)
Legendary director Ingmar Bergman creates a testament to the strength of the soul-and a film of absolute power. Karin and Maria come to the aid of their dying sister, Agnes, but jealousy, manipulation, and selfishness come before empathy. Agnes, tortured by cancer, transcends the pettiness of her sisters' concerns to remember moments of being-moments that Bergman, with the help of Academy Award®-winning cinematographer Sven Nykvist, translates into pictures of staggering

The Shop on Main Street - Ida Kaminska, Jozef Króner, Hana Slivková, and Martin Hollý
(DVD – Czech with English subtitles)
An inept Czech peasant is torn between greed and guilt when the Nazi-backed bosses of his town appoint him "Aryan controller" of an old Jewish widow's button shop. Humor and tragedy fuse in this scathing exploration of one cowardly man's complicity in the horrors of a totalitarian regime. Made near the height of Soviet oppression in Czechoslovakia, The Shop on Main Street features intense editing and camera work which won it the Academy Award® for Best Foreign Film in 1965.

Blame It on Fidel - Nina Kervel-Bey, Julie Depardieu, Stefano Accorsi, and Benjamin Feuillet
 (DVD – French with English subtitles)
Caught up in the political revolution sweeping France in the early 1970s, Fernando (Stefano Accorsi) and Marie (Julie Depardieu) reject the comforts of their bourgeois life and dedicate themselves full time to radical activism. This comes as a shock to their precocious nine year-old daughter, Anna (Nina Kervel), who struggles to understand her parents’ newfound ideals. Brilliantly told from Anna’s perspective, this critically-acclaimed film by Julie Gavras captures the coming-of-age moment when children realize the contradictions of adulthood and have to make their own choices.

The City of Lost Children - Briac Barthelemy, Guillaume Billod-Morel, and Geneviève Brunet (DVD – French, English, Spanish)
The fantastic visions of Belgian filmmakers Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet find full fruition in this fairy tale for adults. Evoking utopias and dystopias from Brazil to Peter Pan, Caro and Jeunet create a vivid but menacing fantasy city in a perpetually twilight world. In this rough port town lives circus strongman One (Ron Perlman), who wanders the alleys and waterfront dives looking for his baby brother, snatched from him by a mysterious gang preying upon the children of the town. Rising from the harbor is an enigmatic castle where lives the evil scientist Krank (Daniel Emilfork), who has lost the ability to dream and robs the nocturnal visions of the children he kidnaps, but receives only mad nightmares from the lonely cherubs. Other wild characters include the Fagin-like Octopus--Siamese twin sisters who control a small gang of runaways-turned-thieves--Krank's six cloned henchmen (all played by the memorable Dominique Pinon from Delicatessen), and a giant brain floating in an aquarium (voiced by Jean-Louis Trintignant). Caro and Jeunet are kindred souls to Terry Gilliam (who is a vocal fan), creating imaginative flights of fancy built of equal parts delight and dread, which seem to be painted on the screen in rich, dreamy colors. --Sean Axmaker

Belle de Jour - Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel, Michel Piccoli, and Geneviève Page
(DVD – French with English subtitles)
Widely acclaimed as a motion picture masterpiece, BELLE DE JOUR is an erotically charged tale of deceit and desire! Beautiful Catherine Deneuve (INDOCHINE) stars as Severine, a perfect young housewife ... who leads a shocking double life. What her loving husband Pierre doesn't know is that by day she's a high-priced prostitute! But when the dangerous obsession of a customer forces her terrible secrets out into the open, Pierre must decide whether to reject her for what she has done ... or accept her for who she is! Now available on video for the first time, the stunning erotic intrigue of BELLE DE JOUR will both captivate and entertain!

The Widow of Saint-Pierre - Juliette Binoche, Daniel Auteuil, Emir Kusturica, and Michel Duchaussoy (DVD – French and English with English subtitles)
In the French colony of Saint-Pierre (an island near Newfoundland) during the middle of the nineteenth century, a captain of the guard (Daniel Auteuil) and his high-minded wife (Juliette Binoche) adopt as their protégé a man who has committed a meaningless murder (Emir Kusturica). The murderer is a sweetheart-a gentle and educable fellow. As the community awaits the arrival of a guillotine and an executioner, the captain and his wife refuse to bow to the logic of capital punishment or to administrative bloody-mindedness. For all its stern moral conviction, Patrice Leconte's film manages to duck the only question worth asking: would a less sympathetic murderer be worth saving from the blade? -David Denby, The New Yorker

Europa Europa - Solomon Perel, Marco Hofschneider, René Hofschneider, and Julie Delpy
(DVD – French and German with English subtitles)
This "incredible, true story" (Los Angeles Times) is at once "eye-opening, harrowing and humorous" (Leonard Maltin) as it recounts the severe actions a young boy must take in order to survive the Holocaust. Based on the autobiography of Solomon Perel, a young German Jew, the film "bounds from one jaw-dropping episode to the next" (The New Yorker) and puts you in the middle of war-torn Europe where ingenuity, timing and luck are the key to survival. Separated from his family at the age of thirteen, Solly (Marco Hofschneider) takes on various identities to hide his Jewish heritage. First passing himself off as an orphan and later as one of the "Hitler Youth," Solly carries on his charade, hoping desperately to keep his identity hidden and make it through the war alive.

Hedda Gabler - Eileen Atkins, Denholm Elliott, Michael Feast, and Lynne Frederick
(DVD – English)
In one of the great dramatic roles in all of theater, the always magnificent Ingrid Bergman seethes with frustrated ambition. Hedda Gabler is a woman who, for financial security, has married an earnest and dutiful academic who lacks the passion and imagination that drive Hedda. When Eilert Lovborg (Trevor Howard, The Third Man), a former lover, returns to their city, she discovers that a new woman has rescued him from his alcoholism and given him the strength to write a brilliant book. Consumed with jealousy, Hedda seizes an opportunity to ruin Lovborg's life--and by doing so, places herself in the power of the glib and predatory Judge Brack (Ralph Richardson, The Fallen Idol), who longs to have his way with her.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - Anne Alvaro, Niels Arestrup, Jean-Pierre Cassel, and Patrick Chesnais (DVD – French and English with English subtitles)

February 3, 2009

New Books – Fiction

The Sugar Queen – Sarah Addison Allen
In this irresistible novel, Sarah Addison Allen, author of the New York Times bestselling debut, Garden Spells, tells the tale of a young woman whose family secrets—and secret passions—are about to change her life forever…  Josey Cirrini is sure of three things: winter is her favorite season, she’s a sorry excuse for a Southern belle, and sweets are best eaten in the privacy of her closet.

Darkmans – Nicola Barker
Darkmans is a very modern book, set in Ashford [a ridiculously modern town], about two very old-fashioned subjects: love and jealousy. It's also a book about invasion, obsession, displacement and possession, about comedy, art, prescription drugs and chiropody. And the main character? ,  The past, which creeps up on the present and whispers something quite dark - quite unspeakable - into its ear.

Sharp Teeth – Toby Barlow
Barlow's gut-wrenching, sexy debut, a horror thriller in verse, follows three packs of feral dogs in East L.A. These creatures are in fact werewolves, men and women who can change into canine form at will (Dog or wolf? More like one than the other/ but neither exactly). Lark, the top dog in one of the packs who's a lawyer in human form, has a master plan that may involve taking over the city from the regular humans. Anthony Silvo, a dogcatcher and normally a loner, finds himself falling in love with a beautiful and mysterious woman (Standing on four legs in her fur, (she is her own brand of beast). A strange small man and his giant partner play Tournament Bridge and are deep into the drug trade. A detective, Peabody, investigates several puzzling dog-related murders. The irregular verse form with its narrative economies proves an excellent vehicle to support all these disparate threads and then tie them together in the bittersweet conclusion. –Publisher’s Weekly

Salvation Boulevard - Larry Beinhart
Best known for American Hero (1994), the jaunty political novel that became the film Wag the Dog, Beinhart offers something less jaunty but definitely more ambitious in this splendid religious legal thriller. When Ahmad Nazami, a Muslim scholarship student at the University of the Southwest, confesses under duress to the murder of Nathaniel MacLeod, an atheist philosophy professor, PI Carl Van Wagener, a born-again Christian, agrees to help Manny Goldfarb, a celebrated Jewish defense lawyer, prove Nazami's innocence. – Publisher’s Weekly

What I Saw and How I Lied – Judy Blundell
Blundell, author of Star Wars novelizations, turns out a taut, noirish mystery/coming-of-age story set in 1947; it's easy to picture it as a film starring Lana Turner, who is mentioned in these pages. When first met, 15-year-old Evie and her best friend are buying chocolate cigarettes to practice smoking. Evie sheds that innocence on a trip to Florida, where her stepfather, Joe, back from the war in Europe, abruptly takes her and her beautiful mother, Beverly, and where Evie falls in love with glamorous Peter, an army buddy whom Joe is none too happy to see. But after a boating accident results in a suspicious death and an inquest, Evie is forced to revisit her romance with Peter and her relationships with Joe and her mother, and to consider that her assumptions about all three may have been wrong from the beginning. Blundell throws Evie's inexperience into high relief with slangy, retro dialogue: Peter calls Evie pussycat; Beverly says her first husband kicked through love like it was dust and he kept on walking. Readers can taste Evie's alienation and her yearning; it's a stylish, addictive brew. -Publisher's Weekly

Killstraight- A Western Story – Johnny  D. Boggs (large print edition)
Two-time Spur Award-winner Boggs (Camp Ford) relates the 1880s exploits of Daniel Killstraight, a Kwahadi Comanche returning from the Carlisle Industrial School in Pennsylvania. Daniel's train halts at Fort Smith, Ark., just as Jimmy Comes Last, a boyhood friend, is being led to the gallows, convicted of murdering a husband and wife: a white man and Creek Indian woman. Prompted by Jimmy's grief-stricken mother, Naséca, after the hanging, Daniel, whose education sets him apart, resolves to investigate. On arriving at the reservation with the body, U.S. Indian policemen Hugh Gunter and Harvey P. Noble induct Daniel into the force. While the plot is thin, Boggs draws raw tension from it, and the relationships and setting shine: Daniel—striving at once to solve the case and reconnect with Comanche ways—is a complex, winning protagonist. – Publisher’s Weekly

Skeletons at the Feast – Chris Bohjalian
Harrowing. . .ingenious. . .compelling. . .Judging who's right or wrong is difficult in Skeletons at the Feast, and one senses that's just the way Bohjalian wants it. . . A tightly woven, moving story for anyone who thinks there's nothing left to learn, or feel, about the Second World War. That Bohjalian can extract greater truths about faith, hope and compassion from something as mundane as a diary is testament not only to his skill as a writer but also to the enduring ability of well-written war fiction to stir our deepest emotions." —Paula L. Woods, The Los Angeles Times

Smoke Screen – Sandra Brown
At the start of this scorching if somewhat formulaic thriller from bestseller Brown (Play Dirty), Charleston, S.C., TV reporter Britt Shelley wakes up in bed next to the dead body of police detective Jay Burgess. While Jay had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, the authorities suspect foul play. Jay's former best friend, ex-fireman Raley Gannon, suffered a similar shock five years earlier, waking up next to party girl Suzi Monroe's naked corpse after a party at Jay's home. Raley had been investigating a fire at a local police station that took seven lives, despite the heroic efforts of Jay and several other cops, one of whom is now South Carolina's attorney general. Cleared of Suzi's death, Raley eventually teams with Britt to look into a nasty arson cover up. Brown laces her dependable romantic fireworks with a solid action-filled plot, though readers should be prepared for a few stereotypes, including a limp-wristed gay, a macho skinhead and a power-mad female politician.   Publisher’s Weekly

The Paper Moon – Andrea Camilleri and Stephen Sartarelli
At the start of Camilleri's wry ninth Insp. Salvo Montalbano procedural (after 2007's The Patience of the Spider), the irascible detective is hoping for a quiet day at his Vigàta office when a visitor, the beguiling Michela Pardo, implores him to help her track down her missing brother, Angelo. Montalbano accompanies Michela to Angelo's apartment, where they find her brother's gunshot-blasted corpse in a compromising position. Montalbano later discovers a possible link between the murder and a series of drug overdoses whose victims include a popular senator. Angelo's affair with a professor's attractive wife offers another avenue of inquiry, but one that gets complicated when the inspector begins to fall in love with the suspect. Humor, much of it provided by Montalbano's eccentric colleagues, leavens the noirish story line, and the solution to the central puzzle is both psychologically plausible and intellectually satisfying. The crisp prose is a pleasure to read, and a last-minute twist a testament to the author's artistry. – Publisher’s Weekly

The Welsh Girl – Peter Ho Davies
Esther, a WWII-era Welsh barmaid, finds her father—a fiercely nationalistic, anti-English shepherd—provincial; she daydreams that she'll elope to London with her secret sweetheart, an English soldier. In short order, Esther is raped by her boyfriend, and her Welsh village is turned into a dumping ground for German prisoners. Meanwhile, Karsten, a German POW who is mortified that he'd ordered his men to surrender, believes that only by escaping can he find redemption. Davies (Equal Love) uses the familiar tensions of WWII Britain to nice ensemble effect: among the more nuanced secondary characters is a British captain who is the son of a German-Jewish WWI hero—the man's father had always considered himself a Lutheran until the Nazi ascension forced him to flee Germany. As Esther begins to question her own allegiances, Karsten comes into her orbit. What makes this first novel by an award-winning short-storyteller an intriguing read isn't the plot—which doesn't quite go anywhere—but the beautifully realized characters, who learn that life is a jumble of difficult compromises best confronted with eyes wide open. –Publisher’s Weekly

The Other Queen: A Novel – Phillipa Gregory
This dazzling novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory presents a new and unique view of one of history's most intriguing, romantic, and maddening heroines. Biographers often neglect the captive years of Mary, Queen of Scots, who trusted Queen Elizabeth's promise of sanctuary when she fled from rebels in Scotland and then found herself imprisoned as the "guest" of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and his indomitable wife, Bess of Hardwick.
Philippa Gregory uses new research and her passion for historical accuracy to place a well-known heroine in a completely new tale full of suspense, passion, and political intrigue. For years, readers have clamored for Gregory to tell Mary's story, and The Other Queen is the result of her determination to present a novel worthy of this extraordinary heroine.

The Wise Woman – Phillipa Gregory
In this book, originally published after her bestselling debut with the Wideacre trilogy, New York Times bestselling author Philippa Gregory takes readers to Henry VIII's England, on a journey to the outer reaches of passion, where magic and female power meet.

The Finder – Colin Harrison
“Colin Harrison will have you gasping for breath in the eyeball-popping opening chapter of The Finder, his latest New York thriller, one unlikely to be distributed by the Tourism Bureau . . . Once again he's mucking about in the city's greedy underbelly in a pulsating novel that obscenely documents the gritty, ugly intersection of commerce and corruption . . . Harrison (The Havana Room, Afterburn) writes like Rambo on meth and throws in enough black humor to prove he's more brains than brawn.” —USA Today

WHAT'S NEW ARCHIVE