• Home
• Links
• Store
• Book Awards
• Just For Fun
• Book Clubs

• Fiction
• Non-Fiction
• Children's Books
• Shop
• Featured Author
• Calendar
• Publishers

New Releases

This Week Books

FICTION

The Mullah's Storm by Thomas Young

A transport plane carrying an important Taliban detainee for interrogation is shot down in a blizzard over Afghanistan. For two people-navigator Michael Parson and a woman Army interpreter, Sergeant Gold-a battle for survival begins across some of the most forbidding terrain on earth against not only the hazards of nature but the treacheries of man: the Taliban stalking them; the villagers, whose loyalty is unknown; and a prisoner who would very much like the three of them to be caught. All Parson and Gold have is each other, to stay alive.

It is a novel of relentless pace and constant surprise-and the beginning of a brilliant career.

The Widower's Tale: A Novel by Julia Glass

A rich and suspenseful novel from the award-winning author of Three Junes and I See You Everywhere.

In a quirky farmhouse outside Boston, seventy-year-old Percy Darling enjoys a vigorous but mostly solitary life-until, in a complex scheme to help his oldest daughter through a crisis, he allows a progressive preschool to move into his barn. The abrupt transformation of Percy's rural refuge into a lively, youthful community compels him to reexamine the choices he's made since his wife's death, three decades ago, in a senseless accident that haunts him still. No longer can he remain aloof from his neighbors, his two grown daughters, or, to his shock, the precarious joy of falling in love.

Meanwhile, Percy's beloved grandson Robert, a premed student at Harvard, joins his visionary roommate in a series of environmental "actions" targeting the well-to-do; they begin as pranks but escalate insidiously, with dire consequences for Robert's family and the people around them, including a Guatemalan gardener and a gay preschool teacher, whose lives intersect fatefully with those of the Darlings. With equal parts affection and satire, Julia Glass spins a powerful tale about the multigenerational loyalties, rivalries, and secrets of a family, inhabitants of a complacently prosperous world where no one is immune to unexpected change. Yet again, she plumbs the human heart brilliantly, dramatically, and movingly.

No Mercy by Sherrilyn Kenyon

Live fast, fight hard and if you have to die then take as many of your enemies with you as you can. That is the Amazon credo and it was one Samia lived and died by. Now in contemporary New Orleans, the immortal Amazon warrior is about to learn that there's a worse evil coming to slaughter mankind than she's ever faced before.

Shapeshifter Dev Peltier has stood guard at the front of Sanctuary for almost two hundred years and in that time, he's seen it all. Or so he thought. Now their enemies have discovered a new source of power- one that makes a mockery of anything faced to date.

The war is on and Dev and Sam are guarding ground zero. But in order to win, they will have to break the most cardinal of all rules and pray it doesn't unravel the universe as we know it.

Pretty Little Things by Jilliane Hoffman

Thirteen-year-old Lainey Emerson is the middle child in a household that police are already familiar with: her mother works too much and her step-father favors his own blood over another man's problems - namely, Lainey and her wild older sister, Liza. So when Lainey does not come home from a Friday night out with her friends, it is dismissed by the Coral Springs Police Department as just another disillusioned South Florida teen running away from suburban drama and an unhappy home life.

But Special Agent Bobby Dees, who has headed up the department's diffcult Crimes Against Children (CAC) Squad in Miami for more than a decade, is not quite so sure. Nicknamed “The Shepherd" by colleagues, he has an uncanny ability to find the missing and bring them back home - dead or alive. Haunted by the still unsolved disappearance of his own daughter, Bobby recognizes the all too familiar up-swell inside him, the gut feeling that Lainey Emerson is no runaway.

A search of Lainey's computer and a talk with her best friend reveal Lainey was involved in a secret Internet relationship, spawned over a chat room, and nurtured through untraceable instant messages. Bobby fears she may be the victim of an on-line predator, and he fears she may not be the only one.

Dexter Is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay

America's most-read, most-watched, and most beloved serial killer-Dexter Morgan-is back. After selling more than one million copies and inspiring the wildly popular #1 Showtime series and top-rated crime drama on pay-cable television, New York Times bestselling author Jeff Lindsay returns with his most hilarious, macabre, and purely entertaining novel yet.

Dexter Morgan has always lived a happy homicidal life. He keeps his dark urges in check by adhering to one steadfast rule . . . he only kills very bad people. But now Dexter is experiencing some major life changes-don't we all?-and they're mostly wrapped up in the eight-pound curiosity that is his newborn daughter. Family bliss is cut short, however, when Dexter is summoned to investigate the disappearance of a seventeen-year-old girl who has been running with a bizarre group of goths who fancy themselves to be vampires. As Dexter gets closer to the truth of what happened to the missing girl, he realizes they are not really vampires so much as cannibals. And, most disturbing . . . these people have decided they would really like to eat Dexter.

Jeff Lindsay's bestselling, dark, ironic, and oftentimes laugh-out-loud hilarious novels about the lovable serial killer with no soul (but a redeeming desire to kill only people who deserve it) have gained a legion of fans and assumed a place in our culture.


Healer: A Novel by Carol Cassella

From national bestselling author Carol Cassella comes the story of one doctor's struggle to hold her family together through a storm of broken trust and questioned ethics.

Claire is at the start of her medical career when she falls in love with Addison Boehning, a biochemist with blazing genius and big dreams. A complicated pregnancy deflects Claire's professional path, and she is forced to drop out of her residency. Soon thereafter Addison invents a simple blood test for ovarian cancer, and his biotech start-up lands a fortune. Overnight the Boehnings are catapulted into a financial and social tier they had never anticipated or sought: they move into a gracious Seattle home and buy an old ranch in the high desert mountains of eastern Washington, and Claire drifts away from medicine to become a full-time wife and mother. Then Addison gambles everything on a cutting-edge cancer drug, and when the studies go awry, their comfortable life is swept away. Claire and her daughter, Jory, move to a dilapidated ranch house in rural Hallum, where Claire has to find a job until Addison can salvage his discredited lab. Her only offer for employment comes from a struggling public health clinic, but Claire gets more than a second chance at medicine when she meets Miguela, a bright Nicaraguan immigrant and orphan of the contra war who has come to the United States on a secret quest to find the family she has lost. As their friendship develops, a new mystery unfolds that threatens to destroy Claire's family and forces her to question what it truly means to heal.

Healer exposes the vulnerabilities of the American family, provoking questions of choice versus fate, desire versus need, and the duplicitous power of money.

Zero History by William Gibson

The new novel from William Gibson, "one of the most visionary, original, and quietly influential writers currently working." ("The Boston Globe")

Hollis Henry worked for the global marketing magnate Hubertus Bigend once before. She never meant to repeat the experience. But she's broke, and Bigend never feels it's beneath him to use whatever power comes his way -- in this case, the power of money to bring Hollis onto his team again. Not that she knows what the "team" is up to, not at first.

Milgrim is even more thoroughly owned by Bigend. He's worth owning for his useful gift of seeming to disappear in almost any setting, and his Russian is perfectly idiomatic - so much so that he spoke Russian with his therapist, in the secret Swiss clinic where Bigend paid for him to be cured of the addiction that would have killed him.

Garreth has a passion for extreme sports. Most recently he jumped off the highest building in the world, opening his chute at the last moment, and he has a new thighbone made of rattan baked into bone, entirely experimental, to show for it. Garreth isn't owned by Bigend at all. Garreth has friends from whom he can call in the kinds of favors that a man like Bigend will find he needs, when things go unexpectedly sideways, in a world a man like Bigend is accustomed to controlling.

As when a Department of Defense contract for combat-wear turns out to be the gateway drug for arms dealers so shadowy that even Bigend, whose subtlety and power in the private sector would be hard to overstate, finds himself outmaneuvered and adrift in a seriously dangerous world.

Ape House by Sara Gruen

From the author of Water for Elephants comes the story of a family of bonobo apes that is violently torn from their laboratory by animal liberation activists and placed on a TV reality show. Like Gruen's phenomenal bestseller Water for Elephants, this novel explores humans' relationships with animals and shows that animals have much to teach people about what it means to be human.

NON-FICTION

Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat by Hal Herzog

Combining the intellect of Malcolm Gladwell with the irreverent humor of Mary Roach and the paradigm-shifting analysis of Jared Diamond, a leading social scientist offers an unprecedented look inside our complex and often paradoxical relationships with animals.

Does living with a pet really make people happier and healthier? What can we learn from biomedical research with mice? Who enjoyed a better quality of life-the chicken on a dinner plate or the rooster who died in a Saturday-night cockfight? Why is it wrong to eat the family dog? Drawing on more than two decades of research in the emerging field of anthrozoology, the science of human-animal relations, Hal Herzog offers surprising answers to these and other questions related to the moral conundrums we face day in and day out regarding the creatures with whom we share our world.

Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat is a highly entertaining and illuminating journey through the full spectrum of human-animal relations, based on Dr. Herzog's groundbreaking research on animal rights activists, cockfighters, professional dog-show handlers, veterinary students, and biomedical researchers. Blending anthropology, behavioral economics, evolutionary psychology, and philosophy, Herzog carefully crafts a seamless narrative enriched with real-life anecdotes, scientific research, and his own sense of moral ambivalence.

Alternately poignant, challenging, and laugh-out-loud funny, this enlightening and provocative book will forever change the way we look at our relationships with other creatures and, ultimately, how we see ourselves.

The Warmth Of Other Suns: The Epic Story Of America's Great Migration by Isabel Wilkerson

In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, this exodus of almost six million people changed the face of America. Wilkerson compares this epic migration to the migrations of other peoples in history. She interviewed more than a thousand people, and gained access to new data and official records, to write this definitive and vividly dramatic account of how these American journeys unfolded, altering our cities, our country, and ourselves.

With stunning historical detail, Wilkerson tells this story through the lives of three unique individuals: Ida Mae Gladney, who in 1937 left sharecropping and prejudice in Mississippi for Chicago, where she achieved quiet blue-collar success and, in old age, voted for Barack Obama when he ran for an Illinois Senate seat; sharp and quick-tempered George Starling, who in 1945 fled Florida for Harlem, where he endangered his job fighting for civil rights, saw his family fall, and finally found peace in God; and Robert Foster, who left Louisiana in 1953 to pursue a medical career, the personal physician to Ray Charles as part of a glitteringly successful medical career, which allowed him to purchase a grand home where he often threw exuberant parties.

Wilkerson brilliantly captures their first treacherous and exhausting cross-country trips by car and train and their new lives in colonies that grew into ghettos, as well as how they changed these cities with southern food, faith, and culture and improved them with discipline, drive, and hard work. Both a riveting microcosm and a major assessment, The Warmth of Other Suns is a bold, remarkable, and riveting work, a superb account of an "unrecognized immigration" within our own land. Through the breadth of its narrative, the beauty of the writing, the depth of its research, and the fullness of the people and lives portrayed herein, this book is destined to become a classic.

The Company Town: The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills That Shaped the American Economy by Hardy Green

From the looms at colonial Lowell, Massachusetts, to the tire plants in Akron, Ohio, to Google's Project 02 in The Dalles, Oregon, the company town has mirrored the development of American capitalism. In The Company Town, Hardy Green, former associate editor at BusinessWeek, shows how two strands of capitalism have competed for ascendancy: one, a utopian vision of care and concern, rooted in a paternalistic idea that companies should take care of their workers, represented by such locales as Hershey, PA; the other, exploitative and profiteering, in which owners extract as much work for as little compensation as possible, as demonic as the Harlan County coal mines.

At once a riveting history, a stark social commentary, and an insightful tale of how business works (and how it should work), The Company Town is the story of the shaping of modern American capitalism.

All New Letters from a Nut: Includes Lunatic Email Exchanges by Ted L. Nancy

He's back: the curse of customer service departments everywhere--Ted L. Nancy, letter writer extraordinaire whose imbecilic queries have a way of eliciting equally idiotic answers from some of the world's biggest companies and dignitaries.

From the bestselling author of Letters from a Nut comes the latest collection of seemingly serious but crazed correspondence. All New Letters from a Nut includes more than 200 letters, from bizarre to outright loony requests and compliments written by Mr. Nancy to Icelandic malls, German theme parks, shoe museums, foreign presidents, commode companies, waffle cone businesses, and the Hotel Del Fino in Greece along with their equally sincere but hilarious responses.

With his previous books, Ted L. Nancy distinguished himself as America's favorite postal humorist. This latest compilation highlights his comic status through letters to an upscale Amsterdam hotel requesting a room for his 300 hamsters and him to put on his play HAMSTERDAM; to Vons Supermarkets complaining that their Diet Black Cherry soda is sending him paranormal messages; to Armour Meats seeking a 59-foot piece of bologna and a note to the City of Glendale, California, asking for help in starting his new comedy club, THE JOKESTRAP; and many more….

Throughout Ted L. Nancy demonstrates his genius for convincing people his absurd queries are dead serious, demonstrated by the responses he receives.

All New Letters from a Nut is unabashedly silly, unapologetically sophomoric, and 100% funny.

The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit Of Women by James Ellroy

From "one of the great American writers of our time" (Los Angeles Times Book Review): a raw, explicit memoir as high-intensity and riveting as any of his novels.

The year was 1958. James Ellroy was ten years old. His mother, Jean Hilliker, had divorced her fast-buck hustler husband. She gave her son a choice: live with his father or her. He chose his father, and Jean-"half gassed"-attacked him. He wished her dead. Three months later, she was murdered.

Ellroy writes, "I owe her for every true thing that I am. I must remove the malediction I have placed on her and on myself," and in The Hilliker Curse, he narrates his quest for "atonement in women." He unsparingly describes his shattered childhood, his delinquent teens, his writing life, his love affairs and marriages, a nervous breakdown and the beginning of a relationship with an extraordinary woman who may just be the long-sought Her. It is a layered narrative of time and place, emotion and insight, sexuality and spiritual quest. And all of it is reported with gut-wrenching and heart-rending candor.

A brilliant and soul-baring revelation of self-and unlike any memoir you have ever read.

The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

THE FIRST MAJOR WORK IN NEARLY A DECADE BY ONE OF THE WORLD'S GREAT THINKERS-A MARVELOUSLY CONCISE BOOK WITH NEW ANSWERS TO THE ULTIMATE QUESTIONS OF LIFE

When and how did the universe begin? Why are we here? Why is there something rather than nothing? What is the nature of reality? Why are the laws of nature so finely tuned as to allow for the existence of beings like ourselves? And, finally, is the apparent "grand design" of our universe evidence of a benevolent creator who set things in motion-or does science offer another explanation?

The most fundamental questions about the origins of the universe and of life itself, once the province of philosophy, now occupy the territory where scientists, philosophers, and theologians meet-if only to disagree. In their new book, Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow present the most recent scientific thinking about the mysteries of the universe, in nontechnical language marked by both brilliance and simplicity.

In The Grand Design they explain that according to quantum theory, the cosmos does not have just a single existence or history, but rather that every possible history of the universe exists simultaneously. When applied to the universe as a whole, this idea calls into question the very notion of cause and effect. But the "top-down" approach to cosmology that Hawking and

Mlodinow describe would say that the fact that the past takes no definite form means that we create history by observing it, rather than that history creates us. The authors further explain that we ourselves are the product of quantum fluctuations in the very early universe, and show how quantum theory predicts the "multiverse" - the idea that ours is just one of many universes that appeared spontaneously out of nothing, each with different laws of nature.

Along the way Hawking and Mlodinow question the conventional concept of reality, posing a "model-dependent" theory of reality as the best we can hope to find. And they conclude with a riveting assessment of M-theory, an explanation of the laws governing us and our universe that is currently the only viable candidate for a complete "theory of everything." If confirmed, they write, it will be the unified theory that Einstein was looking for, and the ultimate triumph of human reason.

A succinct, startling, and lavishly illustrated guide to discoveries that are altering our understanding and threatening some of our most cherished belief systems, The Grand Design is a book that will inform - and provoke - like no other.

LAST WEEK'S

JULIET by Anne Fortier

When Julie Jacobs inherits a key to a safety deposit box in Siena, Italy, she is told it will lead her to an old family treasure. Soon she is launched on a precarious journey into the true history of her ancestor Giulietta, whose legendary love for a young man named Romeo turned medieval Siena upside down.

As Julie crosses paths with the descendants of the families involved in Shakespeare's unforgettable blood feud, she begins to realize that the notorious curse -- "A plague on both your houses!" -- is still at work, and that she is the next target. It seems the only one who can save her from her fate is Romeo . . . .but where is he?

Full of sleeping potions, secret processions, and the glorious Italian countryside, Juliet is at heart an epic romance that proves that love is strong enough to conquer even death.

The Evolutionary Void by Peter F. Hamilton

An innovator praised as one of the inventors of "the new space opera," Peter F. Hamilton has also been hailed as the heir of such golden-age giants as Heinlein and Asimov. His star-spanning sagas are distinguished by deft plotting, engaging characters, provocative explorations of science and society, and soaring imaginative reach. Now, in one of the most eagerly anticipated offerings of the year, Hamilton brings his acclaimed Void trilogy to a stunning close.

Exposed as the Second Dreamer, Araminta has become the target of a galaxywide search by government agent Paula Myo and the psychopath known as the Cat, along with others equally determined to prevent-or facilitate-the pilgrimage of the Living Dream cult into the heart of the Void. An indestructible microuniverse, the Void may contain paradise, as the cultists believe, but it is also a deadly threat. For the miraculous reality that exists inside its boundaries demands energy-energy drawn from everything outside those boundaries: from planets, stars, galaxies . . . from everything that lives.

Meanwhile, the parallel story of Edeard, the Waterwalker-as told through a series of addictive dreams communicated to the gaiasphere via Inigo, the First Dreamer-continues to unfold. But now the inspirational tale of this idealistic young man takes a darker and more troubling turn as he finds himself faced with powerful new enemies-and temptations more powerful still.

With time running out, a repentant Inigo must decide whether to release Edeard's final dream: a dream whose message is scarcely less dangerous than the pilgrimage promises to be. And Araminta must choose whether to run from her unwanted responsibilities or face them down, with no guarantee of success or survival. But all these choices may be for naught if the monomaniacal Ilanthe, leader of the breakaway Accelerator Faction, is able to enter the Void. For it is not paradise she seeks there, but dominion.


The Network by Jason Elliot

On the eve of 9/11, disillusioned Gulf War veteran Captain Anthony Taverner is living a quiet life in the English countryside. But his intimate knowledge of Afghanistan - and of explosives - has got him noticed.

The Secret Intelligence Service has a mission in Afghanistan with his name on it: to infiltrate a fort in Taliban-held territory and destroy a cache of the CIA's precious Stinger missiles before they fall into the hands of Al Qaeda. Ant soon finds himself inducted into secret worlds; from the tunnel complex beneath SIS HQ in London's Vauxhall Cross, to the CIA's bin Laden tracking station at Langley.

At first, it seems like a straightforward mission. But Ant has a secret past of his own which he must conceal from even his closest allies. H, a former SAS man and security expert, is methodical, focused and supremely fit, and spends months training Ant in a range of 'useful' and potentially deadly skills. He will accompany Ant on the Op. They will destroy the fort together. But just what is the Network? What does the poised and formidable Baroness know about their mission? And how will all this affect history, and change the political landscape forever?

As the dangerous trail leads from the pirate-haunted coast of Sudan in the company of beautiful Jameela, sister in law of bin Laden, to the war-torn streets of Kabul, Ant is forced to confront the fears that belong to his most secret past.

Richly detailed, utterly compelling and set among landscapes of breathtaking beauty, this is a thriller with unusual and distinctive authenticity; a story of war, espionage, deceit, religion, international affairs, exploitation, and of friendship, tested to the very limit.

Bearers of the Black Staff: Legends of Shannara by Terry Brooks

For more than three decades, New York Times bestselling author Terry Brooks has ruled the epic fantasy realm with his legendary Shannara series. With each new novel the mythos has deepened, ever more fascinating characters have arisen, and increasingly breathtaking vistas of magical adventure have emerged. Now the evolution of one of imaginative fiction's most beloved worlds continues in the first book of the new series Legends of Shannara: Bearers of the Black Staff.

Five hundred years have passed since the devastating demon-led war that tore apart the United States, leaving nothing but scorched and poisoned ruins, and nearly exterminating humankind. Those who escaped the carnage and blight were led to sanctuary by the boy savior known as the Hawk-the gypsy morph. In an idyllic valley, its borders warded by powerful magic against the horrors beyond, humans, elves, and mutants alike found a place they believed would be their home forever.

But after five centuries, the unimaginable has come to pass: The cocoon of protective magic surrounding the valley has vanished. When Sider Ament, the only surviving descendant of the Knights of the Word, detects unknown predators stalking the valley, he fears the worst. And when Panterra Qu and Prue Liss, expert Trackers from the human village of Glensk Wood, find two of their own gruesomely killed, there can be no doubt: The once safe haven of generations has been laid bare and made vulnerable to whatever still lurks in the wasteland of the outside world.

Together, Ament, the two young Trackers, and a daring Elf princess race to spread word of the encroaching danger-and spearhead plans to defend their ancestral home. But suspicion and hostility among their countrymen threaten to doom their efforts from within-while beyond the breached borders, a ruthless Troll army masses for invasion. And in the thick of it all, the last wielder of the black staff and its awesome magic must find a successor to carry on the fight against the cresting new wave of evil.

The Thousand by Kevin Guilfoile

Kevin Guilfoile's riveting follow-up to Cast of Shadows ("Spellbinding" -Chicago Tribune; "A masterpiece of intelligent plotting" -Salon) centers on an extraordinary young woman's race to find her father's killer and to free herself from the crossfire of a centuries-old, clandestine civil war in which she has unknowingly become ensnared.

In 500 B.C. a mysterious ship appeared off the coast of what is now Italy. A man disembarked to address the frightened crowd along the shore. He called himself Pythagoras and when he was done speaking a thousand men and women abandoned their lives to follow him; his disciples would influence western philosophy, science, and mathematics for all time.

Chicago, the present. Solomon Gold has tapped into valuable and dangerous secrets while composing his magnum opus: the Gold Completion of Mozart's infamous unfinished requiem. After he is murdered, his brilliant daughter-a girl whose uncanny mental gifts have left her both powerful and troubled-finds herself racing to understand his composition, his murder, and, as violence erupts all around her, a fractured, ancient cult descended from the original disciples of Pythagoras.

The Thousand is ringing confirmation of Guilfoile's enormous talent.

The Thieves of Darkness: A Thriller by Richard Doetsch

An irresistible treasure, two master thieves, and a secret as old as mankind . . .

Michael St. Pierre, a reformed master thief, thinks he has left his criminal days far behind him, when he receives word that his best friend, Simon, has been locked up and sentenced to die in a brutal desert prison. Breaking into jail for the first time in his checkered career, Michael is stunned to discover that his new girlfriend, KC, is connected to Simon's case.

With a madman on their heels, the three adventurers make their way to Istanbul in search of the mysterious artifact that landed Simon behind bars in the first place: a map containing the location of a holy place lost to the mists of time, a repository of knowledge and treasure predating Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Testing their courage and wits, Michael and his team are forced to plot a series of daring thefts that take them inside some of the city's most celebrated (and heavily guarded) sanctums, from the imperial harem of Topkapi Palace to the tombs of the Hagia Sophia itself. More than priceless artifacts are at stake-the lives of loved ones and perhaps the fate of humanity itself hang in the balance.

A globe-trotting adventure that wings from the glittering banks of the Bosporus to the highest peaks of the Himalayas, The Thieves of Darkness confirms Richard Doetsch's place as the modern-day master of pulse-pounding suspense.

Spider Bones: A Novel by Kathy Reichs

Kathy Reichs-#1 New York Times bestselling author and producer of the FOX television hit Bones-returns with the thirteenth riveting novel featuring forensic anthropologist Dr. Temperance Brennan.

John Lowery was declared dead in 1968-the victim of a Huey crash in Vietnam, his body buried long ago in North Carolina. Four decades later, Temperance Brennan is called to the scene of a drowning in Hemmingford, Quebec. The victim appears to have died while in the midst of a bizarre sexual practice. The corpse is later identified as John Lowery. But how could Lowery have died twice, and how did an American soldier end up in Canada?

Tempe sets off for the answer, exhuming Lowery's grave in North Carolina and taking the remains to Hawaii for reanalysis-to the headquarters of JPAC, the U.S. military's Joint POW/ MIA Accounting Command, which strives to recover Americans who have died in past conflicts. In Hawaii, Tempe is joined by her colleague and ex-lover Detective Andrew Ryan (how "ex" is he?) and by her daughter, who is recovering from her own tragic loss. Soon another set of remains is located, with Lowery's dog tags tangled among them. Three bodies-all identified as Lowery.

And then Tempe is contacted by Hadley Perry, Honolulu's flamboyant medical examiner, who needs help identifying the remains of an adolescent boy found offshore. Was he the victim of a shark attack? Or something much more sinister?

A complex and riveting tale of deceit and murder unfolds in this, the thirteenth thrilling novel in Reichs's "cleverly plotted and expertly maintained series" (The New York Times Book Review). With the smash hit Bones now in its fifth season and in full syndication-and her most recent novel, 206 Bones, an instant New York Times bestseller-Kathy Reichs is at the top of her game.

NON-FICTION

The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival by John Vaillant

It's December 1997 and a man-eating tiger is on the prowl outside a remote village in Russia's Far East. The tiger isn't just killing people, it's annihilating them, and a team of men and their dogs must hunt it on foot through the forest in the brutal cold. To their horrified astonishment it emerges that the attacks are not random: the tiger is engaged in a vendetta. Injured and starving, it must be found before it strikes again, and the story becomes a battle for survival between the two main characters: Yuri Trush, the lead tracker, and the tiger itself.


As John Vaillant vividly recreates the extraordinary events of that winter, he also gives us an unforgettable portrait of a spectacularly beautiful region where plants and animals exist that are found nowhere else on earth, and where the once great Siberian Tiger - the largest of its species, which can weigh over 600 lbs at more than 10 feet long - ranges daily over vast territories of forest and mountain, its numbers diminished to a fraction of what they once were. We meet the native tribes who for centuries have worshipped and lived alongside tigers - even sharing their kills with them - in a natural balance. We witness the first arrival of settlers, soldiers and hunters in the tiger's territory in the 19th century and 20th century, many fleeing Stalinism. And we come to know the Russians of today - such as the poacher Vladimir Markov - who, crushed by poverty, have turned to poaching for the corrupt, high-paying Chinese markets. Throughout we encounter surprising theories of how humans and tigers may have evolved to coexist, how we may have developed as scavengers rather than hunters and how early Homo sapiens may have once fit seamlessly into the tiger's ecosystem.

Above all, we come to understand the endangered Siberian tiger, a highly intelligent super-predator, and the grave threat it faces as logging and poaching reduce its habitat and numbers - and force it to turn at bay.

Beautifully written and deeply informative, The Tiger is a gripping tale of man and nature in collision, which leads inexorably to a final showdown in a clearing deep in the Siberian forest.

The Cross of Redemption: Uncollected Writings by James Baldwin

A revelation of an American literary master: a gathering of essays, articles, polemics, reviews, and interviews that have never before appeared in book form.

James Baldwin was one of the most brilliant and provocative literary figures of the past century, renowned for his fierce engagement with issues haunting our common history. In The Cross of Redemption we have Baldwin discoursing on, among other subjects, the possibility of an African-American president and what it might mean; the hypocrisy of American religious fundamentalism; the black church in America; the trials and tribulations of black nationalism; anti-Semitism; the blues and boxing; Russian literary masters; and the role of the writer in our society.

Prophetic and bracing, The Cross of Redemption is a welcome and important addition to the works of a cosmopolitan and canonical American writer who still has much to teach us about race, democracy, and personal and national identity. As Michael Ondaatje has remarked, "If Van Gogh was our nineteenth-century artist-saint, James Baldwin [is] our twentieth-century one."

...And the Clients Went Wild!: How Savvy Professionals Win All the Business They Want by Maribeth Kuzmeski

Combine social media with traditional marketing techniques for breakthrough results!

While social media is doing much to change the marketing landscape, it doesn’t mean you have to take an either/or approach between it and more traditional methods. ...And the Clients Went Wild! gives you the tools to take an eclectic approach and pick the best, most wildly successful marketing methods-traditional, online, or both-to win at a given marketing goal. And, whether by means of Facebook, Twitter, streaming video, or by old-fashioned word of mouth, public relations, or personal sales skill, the goal is to win, right?
Find real-life examples of success from some of today’s best businesses
Shows how to integrate and benefit from both traditional and new marketing methods
Uses the proven business growth strategy Red Zone Marketing® as a central concept
Author has proven the concepts successful in her work for numerous major clients

Don’t throw out tried and true marketing techniques just for the sake of the new. Do what works! Perfect your marketing mix and win with ...And the Clients Went Wild!

Zebratown: The True Story of a Black Ex-Con and a White Single Mother in Small-Town America by Greg Donaldson

Eight years in the making, this edgy, in-depth account follows a black felon's attempt to find a new life for himself with a white woman in a small-town neighborhood where-as the book's title implies-such relationships are common. A remarkably intense read, Zebratown reveals a rhythm of life spiked with violence, betrayal, sex, and the emotional dangers created by passionate love.

Greg Donaldson's Zebratown follows the life of Kevin Davis, an ex-con from Brownsville, Brooklyn, who, after his release from prison, moves to Elmira, New York, and takes up with Karen, a young woman with a six-year-old daughter. Kevin is seemingly the embodiment of hip-hop gangsterism-a heavily muscled, feared thug who has beaten a murder rap. And yet, as Donaldson's stunning reportage reveals, Kevin has survived on the streets and in prison with a sharp intelligence and a rigid code of practical morality and physical fitness while yearning to make a better life for himself and be a better man.

Month by month and year by year, Donaldson follows Kevin and Karen's attempt to make a home together, a quest made harder by Kevin's difficulty finding legal employment. The dangerous lures of the street remain for him, both in New York City and in Zebratown, and he is not always successful at avoiding them. Meanwhile, as Kevin and Karen struggle, the reader comes to care for them, even as they act in ways that society may not condone. Theirs is a complex story with many moments of drama, suffering, desire, and revelation-a story that is frequently astonishing and unforgettable to the end.

Like Adrian Nicole LeBlanc in Random Family, Donaldson explores a largely hidden world; such immersion journalism is difficult to achieve but uniquely powerful to read. In addition to spending long periods with Kevin and Karen, Donaldson interviews policemen, judges, family members, and others in Kevin and Karen's orbit, providing a remarkably panoramic account of their lives.

Relationships between white women and black men have long been a hot issue in American culture. Even years after the 2008 presidential election, when society has in some ways seemingly moved on to a "postracial" perspective, people still have a lot to say about interracial relationships. Zebratown takes us into the heart of one and offers the paradoxical truth that while race is rarely not an issue in such relationships, in the end, what transpires between a couple is intensely individual.

Meanwhile, the difficulty that ex-cons have successfully reentering society is an ongoing problem-for them, their families, and the communities where they live. Zebratown makes this struggle real, as Kevin Davis confronts not only his criminal record and his poor formal education but the cruelties of the postindustrial economy. Both his and Karen's stories resonate powerfully with twenty-first-century American reality, and in telling them, Greg Donaldson confirms his position as one of the most intrepid journalists at work today.

Called to Coach: Reflections on Life, Faith, and Football by Bobby Bowden and Mark Schlabach; Foreword by Tony Dungy

Coach Bobby Bowden is an icon of college football who ran his legendary, top-ranking program with a trademark southern charm. With his recent retirement, Bowden is ready to give fans and readers the behind-the-scenes story of his 55-year career and the path that helped him become one of college football’s most successful coaches and patriarch of the sport’s most famous coaching family.

In this book, Bowden will reveal never-before-published details of the moments and events that have defined his life, including:

the tragic death of his grandson and son-in-law in a 2004 automobile accident.
the details of his retirement as FSU's coach at the end of the 2009 season.

Last Week

FICTION

The Last Lie by Stephen White

"New York Times" bestselling author Stephen White returns to his beloved Alan Gregory series with a taut, ripped-from-the-headlines crime story.

Stephen White's most recent bestseller, The Siege, featured his series character Sam Purdy in a relentlessly paced stand-alone thriller that critics hailed as "brilliantly conceived and executed" ("Publishers Weekly") and "the best and most interesting terrorism thriller I've seen." ("The Washington Post") Now, in The Last Lie, White returns to his Alan Gregory series roots with the popular characters and Boulder setting that first launched him onto the bestseller lists and attracted legions of fiercely loyal fans.

Shortly after Alan and Lauren welcome their affluent new neighbors-a legal legend in women's rights law and his beautiful wife-the couple hosts a housewarming party that ends in quiet disaster. One of their guests, a young widow, elects to spend the night after indulging in too much wine, only to wake the next morning with no memory beyond getting ready for bed. Was she drugged? Raped? Lauren, a deputy district attorney, and detective Sam Purdy are both privy to facts they can't share with Alan, but Alan soon discovers that he has a most unusual perspective into what truly happened after the housewarming party. Before Alan can discover all the pieces to the puzzle, an important witness to the events is murdered. Alan fears that other witnesses-people he loves-will be next.

Smart, topical, and deftly plotted, The Last Lie delivers the pulse-pounding return of one of contemporary fiction's most enduring heroes.

Last Night at Chateau Marmont: A Novel by Lauren Weisberger

Brooke loved reading the dishy celebrity gossip rag Last Night. That is, until her marriage became a weekly headline.

Brooke was drawn to the soulful, enigmatic Julian Alter the very first time she heard him perform "Hallelujah" at a dark East Village dive bar. Now five years married, Brooke balances two jobs-as a nutritionist at NYU Hospital and as a consultant to an Upper East Side girls' school, where privilege gone wrong and disordered eating run rampant-in order to help support her husband's dream of making it in the music world. Things are looking up when after years of playing Manhattan clubs and toiling as an A&R intern, Julian finally gets signed by Sony. Although no one's promising that the album will ever hit the airwaves, Julian is still dedicated to logging in long hours at the recording studio. All that changes after Julian is asked to perform on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno-and is catapulted to stardom, literally overnight. Amazing opportunities begin popping up almost daily-a new designer wardrobe, a tour with Maroon 5, even a Grammy performance.

At first the newfound fame is fun-who wouldn't want to stay at the Chateau Marmont or visit the set of one of television's hottest shows? Yet it seems that Brooke's sweet husband-the man who can't handle hot showers and wears socks to bed-is increasingly absent, even on those rare nights they're home together. When rumors about Brooke and Julian swirl in the tabloid magazines, she begins to question the truth of her marriage and is forced to finally come to terms with what she thinks she wants-and what she actually needs.

Three Stations: An Arkady Renko Novel by Martin Cruz Smith

A passenger train hurtling through the night.
An unwed teenage mother headed to Moscow to seek a new life.
A cruel-hearted soldier looking furtively, forcibly, for sex.
An infant disappearing without a trace.

So begins Martin Cruz Smith's masterful Three Stations, a suspenseful, intricately constructed novel featuring Investigator Arkady Renko. For the last three decades, beginning with the trailblazing Gorky Park, Renko (and Smith) have captivated readers with detective tales set in Russia.

Renko is the ironic, brilliantly observant cop who finds solutions to heinous crimes when other lawmen refuse to even acknowledge that crimes have occurred. He uses his biting humor and intuitive leaps to fight not only wrongdoers but the corrupt state apparatus as well. In Three Stations, Renko's skills are put to their most severe test. Though he has been technically suspended from the prosecutor's office for once again turning up unpleasant truths, he strives to solve a last case: the death of an elegant young woman whose body is found in a construction trailer on the perimeter of Moscow's main rail hub. It looks like a simple drug overdose to everyone-except to Renko, whose examination of the crime scene turns up some inexplicable clues, most notably an invitation to Russia's premier charity ball, the billionaires' Nijinksy Fair. Thus a sordid death becomes interwoven with the lifestyles of Moscow's rich and famous, many of whom are clinging to their cash in the face of Putin's crackdown on the very oligarchs who placed him in power. Renko uncovers a web of death, money, madness and a kidnapping that threatens the woman he is coming to love and the lives of children he is desperate to protect.

In Three Stations, Smith produces a complex and haunting vision of an emergent Russia's secret underclass of street urchins, greedy thugs and a bureaucracy still paralyzed by power and fear.

After America by John Birmingham

March 14, 2003, was the day the world changed forever. A wave of energy slammed into North America and devastated the continent. The U.S. military, poised to invade Baghdad, was left without a commander in chief. Global order spiraled into chaos. Now, three years later, a skeleton U.S. government headquartered in Seattle directs the reconstruction of an entire nation-and the battle for New York City has begun.

Pirates and foreign militias are swarming the East Coast, taking everything they can. The president comes to the Declared Security Zone of New York and barely survives the visit. The enemy - whoever they are - controls Manhattan's concrete canyons and the abandoned flatlands of Long Island. The U.S. military, struggling with sketchy communications and a lack of supplies, is mired in a nightmare of urban combat.

Caught up in the violence is a Polish-born sergeant who watches the carnage through the eyes of an intellectual and with the heart of a warrior. Two smugglers, the highborn Lady Julianne Balwyn and her brawny partner Rhino, search for a treasure whose key lies inside an Upper East Side Manhattan apartment. Thousands of miles away, a rogue general leads the secession of Texas and a brutal campaign against immigrants, while Miguel Pieraro, a Mexican-born rancher, fights back. And in England, a U.S. special ops agent is called into a violent shadow war against an enemy that has come after her and her family.

The president is a stranger to the military mindset, but now this mild-mannered city engineer from the Pacific Northwest needs to make a soldier's choice. With New York clutched in the grip of thousands of heavily armed predators, is an all-out attack on the city the only way to save it?

From the geopolitics of post-American dominance to the fallout of Israel's nuclear strike, After America provides a gripping, intelligent, and harrowing chronicle of a world in the maw of chaos-and lives lived in the dangerous dawn of a strange new future.

Hot Shot by Gary Ruffin

Detective Samuel Cooper, "Coop" to all who know him, is the Chief of Police in Gulf Front, Florida, a sleepy little town with nothing to recommend it to tourists save a beautiful beach the locals are happy to keep a secret. Indeed, Chief of Police is quite a title given he is the sole detective on the force. It's a pretty easy gig all and all-in fact, there has never been a serious crime in Gulf Front. Until now.

When a young woman's body is found on the shore and an abandoned new Cadillac is found nearby, it causes a furor like nothing the town has ever seen. And that's before they've identified her. She turns out to be the daughter of a Louisiana Senator and with her passing comes the Feds, the mob, and Agent Shelley Brooke. Things are never going to be the same again.

NON-FICTION

The Boys of the Dark: A Story of Betrayal and Redemption in the Deep South by Robert W Straley, Robin Gaby Fisher, and Michael O'McCarthy

A story that garnered national attention, this is the harrowing tale of two men who suffered abuses at a reform school in Florida in the 1950s and 60s, and who banded together fifty years later to confront their attackers.

Michael O'McCarthy and Robert W. Straley were teens when they were termed "incorrigible youth" by authorities and ordered to attend the Florida School for Boys. They discovered in Marianna, the "City of Southern Charm," an immaculately groomed campus that looked more like an idyllic university than a reform school. But hidden behind the gates of the Florida School for Boys was a hell unlike any they could have imagined. The school's guards and administrators acted as their jailers and tormentors. The boys allegedly bore witness to assault, rape, and possibly even murder.

For fifty years, both men---and countless others like them---carried their torment in silence. But a series of unlikely events brought O'McCarthy, now a successful rights activist, and Straley together, and they became determined to expose the Florida School for Boys for what they believed it to be: a youth prison with a century-long history of abuse. They embarked upon a campaign that would change their lives and inspire others.

Robin Gaby Fisher, a Pulitzer Prize--winning journalist and author of the New York Times bestselling After the Fire, collaborates with Straley and O'McCarthy to offer a riveting account of their harrowing ordeal. The book goes beyond the story of the two men to expose the truth about a century-old institution and a town that adopted a Nuremberg-like code of secrecy and a government that failed to address its own wrongdoing. What emerges is a tale of strength, resolve, and vindication in the face of the kinds of terror few can imagine.

Germs Gone Wild by Kenneth King

Battling a new generation of corporate giants and uncovering threats right in our own backyard, Kenneth King's Germs Gone Wild reveals the massive expansion of America's bio-defense research labs and the culture of deception surrounding hundreds of facilities that have opened since 9/11.

King experienced the menace of bio-defense research firsthand when local government and business leaders tried to lure a new facility to his hometown in Kentucky. Researching the safety claims, he not only found many of them to be completely false, but was also horrified by the lack of oversight and the recklessness with which these labs genetically modified pathogens like smallpox, Ebola, and influenza without a care for what happened to the public if there was ever a "leak." And yet the greed that drove the development of these labs has effectively counteracted any cautionary checks by the government and universities. All have been seduced by the economic gains and corporate stipends that come with compliance and turning a blind eye.

But now, the reality of these labs and the germs they manipulate will finally be brought to light, as King examines the controversies surrounding plants from Maryland to Boston and Utah, to the Department of Homeland Security's dubious National Bio-and-Agro-Facility (NBAF) project, and the precautions-or lack thereof-being taken to protect us all from a deadly pandemic.

The Power by Rhonda Byrne

The Secret revealed the law of attraction. Now, Rhonda Byrne reveals the greatest force in the universe. This is the handbook to the greatest power in the Universe – The Power to have anything you want.

Behind the Veil of Vice: The Business and Culture of Sex in the Middle East by John R Bradley

The Middle East has long been something of a mystery to Westerners, and in particular, the sexual mores of the region continue to fascinate. Arabs are often described as being in a state of Islam-induced sexual anxiety and young Muslims' frustrations are said to be exacerbated by increasing exposure to the licentiousness of the West.

Here, Middle East expert John R. Bradley sets out to uncover the truth about sex in countries like Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Yemen. Among many startling revelations, Bradley reports on how "temporary" Islamic marriages allow for illicit sex in the theocracies of Iran and Saudi Arabia; "child brides" that are sold off to older Arab men according to ancient tribal traditions; the hypocrisy that undermines publicized crackdowns on the thriving sex industry in the Persian Gulf; and how, despite widespread denial, homosexuality is still deeply ingrained in the region's social fabric.

Richly detailed and nuanced, Behind the Veil of Vice sheds light on a taboo subject and unravels widely held myths about the region. In the process, Bradley also delivers an important message about our own society's contradictions.


The Girls of Murder City by Douglas Perry

The true story of the murderesses who became media sensations and inspired the musical "Chicago"
Chicago, 1924.

There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in the Second City. Life was cheaper than a quart of illicit gin in the gangland capital of the world. But two murders that spring were special - worthy of celebration. So believed Maurine Watkins, a wanna-be playwright and a "girl reporter" for the "Chicago Tribune,” the city's "hanging paper." Newspaperwomen were supposed to write about clubs, cooking and clothes, but the intrepid Miss Watkins, a minister's daughter from a small town, zeroed in on murderers instead. Looking for subjects to turn into a play, she would make "Stylish Belva" Gaertner and "Beautiful Beulah" Annan - both of whom had brazenly shot down their lovers - the talk of the town. Love-struck men sent flowers to the jail and newly emancipated women sent impassioned letters to the newspapers. Soon more than a dozen women preened and strutted on "Murderesses' Row" as they awaited trial, desperate for the same attention that was being lavished on Maurine Watkins's favorites.

In the tradition of Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City and Karen Abbott's Sin in the Second City, Douglas Perry vividly captures Jazz Age Chicago and the sensationalized circus atmosphere that gave rise to the concept of the celebrity criminal. Fueled by rich period detail and enlivened by a cast of characters who seemed destined for the stage, The Girls of Murder City is crackling social history that simultaneously presents the freewheeling spirit of the age and its sober repercussions.

The Black Nile
Author: Dan Morrison

" A spectacular modern-day adventure along the Nile River from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea "
With news of tenuous peace in Sudan, foreign correspondent Dan Morrison bought a plank-board boat, summoned a childhood friend who'd never been off American soil and set out from Uganda, paddling the White Nile on a quest to reach Cairo-a trip that tyranny and war had made impossible for decades.
Morrison's chronicle is a mashup of travel narrative and reportage, packed with flights into the frightful and the absurd. Through river mud that engulfs him and burning marshlands that darken the sky, he tracks the snarl of commonalities and conflicts that bleed across the Nile valley, bringing to life the waters that connect the hardscrabble fishing villages of Lake Victoria to the floating Cairo nightclubs where headscarved mothers are entertained by gyrating male dancers. In between are places and lives invisible to cable news and opinion blogs: a hidden oil war that has erased entire towns, secret dams that will flood still more and contested borderlands where acts of compassion and ingenuity defy appalling hardship and waste of life. As Morrison dodges every imaginable hazard, from militia gunfire to squalls of sand, his mishaps unfold in strange harmony with the breathtaking range of individuals he meets along the way. Relaying the voices of Sudanese freedom fighters and escaped Ugandan sex slaves, desert tribesmen and Egyptian tomb raiders, "The Black Nile" culminates in a visceral understanding of one of the world's most elusive hotspots, where millions strive to claw their way from war and poverty to something better-if only they could agree what that something is, whom to share it with, and how to get there.
With the propulsive force of a thriller, "The Black Nile" is rife with humor, humanity and fervid insight-an unparalleled portrait of a complex territory in profound transition.


Crime Machine by Giles Blunt

The long-awaited new installment in the award-winning, bestselling John Cardinal mystery series.

A year after the death of his beloved and troubled wife, Catherine, John Cardinal has moved into a new, but very humid, condo. He has fallen into an easy routine of work on cold case files and platonic movie nights with friend and colleague Lise Delorme. The quiet of a snow-covered Algonquin Bay is shattered when the decapitated bodies of two people are found in a summer home on Trout Lake. The victims, visitors from Russia, are in Algonquin Bay attending the annual fur auction. This is by no means a routine murder investigation as Cardinal soon discovers, but a horrific piece of a very twisted puzzle.

Blunt has, once again, given us a page-turning plot, a remarkable cast of characters and the comfort of John Cardinal at the helm.

The Vigilantes by W.E.B. Griffin

The dramatic new novel in Griffin's "New York Times"- bestselling chronicle of the Philadelphia police force.

There's a sudden spike in murders in Philadelphia, but no one seems to mind much because the victims all seem to be lowlifes. The more Homicide Sergeant Matthew Payne investigates, however, the more he gets a bad feeling-one that only gets worse when vigilante groups spring up claiming credit for some of the hits, even though Payne knows it can't be true. As the targets get bigger and events start moving out of control, Payne realizes that if he and his colleagues can't figure out who's behind this very soon, the violence could overtake them all.

Filled with authentic color and detail, this is a riveting novel of the men and women who put their lives on the line-storytelling at its absolute best.

How To Be An American Housewife by Margaret Dilloway

A lively and surprising novel about a Japanese woman with a closely guarded secret, the American daughter who strives to live up to her mother's standards, and the rejuvenating power of forgiveness.

How to Be an American Housewife is a novel about mothers and daughters, and the pull of tradition. It tells the story of Shoko, a Japanese woman who married an American GI, and her grown daughter, Sue, a divorced mother whose life as an American housewife hasn't been what she'd expected. When illness prevents Shoko from traveling to Japan, she asks Sue to go in her place. The trip reveals family secrets that change their lives in dramatic and unforeseen ways.

Offering an entertaining glimpse into American and Japanese family lives and their potent aspirations, this is a warm and engaging novel full of unexpected insight.

Cure by Robin Cook

The "New York Times"-bestselling author and master of the medical thriller returns with another heart-pounding story of medical intrigue.

With her young son's potentially fatal neuroblastoma in complete remission, New York City medical examiner Laurie Montgomery returns to work, only to face the case of her career. The investigation into the death of CIA agent Kevin Markham is a professional challenge-and has Laurie's colleagues wondering if she still has what it takes after so much time away.

Markham's autopsy results are inconclusive, and though it appears he's been poisoned, toxicology fails to corroborate Laurie's suspicions. While her coworkers doubt her assassination theory, her determination wins over her husband, fellow medical examiner Jack Stapleton, and together they discover associations to a large pharmaceutical company and several biomedical start-ups dealing with stem-cell research. Laurie and Jack race to connect the dots before they are consumed in a dangerous game of biotech espionage.

Tough Customer: A Novel by Sandra Brown

Colleagues, friends, and lovers know Dodge Hanley as a private investigator who doesn't let rules get in his way-in his private life as well as his professional one. If he breaks a heart, or bends the law in order to catch a criminal, he does so without hesitation or apology.

That's why he's the first person Caroline King-who after a thirty-year separation continues to haunt his dreams-asks for help when a deranged stalker attempts to murder their daughter . . . the daughter Dodge has never met. He has a whole bagful of grudging excuses for wishing to ignore Caroline's call, and one compelling reason to drop everything and fly down to Texas: guilt.

Dodge's mind may be a haze of disturbing memories and bad decisions, but he arrives in Houston knowing with perfect clarity that his daughter, Berry, is in danger. She has become the object of desire of a co-worker, a madman and genius with a penchant for puzzles and games who has spent the past year making Berry's life hell, and who now has vowed to kill her.

Dodge joins forces with local deputy sheriff Ski Nyland, but the alarming situation goes from bad to worse when the stalker begins to claim other victims and leaves an ominous trail of clues as he lethally works his way toward Berry. Sensing the killer drawing nearer, Dodge, who's survived vicious criminals and his own self-destructive impulses, realizes that this time he's in for the fight of his life.

From acclaimed best-selling author Sandra Brown, Tough Customer is a heart-pounding tale about obsession and murder, the fragile nature of relationships, and, possibly, second chances.


Veil of Night: A Novel by Linda Howard

Jaclyn Wilde is a wedding planner who loves her job-usually. But helping Carrie Edwards with her Big Day has been an unrelenting nightmare. Carrie is a bridezilla of mythic nastiness, a diva whose tantrums are just about as crazy as her demands. But the unpleasant task at hand turns seriously criminal when Carrie is brutally murdered and everyone involved with the ceremony is accusing one another of doing the deed.

The problem is, most everyone-from the cake maker and the florist to the wedding-gown retailer and the bridesmaids' dressmaker-had his or her own reason for wanting the bride dead, including Jaclyn. And while those who felt Carrie's wrath are now smiling at her demise, Jaclyn refuses to celebrate tragedy, especially since she finds herself in the shadow of suspicion.

Assigned to the case, Detective Eric Wilder finds that there's too much evidence pointing toward too many suspects. Compounding his problems is Jaclyn, with whom he shared one deeply passionate night before Carrie's death. Being a prime suspect means that Jaclyn is hands-off just when Eric would rather be hands-on. As the heat intensifies between Eric and Jaclyn, a cold-blooded murderer moves dangerously close. And this time the target is not a bride but one particularly irresistible wedding planner, unaware of a killer's vow.

NON-FICTION

Through A Dog's Eyes by Jennifer Arnold

A stirring, inspiring book with the power to change the way we understand and communicate with our dogs.

Few people are more qualified to speak about the abilities and potential of dogs than Jennifer Arnold, who for the past twenty years has trained service dogs for people with physical disabilities and special needs. Arnold has developed a unique understanding of dogs'' capabilities, intelligence, sensitivity, and extra-sensory skills. Her training method is based on teaching dogs to make choices-as opposed to following commands-through kindness and encouragement rather than fear and submission, and her results are extraordinary. To Arnold, dogs are neither wolves in need of a pack leader nor babies in need of coddling; rather, they are extremely trusting beings attuned to their owners' needs and they aim to please. Relationships between dogs and humans go awry when we fail to understand our dogs and when we send them confusing, mixed signals.

Arnold’s firsthand experience-from what moved her to start her exemplary nonprofit and how she developed her methodology-guides this book and gives it a powerful emotional heft. Stories drawn from Arnold’s life and the lives of the dogs who were her greatest teachers are convincing, unforgettable, and compelling testimony and make this book a heart-warming, captivating read that will forever change the way you see your dog by showing you the way your dog sees the world.


The Girls of Murder City by Douglas Perry

The true story of the murderesses who became media sensations and inspired the musical "Chicago"
Chicago, 1924.

There was nothing surprising about men turning up dead in the Second City. Life was cheaper than a quart of illicit gin in the gangland capital of the world. But two murders that spring were special - worthy of celebration. So believed Maurine Watkins, a wanna-be playwright and a "girl reporter" for the "Chicago Tribune,” the city's "hanging paper." Newspaperwomen were supposed to write about clubs, cooking and clothes, but the intrepid Miss Watkins, a minister's daughter from a small town, zeroed in on murderers instead. Looking for subjects to turn into a play, she would make "Stylish Belva" Gaertner and "Beautiful Beulah" Annan - both of whom had brazenly shot down their lovers - the talk of the town. Love-struck men sent flowers to the jail and newly emancipated women sent impassioned letters to the newspapers. Soon more than a dozen women preened and strutted on "Murderesses' Row" as they awaited trial, desperate for the same attention that was being lavished on Maurine Watkins's favorites.

In the tradition of Erik Larson's The Devil in the White City and Karen Abbott's Sin in the Second City, Douglas Perry vividly captures Jazz Age Chicago and the sensationalized circus atmosphere that gave rise to the concept of the celebrity criminal. Fueled by rich period detail and enlivened by a cast of characters who seemed destined for the stage, The Girls of Murder City is crackling social history that simultaneously presents the freewheeling spirit of the age and its sober repercussions.

PREVIOUS WEEK

FICTION

The Red Queen: A Novel by Philippa Gregory

Heiress to the red rose of Lancaster, Margaret Beaufort never surrenders her belief that her house is the true ruler of England and that she has a great destiny before her. Her ambitions are disappointed when her sainted cousin Henry VI fails to recognize her as a kindred spirit, and she is even more dismayed when he sinks into madness. Her mother mocks her plans, revealing that Margaret will always be burdened with the reputation of her father, one of the most famously incompetent English commanders in France. But worst of all for Margaret is when she discovers that her mother is sending her to a loveless marriage in remote Wales.

Married to a man twice her age, quickly widowed, and a mother at only fourteen, Margaret is determined to turn her lonely life into a triumph. She sets her heart on putting her son on the throne of England regardless of the cost to herself, to England, and even to the little boy. Disregarding rival heirs and the overwhelming power of the York dynasty, she names him Henry, like the king; sends him into exile; and pledges him in marriage to her enemy Elizabeth of York's daughter. As the political tides constantly move and shift, Margaret charts her own way through another loveless marriage, treacherous alliances, and secret plots. She feigns loyalty to the usurper Richard III and even carries his wife's train at her coronation.

Widowed a second time, Margaret marries the ruthless, deceitful Thomas, Lord Stanley, and her fate stands on the knife edge of his will. Gambling her life that he will support her, she then masterminds one of the greatest rebellions of the time-all the while knowing that her son has grown to manhood, recruited an army, and now waits for his opportunity to win the greatest prize.

In a novel of conspiracy, passion, and coldhearted ambition, number one bestselling author Philippa Gregory has brought to life the story of a proud and determined woman who believes that she alone is destined, by her piety and lineage, to shape the course of history.

Waking the Witch by Kelley Armstrong

The new novel in Kelley Armstrong's bestselling Women of the Otherworld series showcases the fascinating Savannah Levine, a powerful young witch with a rebellious past and a troublesome heritage.

The orphaned daughter of a sorcerer and a half-demon, Savannah is a terrifyingly powerful young witch who has never been able to resist the chance to throw her magical weight around. But at twenty-one she knows she needs to grow up and prove to her guardians, Paige and Lucas, that she can be a responsible member of their supernatural detective agency. So she jumps at the chance to fly solo, investigating the mysterious deaths of three young women in a nearby factory town, as a favour to one of the agency's associates. At first glance, the murders look garden-variety human, but on closer inspection signs point to otherworldly stakes.

Soon Savannah is in over her head. She's run off the road and nearly killed, haunted by a mystery stalker and freaked out when the brother of one of the dead women is murdered when he tries to investigate the crime. To complicate things, something weird is happening to her powers. Pitted against shamans, demons, a voodoo-inflected cult and garden-variety goons, Savannah has to fight to ensure her first case isn't her last. And she also has to ask for help, perhaps the hardest lesson she's ever had to learn.

The Devil Colony by James Rollins

Deep in the Rocky Mountains, a gruesome discovery — hundreds of mummified bodies — stir international attention and fervent controversy. Despite doubts to the bodies’ origins, the local Native American Heritage Commission lays claim to the prehistoric remains, along with the strange artifacts found in the same cavern: gold plates inscribed with an unfathomable script.

During a riot at the dig site, an anthropologist dies horribly: burned to ash in a fiery explosion in plain view of television cameras. All evidence points to a radical group of Native Americans, including one agitator, a teenage firebrand who escapes with a vital clue to the murder and calls on the one person who might help: her uncle, Painter Crowe, director of Sigma Force.

To protect his niece and uncover the truth, Painter will ignite a war across the nation’s most powerful intelligence agencies. Yet, an even greater threat looms as events in the Rocky Mountains have set in motion a frightening chain reaction, a geological meltdown that threatens the entire western half of the U.S.

From the volcanic peaks of Iceland to the blistering deserts of the American Southwest, from the gold vaults of Fort Knox to the bubbling geysers of Yellowstone, Painter Crowe joins forces with Commander Gray Pierce to penetrate the shadowy heart of a dark cabal, one that has been manipulating American history since the founding of the thirteen colonies.

But can he discover the truth — one that could topple governments — before it destroys all he holds dear?

Red Star Rising: A Thriller by Brian Freemantle

"If Brian Freemantle isn't the best writer of spy novels around, he's certainly, along with John le Carré, in the top two....It doesn't get much better than this." -The Philadelphia Inquirer

The body of a murdered, tortured Russian has been found in Moscow, which isn't unusual in the crime-ridden city. What is different is that this corpse is on the lawn of the British embassy.

Eager to prevent an international incident, London dispatches veteran MI5 agent Charlie Muffin to investigate. Charlie is an old hand who recognizes that little has changed in the post--Soviet Union, most definitely not the espionage enmity between Russia, Britain, and America. The search for the identity of the murdered man enmeshes Charlie in what might be the biggest attempted espionage coup of his career.

Being in Moscow has very personal implications for Charlie, too. It provides the opportunity for a re-union with his Russian wife, Natalia, and their young daughter, whom he had to abandon because of a hurried recall to the UK five years earlier. It's also the chance to persuade the reluctant Natalia, an officer in Russia's FSB intelligence service, to return with him to London.

Brian Freemantle has been hailed as a master of the spy novel. His books have sold millions of copies throughout the world, and now he returns with Red Star Rising, set in a modern-day Russia where the only thing that has changed about the KGB is its name.

In Harm's Way by Ridley Pearson

The "New York Times"-bestselling author delivers another extraordinary Walt Fleming thriller.

Sun Valley sheriff Walt Fleming's budding relationship with photographer Fiona Kenshaw hits a rough patch after Fiona is involved in a heroic river rescue and she attempts to duck the press. Despite her job and her laudable actions, she begs Walt to keep her photo out of the paper, avoiding him when he can't.

Then Walt gets a phone call that changes everything: Lou Boldt, a police sergeant out of Seattle, calls to report that a recent murder may have a Sun Valley connection. After a badly beaten body is discovered just off a local highway, Walt knows there is a link-but can he pull the pieces together in time?

Venom: A Novel of Suspense by Joan Brady

A gripping tale of international corporate intrigue from the award-winning author of Bleedout . . .

EASTERN EUROPE . . . Thirty years after Chernobyl, nuclear fallout is still claiming victims.

ILLINOIS . . . Fresh out of prison, David Marion doesn't expect a hit man at his door. But when one appears, their meeting is lethal-for the hit man. Who sent him? David has no idea. But warned that a powerful secret organization is after him, he is forced to disappear until he can strike back.

ALABAMA . . . Devastated by the death of her lover, physicist Helen Freyl escapes to her bee farm to care for a colony carrying a unique strain of venom. But when an unexpected job offer from a giant drug corporation arrives, it proves to be a much more intriguing diversion.

LONDON, ENGLAND . . . Helen's new company is close to a cure for radiation poisoning, but the sudden death of a colleague is followed by another, and Helen begins to doubt the organization's motives. When she realizes her own life is in danger, what can she do and who can she call on for help?

Venom brings David Marion and Helen Freyl together as they fight for their lives against a backdrop of industrial espionage, corporate greed, and human tragedy in an exhilarating and fast-paced follow-up to the bestselling Bleedout.


Fragile: A Novel by Lisa Unger

From the New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Lies, Black Out, and Die for You comes a novel of corrosive secrets, tenuous connections, and the all-encompassing strength of a mother’s faith.

Despite their mostly happy marriage, when their son Ricky’s girlfriend vanishes, Maggie and Jones find themselves at odds-Maggie is positive Ricky had nothing to do with Charlene’s disappearance, while Jones isn’t as sure. With Charlene gone, the memory of another young girl who went missing some twenty years ago is haunting the town. That story didn’t have a happy ending, and almost everyone has an unrevealed reason to keep the horror of it firmly in the past.

As Jones and the police turn their focus on Ricky, Maggie must find out the truth about what happened all those years ago. In order to save her son and the young woman whose life hangs in the balance, she’ll test the bonds of her community-and find out just how fragile they can be.

Internecine by David J Schow

"Smart, scathing, and verbally inventive to an astonishing degree, David J. Schow is one of the most interesting writers of his generation."-Peter Straub

"Inter-what?" When advertising executive Conrad Maddox returns from a redeye flight and finds a mysterious locker key waiting in his rental car, he discovers a briefcase loaded with guns and money. Several hours later, his entire life tumbles down a rabbit hole when he meets Dandine, owner of the case and former contract assassin for a shadowy organization called Norco, which is now out to nail both of them.

"Internecine" means conflict, mutual destruction, and slaughter-or, as Dandine tells Conrad, they are now inadvertently at play in a field of "terrorism, counter-assassination, military coups, dirty tricks, Watergate, spy vs. spy, murky secret organizations, that sort of thing." A world in which being innocent can't save you, the police can't help you, and your only hope of getting out alive is to risk unheard-of dangers against opponents with nearly unlimited power. To free themselves from the spider web of black ops, murder, madness and betrayal, Dandine and Conrad must delve ever-deeper into the spiraling, dangerous maze that is Norco, where everyone seems to be in on the most lethal of games. Except you.

A Man in Uniform by Kate Taylor

A seductive new novel from the author of the award-winning bestseller Mme Proust and the Kosher Kitchen. Who wouldn’t fall for A Man in Uniform?

At the height of the Belle Epoque, the bourgeois lawyer François Dubon lives a well-ordered life. He spends his days at his office, his evenings with his aristocratic wife - and his afternoons with his generous mistress. But this complacent existence is shattered when a mysterious widow pays him a call. She insists only Dubon can rescue her innocent friend, an army captain by the name of Dreyfus who has been convicted of spying. Against his better judgment, Dubon is drawn into a case that will forever alter his life - and tear France herself apart. Kate Taylor artfully mixes mystery and history in this page-turning jaunt through 19th-century Parisian society.

NON-FICTION

The Weather of the Future by Heidi Cullen

Droughts. Floods. Climate refugees.

Global warming isn't just about polar bears anymore.

Let's assume we do nothing about climate change. Imagine that we just continue to emit carbon at our current levels or even exceed those levels. How would our weather change? What would our forecast be? Welcome to "The Weather of the Future."

In this groundbreaking work, Dr. Heidi Cullen, one of the world's foremost climatologists and environmental journalists, puts a vivid face on climate change, offering a new way of seeing this phenomenon not just as an event set to happen in the distant future but as something happening right now in our own backyards. Arguing that we must connect the weather of today with the climate change of tomorrow, Cullen combines the latest research from scientists on the ground with state-of-the-art climate-model projections to create climate-change scenarios for seven of the most at-risk locations around the world.

From the Central Valley of California, where coming droughts will jeopardize the entire state's water supply, to Greenland, where warmer temperatures will give access to mineral wealth buried beneath ice sheets for millennia, Cullen illustrates how, if left unabated, climate change will transform every corner of the world by midcentury. What emerges is a mosaic of changing weather patterns that collectively spell out the range of risks posed by global warming--whether it's New York City, whose infrastructure is extremely vulnerable to even a relatively weak category 3 hurricane, or Bangladesh, a country so low-lying that millions of people could become climate refugees due to rising sea levels.
Provocative and convincing, "The Weather of the Future" makes climate change local, showing how no two regions of the country or the world will be affected in quite the same way, and demonstrating that melting ice is just the beginning.

The Honey Trail: In Pursuit of Liquid Gold and Vanishing Bees by Grace Pundyk

A unique look at the history, culture, tradition, and environmental impact of honey

The Honey Trail is a global travel narrative that looks at different aspects of how honey and bees are being affected by globalization, terrorism, deforestation, the global food trade, and climate change. This unique book not only questions the state of our environment and the impact it is having on bees and honey, it also takes readers on an adventure across Yemeni deserts and Borneo jungles, through the Mississippi Delta and Tasmania's rainforests, over frozen Siberian snowscapes and ancient Turkish villages all in search of the liquid gold known as honey.

Including fascinating insights such as:
. A bee produces only a teaspoon of honey in its lifetime
. China is the world's largest honey producer
. Honey is only used as medicine in Borneo
. There are more than thirty-five mono-floral honeys in Tuscany.

Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War by Andrew Bacevich

The bestselling author of The Limits of Power critically examines the Washington consensus on national security and why it must change

For the last half century, as administrations have come and gone, the fundamental assumptions about America's military policy have remained unchanged: American security requires the United States (and us alone) to maintain a permanent armed presence around the globe, to prepare our forces for military operations in far-flung regions, and to be ready to intervene anywhere at any time. In the Obama era, just as in the Bush years, these beliefs remain unquestioned gospel.

In a vivid, incisive analysis, Andrew J. Bacevich succinctly presents the origins of this consensus, forged at a moment when American power was at its height. He exposes the preconceptions, biases, and habits that underlie our pervasive faith in military might, especially the notion that overwhelming superiority will oblige others to accommodate America's needs and desires-whether for cheap oil, cheap credit, or cheap consumer goods. And he challenges the usefulness of our militarism as it has become both unaffordable and increasingly dangerous.

Though our politicians deny it, American global might is faltering. This is the moment, Bacevich argues, to reconsider the principles which shape American policy in the world-to acknowledge that fixing Afghanistan should not take precedence over fixing Detroit. Replacing this Washington consensus is crucial to America's future, and may yet offer the key to the country's salvation.

PREVIOUS

Fiction

Blood Ties: A Bishop Special Crimes Unit Novel by Kay Hooper

"New York Times" bestselling author Kay Hooper takes us to the outer reaches of fear in her latest thriller, as the Special Crimes Unit finds itself targeted by a monster intent on destroying both Noah Bishop and his people.

The elite Special Crimes Unit, the FBI's most controversial and effective team, is a group of mavericks and misfits trained to use their unique psychic abilities to hunt the worst monsters imaginable--human ones. Led by the enigmatic Noah Bishop, the SCU has earned a reputation for pitting their skills and cunning against killers that other cops fear. But this time Bishop and his agents face an enemy who has them in his sights, a trained sniper with a deadly plan--and more than one ace up his sleeve.
It starts with an unspeakable series of grisly murders across three states, a trail of blood leading, finally, to the small Tennessee town of Serenade. There, two more brutal killings lure the SCU into what may be the ultimate trap.

One of the first investigators on the scene, Special Agent Hollis Templeton, is willing to push herself as hard and as far as necessary. Risking more than her life to help and protect her SCU colleagues, Hollis must cope with her own psychic abilities, which are evolving in unprecedented ways, an attraction to the most complex man she's ever known, and a serial murder investigation that turns very, very personal.

In her time with the SCU, Hollis has shown an uncanny ability to survive even the deadliest attacks. But what she can't know is that this killer intends to destroy the team from within.

The clock is ticking. The body count is rising. And as Bishop and his agents race to uncover the true identity of their enemy, not even their special senses can warn them just how bloody, and how terrifyingly close, the truth will be.

Gator A-go-go: A Novel by Tim Dorsey

That's right: Serge and Coleman do spring break!

It's been a long time coming, but they're at the party now-and you'll never look at a Frisbee the same way again.

One spring break location obviously isn't enough for Serge, so he must hit them all, traveling through various historic locales, spewing nuggets of history at anyone who won't run away and dispensing his own signature brand of Sunshine State justice.

Along the way he and his sidekick, Coleman, attract a growing following of the nation's top college students . . . and a mysterious gang that leaves a trail of young bodies in their wake.

Are the kids safer under Serge's protection? Or does being with him put them in more peril? The classroom and the pot brownies never prepared them for this.

Which raises more questions: Who's the guy studying satellite photos? Where did the protected witness go? When did Coleman get all those trophies? Why are the Feds hot on everyone's trail? How did the burnt corpse end up by the pool? What's the best way to keep beer cool on the beach?

Then there are the coke smugglers gone legit and a pair of the most dangerously sexy bartenders to ever mix a rum runner. Throw in some dirty dancing contests, illicit drugs, rockin' tunes, screamin' sports cars, bungee rides, pawned class rings, and church breakfasts, and you've got a potent concoction that keeps the hotel's concierge up all night stopping people from falling off the balconies.

Want even more? Serge says, "You got it!"

After years of quiet, a legendary Miami kingpin from the anything-goes eighties is suddenly back in the news . . . along with one of the state's most psychotic homicidal monsters, every bit as criminally insane as Serge-except without the morals.

The mysteries continue to mount: How did Coleman end up with even more disciples than Serge? Can kids successfully climb fences while carrying pizzas? Will Serge survive the carnage, armed with a GPS and a kiddie pool?

All will soon be answered-and of course every last moment is caught on tape as Serge creates his most excellent documentary ever, the making of Gator A-Go-Go.

Pack the cooler, load the car, and head to where the water is warm for a spring vacation you won't soon forget-no matter how much you might try!

The Melting Season by Jami Attenberg

A tender, provocative story about the power of friendship, the thrill of self-discovery, and the strength it takes to escape the past.

Catherine Madison is headed West with a suitcase full of cash that isn't hers. She's just left the only home she's ever known, a small town in Nebraska, after the only man she had ever known, her husband, Thomas, deserted her. She's also left behind her deepest, most shameful secrets-among them a dysfunctional family she's never quite been able to escape and a marriage whose most intimate moments have plagued her with self-doubt. On the road, she was going to become a new person. Or so she thought.

But running away from the past isn't as easy as she had hoped. When Catherine reaches Las Vegas, she forms surprising new friendships that compel her to reveal what she had sworn she'd keep hidden, and teach her what human connection really means. Armed with this new knowledge, she is finally emboldened to uncover the truth about her family, come to understand what destroyed her marriage, and prevent her troubled sister from repeating her mistakes.

Deeply compassionate and unflinchingly bold, The Melting Season is the story of an indelible character's journey from isolation to belonging, as well as an honest look at the things we feel we deserve from our lives- and how far we will go to find them.

The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers: A Novel by Thomas Mullen

"Late one night in August 1934, following a yearlong spree of bank robberies across the Midwest, the Firefly Brothers are forced into a police shootout and die . . . for the first time."

In award-winning author Thomas Mullen's evocative new novel, the highly anticipated follow-up to his acclaimed debut, The Last Town on Earth, we follow the Depression-era adventures of Jason and Whit Fireson--bank robbers known as the Firefly Brothers by the press, the authorities, and an adoring public that worships their acts as heroic counterpunches thrown at a broken system.

Now it appears they have at last met their end in a hail of bullets. Jason and Whit's lovers--Darcy, a wealthy socialite, and Veronica, a hardened survivor--struggle between grief and an unyielding belief that the Fireson’s have survived. While they and the Fireson’s stunned mother and straight-arrow third son wade through conflicting police reports and press accounts, wild rumors spread that the bandits are still at large. Through it all, the Firefly Brothers remain as charismatic, unflappable, and as mythical as the American Dream itself, racing to find the women they love and make sense of a world in which all has come unmoored.

Complete with kidnappings and gangsters, heiresses and speakeasies, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers is an imaginative and spirited saga about what happens when you are hopelessly outgunned--and a masterly tale of hardship, redemption, and love that transcends death.

Wild Child by T. C. Boyle

A superb new collection from "a writer who can take you anywhere" ("The New York Times")

In the title story of this rich new collection, T.C. Boyle has created so vivid and original a retelling of the story of Victor, the feral boy who was captured running naked through the forests of Napoleonic France, that it becomes not just new but definitive: yes, this is how it must have been. The tale is by turns magical and moving, a powerful investigation of what it means to be human.

There is perhaps no one better than T.C. Boyle at engaging, shocking, and ultimately gratifying his readers while at the same time testing his characters' emotional and physical endurance. The fourteen stories gathered here display both Boyle's astonishing range and his imaginative muscle. Nature is the dominant player in many of these stories, whether in the form of the catastrophic mudslide that allows a cynic to reclaim his own humanity ("La Conchita") or the wind-driven fires that howl through a high California canyon ("Ash Monday"). Other tales range from the drama of a man who spins Homeric lies in order to stop going to work, to that of a young woman who must babysit for a $250,000 cloned Afghan and the sad comedy of a child born to Mexican street vendors who is unable to feel pain.

Brilliant, incisive, and always entertaining, Boyle's short stories showcase the mischievous humor and socially conscious sensibility that have made him one of the most acclaimed writers of our time.

The Queens Governess by Karen Harper

A fresh and intriguing historical novel told in the voice of Queen Elizabeth I's governess.

Katherine Ashley, the daughter of a poor country squire, happily secures an education and a place for herself in a noble household. But when Thomas Cromwell, a henchman for King Henry VIII, brings her to the royal court as a spy, Kat enters into a thrilling new world of the Tudor monarchs.

Freed from a life of espionage by Cromwell's downfall, Kat eventually befriends Anne Boleyn. As a dying favor to the doomed queen, Kat becomes governess and surrogate-mother to the young Elizabeth Tudor. Together they suffer bitter exile, assassination attempts, and imprisonment, barely escaping with their lives. But they do, and when Elizabeth is crowned, Kat continues to serve her, faithfully guarding all the queen's secrets (including Elizabeth's affair with the dashing Robert Dudley) . . . and ultimately emerging as the lifelong confidante and true mother-figure to Queen Elizabeth.

Bricklayer by Noah Boyd

Someone gives you a dangerous puzzle to solve, one that may kill you or someone else, and you're about to fail. . . . And there is no other option. No one who can help. No one but the Bricklayer.

The Bricklayer is the pulse-pounding novel introducing Steve Vail, one of the most charismatic new heroes to come along in thriller fiction in many years. He's an ex-FBI agent who's been fired for insubordination but is lured back to the Bureau to work a case that has become more unsolvable-and more deadly-by the hour.

A woman steps out of the shower in her Los Angeles home and is startled by an intruder sitting calmly in her bedroom holding a gun. But she is frozen with fear by what he has to say about the FBI-and what he says he must do. . . .

A young agent slips into the night water off a rocky beach. He's been instructed to swim to a nearby island to deposit a million dollars demanded by a blackmailer. But his mission is riddled with hazardous tests, as if someone wanted to destroy him rather than collect the money. . . .

Vail has resigned himself to his dismissal and is content with his life as a bricklayer. But the FBI, especially Deputy Assistant Director Kate Bannon, needs help with a shadowy group that has initiated a brilliant extortion plot. The group will keep killing their targets until the agency pays them off, the amount and number of bodies escalating each time the FBI fails. One thing is clear: someone who knows a little too much about the inner workings of the Bureau is very clever -and very angry-and will kill and kill again if it means he can disgrace the FBI.

Steve Vail's options -and his time to find answers-are swiftly running out.

Noah Boyd's The Bricklayer is written with the bracing authenticity only someone who has been a crack FBI investigator can provide. And in this masterful debut Boyd has created a mind-bending maze of clues and traps inside a nonstop thrill ride that is sure to leave readers exhilarated and enthralled.

Non-Fiction

I Am Ozzy by Ozzy Osbourne

"They've said some crazy things about me over the years. I mean, okay: 'He bit the head off a bat.' Yes. 'He bit the head off a dove.' Yes. But then you hear things like, 'Ozzy went to the show last night, but he wouldn't perform until he'd killed fifteen puppies . . .' Now me, kill fifteen puppies? I love puppies. I've got eighteen of the f**king things at home. I've killed a few cows in my time, mind you. And the chickens … I shot the chickens in my house that night.

It haunts me, all this crazy stuff. Every day of my life has been an event. I took lethal combinations of booze and drugs for thirty f**king years. I survived a direct hit by a plane, suicidal overdoses, STDs. I've been accused of attempted murder. Then I almost died while riding over a bump on a quad bike at f**king two miles per hour.

People ask me how come I'm still alive, and I don't know what to say. When I was growing up, if you'd have put me up against a wall with the other kids from my street and asked me which one of us was gonna make it to the age of sixty, which one of us would end up with five kids and four grandkids and houses in Buckinghamshire and Beverly Hills, I wouldn't have put money on me, no f**king way. But here I am: ready to tell my story, in my own words, for the first time.

A lot of it ain't gonna be pretty. I've done some bad things in my time. I've always been drawn to the dark side, me. But I ain't the "devil." I'm just John Osbourne: a working-class kid from Aston, who quit his job in the factory and went looking for a good time."

The Eat-Clean Diet Recharged: Lasting Fat Loss That’s Better than Ever by Tosca Reno

The Eat-Clean Diet helped readers understand how to stay healthy and lean forever. Three years later, hundreds of thousands of superstars, personal trainers and regular everyday people have overcome their weight and health problems by following The Eat-Clean Diet. This larger, revised and fully updated edition offers in-depth information on: non-threatening exercise o extending and improving your life o getting - and staying - motivated o getting rid of cellulite o tightening your skin o combating the harsh effects of menopause Plus! Nearly 100 new pages; Total redesign; 50 new recipes; Information on eating disorders; Menu plans for different diets; The Quick Eat-Clean Diet at a glance.

Devotion: A Memoir by Dani Shapiro

In her mid-forties and settled into the responsibilities and routines of adulthood, Dani Shapiro found herself with more questions than answers. Was this all life was-a hodgepodge of errands, dinner dates, e-mails, meetings, to-do lists? What did it all mean?

Having grown up in a deeply religious and traditional family, Shapiro had no personal sense of faith, despite repeated attempts to create a connection to something greater. Feeling as if she was plunging headlong into what Carl Jung termed "the afternoon of life," she wrestled with self-doubt and a searing disquietude that would awaken her in the middle of the night. Set adrift by loss-her father's early death; the life-threatening illness of her infant son; her troubled relationship with her mother-she had become edgy and uncertain. At the heart of this anxiety, she realized, was a challenge: What did she believe? Spurred on by the big questions her young son began to raise, Shapiro embarked upon a surprisingly joyful quest to find meaning in a constantly changing world. The result is Devotion: a literary excavation to the core of a life.

In this spiritual detective story, Shapiro explores the varieties of experience she has pursued-from the rituals of her black hat Orthodox Jewish relatives to yoga shalas and meditation retreats. A reckoning of the choices she has made and the knowledge she has gained, Devotion is the story of a woman whose search for meaning ultimately leads her home. Her journey is at once poignant and funny, intensely personal-and completely universal.

Linchpin by Seth Godin

The bestselling author of Tribes and The Dip returns with his most powerful book yet.

Who is Seth Godin?

"It's easy to see why people pay to hear what he has to say. Godin is a marketer, but in the broadest sense of the word. He's interested in not simply how products are marketed, but also how people sell themselves and their ideas, and how new technology can be a game-changer." - Time.com

"Thousands of authors write business books every year but only a handful reach star status and the A-list lecture circuit. Fewer still - one, to be exact - can boast his own action figure. In the nearly ten years since his first bestseller, Godin has become a marketing phenomenon with a string of titles, including Purple Cow, Unleashing the Ideavirus, and his newest, Tribes. Across all media, Godin delivers his combination of counterintuitive thinking and a great sense of fun." -BusinessWeek.com

"The marketing expert is a demigod on the Web, a bestselling author, highly sought after lecturer, successful entrepreneur, respected pundit and high-profile blogger. He is uniquely respected for his understanding of the Internet, and his essays and opinions are widely read and quoted online and off." -Forbes.com

Freedom for Sale: Why the World Is Trading Democracy for Security by John Kampfner

An award-winning journalist argues that democracy is in recession--and explains why the West should worry.

Healing Hearts: A Memoir Of A Female Heart Surgeon by Kathy Magliato

An inspiring, surprising, and deeply informative memoir of the high-stakes life of a female heart surgeon.

Dr. Kathy Magliato is one of fewer than a dozen female heart surgeons practicing in the world today. She is also a member of an even more exclusive group--those surgeons who perform heart transplants. Healing Hearts is the story of the making of a surgeon who also calls herself a wife and mother. Dr. Magliato takes us into her highly demanding, physically intense, male-dominated world and shows us how she masterfully works to save patients lives every day.

In her memoir we come to know many of those patients whose lives Dr. Magliato has touched: a baby born with a hole in her heart, a ninety-four-year-old woman with heart failure, and a thirty-five year old movie producer who saves her own life by recognizing the symptoms of a heart attack. Along the way, Dr. Magliato sheds light on the rarely recognized symptoms of heart attack and cardiovascular disease--the #1 killer of women in America--and the specific measures that can be taken to prevent it.

By taking us deep into her life and those of her patients, Dr. Magliato acquaints us with the day to day realities of her life and work. We see her frantically juggle a full and happy family life as the wife of a liver transplant surgeon (they each have bedside tables cluttered with pagers and cell-phones) and mother of two young boys. We also see the toll that being a female pioneer can take, as well as the rewards of such demanding work.

Dr. Magliato's powerful and moving memoir demonstrates her love, passion, and commitment towards both her work and family and reveals that, at the end of a long day, it's the heart that matters most.

Mark Twain: Man In White: The Grand Adventure Of His Final Years by Michael Shelden

One day in late 1906, seventy-one-year-old Mark Twain attended a meeting on copyright law at the Library of Congress. The arrival of the famous author caused the usual stir--but then Twain took off his overcoat to reveal a "snow-white" tailored suit and scandalized the room. His shocking outfit appalled and delighted his contemporaries, but far more than that, as Pulitzer Prize finalist Michael Shelden shows in this wonderful new biography, Twain had brilliantly staged this act of showmanship to cement his image, and his personal legend, in the public's imagination. That afternoon in Washington, less than four years before his death, marked the beginning of a vibrant, tumultuous period in Twain's life that would shape much of the now-famous image by which he has come to be known--America's indomitable icon, the Man in White.

Although Mark Twain has long been one of our most beloved literary figures--Time magazine has declared him "our original superstar"--his final years have been largely misunderstood. Despite family tragedies, Twain's last half- decade was among the most dynamic periods in the author's life. With the spirit and vigor of a man fifty years younger, he continued to stir up trouble, perfecting his skill for living large. Writing ceaselessly and always ready with one of his legendary quips, Twain would risk his fortune, become the willing victim of a lost-at-sea hoax, and pick fights with King Leopold of Belgium and Mary Baker Eddy.

Drawing on a number of unpublished sources, including Twain's own journals, letters, and a revealing four-hundred-page personal account kept under wraps for decades (and still yet to be published), Mark Twain: Man in White brings the legendary author's twilight years vividly to life, offering surprising insights, including an intimate, tender look at his family life. Filled with first-rate scholarship, rare and never-published Twain photos, delightful anecdotes, and memorable quotes, including numerous recovered Twainisms, this definitive biography of Twain's last years" "provides a remarkable portrait of the man himself and of the unforgettable era in American letters that, in many ways, he helped to create.

 

Previous weeks

Fiction

 

Nanny Returns: A Novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

The highly anticipated sequel to the #1 New York Times bestseller, picks up over a decade later as Nan returns to New York City.

Now she's back. After living abroad for twelve years, she and her husband, Ryan, aka H.H., have returned to New York to make a life for themselves. In the midst of getting her new business off the ground and fixing up their fixer-upper, Ryan announces his sudden desire to start a family. His timing simply couldn't be worse.

To compound the mounting construction and marital chaos, her former charge, Grayer X, now sixteen years old, makes a drunken, late-night visit, wanting to know why she abandoned him all those years ago. But how can she explain to Grayer what she still hasn't come to terms with herself? In an attempt to assuage her guilt, yet against every instinct, Nan tries to help Grayer and his younger brother, Stilton, through their parents' brutal divorce, drawing her back into the ever-bizarre life of Mrs. X and her Upper East Side enclave of power and privilege.

After putting miles and years between herself and this world, Nan finds she's once again on the front line of the battle with the couture-clad elite for their children's wellbeing.

With its whip-smart dialogue and keen observations of modern life, Nanny Returns gives a firsthand tour of what happens when a community that chose money over love finds itself with neither.

The Nanny Diaries was made into a major motion picture.

 

The Monster in the Box by Ruth Rendell

Inspector Wexford returns in his most surprising case yet.

"He had never told anyone. The strange relationship, if it could be called that, had gone on for years, decades, and he had never breathed a word about it. He had kept silent because he knew no one would believe him. None of it could be proved, not the stalking, not the stares or the conspiratorial smiles, not the killings, not any of the signs Targo had made because he knew Wexford knew and could do nothing about it."

Wexford had almost made up his mind that he would never again set eyes on Eric Targo's short, muscular figure. And yet there he was, back in Kingsmarkham, still with that cocky, strutting walk.

Years earlier, when Wexford was a young police officer, a woman called Elsie Carroll had been found strangled in her bedroom. Although many still had their suspicions that her husband was guilty, no one was convicted. Another woman was strangled shortly afterwards, and every personal and professional instinct told Wexford that the killer was still at large. And it was Eric Targo. A psychopath who would kill again...

As the Chief Inspector investigates a new case, Ruth Rendell looks back to the beginning of Wexford's career, even to his courtship of the woman who would become his wife. The past is a haunted place, with clues and passions that leave an indelible imprint on the here and now.

 

The Disciple: A Novel by Stephen Coonts

In this new novel by the New York Times bestselling author, Stephen Coonts, Iran is weeks away from acquiring nuclear weapons and has every intention of using them to strike first- only Tommy Carmellini and Jake Grafton can stop a nuclear nightmare.

Iran is much closer to having operational nuclear weapons than the CIA believes, and Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has a plan. Iran will become a martyr nation, and Ahmadinejad will lead the united Muslims of the world in a holy war against the non-believers. But the Americans have a secret weapon in a group of Iranian dissidents, including a brother and sister determined to avenge the death of their beloved grandfather at the hands of the religious police. They are funneling information to Carmellini. They want to stop the attack before their leader launches a new world war. But will the U.S. government believe the information they are providing, and can the Americans prevent the Israelis from taking matters into their own hands, which could prove disastrous?

Returning to the kind of military and espionage story that made Cuba one of his most successful novels, Coonts weaves an unforgettable tale of men and women at war, with the sort of dramatic military action and undercover technology for which Coonts is known.

 

The Good Son: A Novel by Russel D McLean

 “The Good Son is the most exciting, and gripping, Scottish crime fiction debut of recent years. Stylish and atmospheric, it marks the arrival of a exceptional talent." — John Connolly

 McLean has all the merits of this brilliant writer [Jean-Patrick Manchette] with the added bonus of a Scottish sense of wit that is like no other. — Ken Bruen

 "Scottish crime fiction is entering a new era and Russel McLean is at the vanguard. A thrilling new writer, a brilliant debut...The Good Son is very good indeed." — Tony Black

 Recipient of widespread praise for his award-winning crime short stories, Russel McLean’s full-length debut has been characterized by key crime authors and critics alike as the emergence of a major talent.

 There is something rotten behind the apparent suicide of Daniel Robertson and it’s about to come bursting into the life of J. McNee, a Scottish private investigator with a near-crushing level of personal baggage.  James Robertson, a local farmer, finds his estranged brother’s corpse hanging from a tree. The police claim suicide. But McNee is about to uncover the disturbing truth behind the death.

 With a pair of vicious London thugs on the move in the Scottish countryside, it’s only a matter of time before people start dying. As the body count rises, McNee finds himself on a collision course with his own demons and an increasing array of brutal killers in a violent, bloody showdown that threatens to leave none involved alive.

 Plumbing the depths of love, loss, betrayal, and one broken man’s attempt to come to terms with his past, The Good Son successfully blends the classic style of the gumshoe era with the outer edges of modern noir.

 

Divine Misdemeanors: A Novel by Laurell K. Hamilton

 You may know me best as Meredith Nic Essus, princess of faerie. Or perhaps as Merry Gentry, Los Angeles private eye. In the fey and mortal realms alike, my life is the stuff of royal intrigue and celebrity drama. Among my own, I have confronted horrendous enemies, endured my noble kin's treachery and malevolence, and honored my duty to conceive a royal heir--all for the right to claim the throne. But I turned my back on court and crown, choosing exile in the human world--and in the arms of my beloved Frost and Darkness.

While I may have rejected the monarchy, I cannot abandon my people. Someone is killing the fey, which has left the LAPD baffled and my guardsmen and me deeply disturbed. My kind are not easily captured or killed. At least not by mortals. I must get to the bottom of these horrendous murders, even if that means going up against Gilda, the Fairy Godmother, my rival for fey loyalties in Los Angeles.

But even stranger things are happening. Mortals I once healed with magic are suddenly performing miracles, a shocking phenomenon wreaking havoc on human/faerie relations. Though I am innocent, dark suspicions of banned magical activities swirl around me.

I thought I'd left the blood and politics behind in my own turbulent realm. I had dreamed of an idyllic life in sunny L.A. with my beloved ones beside me. But it becomes time to wake up and realize that evil knows no borders, and that nobody lives forever--even if they're magical.

Non-Fiction

 

How the Best Leaders Lead: Proven Secrets to Getting the Most Out Of Yourself and Others by Brian Tracy

Leadership is the critical factor that determines the success of any business. The ability to select, manage, motivate, and guide employees to achieve results is the true measure of success. In this book, business expert Brian Tracy reveals the strategies used by top executives and business owners to achieve astounding results in difficult markets against determined competition. Tracy has worked with more than 1,000 companies in 52 countries. In How the Best Leaders Lead, he gives you a series of practical, proven ideas and strategies that leaders and managers can use immediately. They'll learn how to:

 

• determine their ideal leadership style for any situation
• Set clear goals and objectives *Develop an exciting future vision for their business
• Solve problems faster and make better decisions
• Build, manage, and motivate winning teams

 With this guide, anyone can learn how to become a better and more effective leader and get more done faster than they ever dreamed possible.

 

The Spark: The 28-Day Breakthrough Plan for Losing Weight, Getting Fit, and Transforming Your Life by Chris Downie

 Commonly known as "SparkGuy," Chris Downie is the founder and CEO of SparkPeople.com, the largest healthy lifestyle community online. Chris and his team have led SparkPeople to become the most active diet-related site in the U.S. according to comScore, garnering the attention of media outlets including The New York Times, ABC News, FOX TV, The Today Show, and many more. As SparkPeople's resident motivation expert, Chris corresponds directly with members everyday. He has written over 10,000 personal messages offering encouragement and congratulations. With more than five million members, SparkPeople and its associated websites (sparkrecipes.com, babyfit.com, and sparkteens.com) gain nearly 175,000 new members each month.

 

The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron by Rebecca Keegan

 With the release of "Avatar," James Cameron cements his reputation as king of sci-fi and blockbuster filmmaking. It's a distinction he's long been building, through a directing career that includes such cinematic landmarks as "The Terminator," "Aliens," "The Abyss," and the highest grossing movie of all time, "Titanic."

The Futurist is the first in-depth look at every aspect of this audacious creative genius--culminating in an exclusive behind-the-scenes glimpse of the making of "Avatar," the movie that promises to utterly transform the way motion pictures are created and perceived. As decisive a break with the past as the transition from silents to talkies, "Avatar" pushes 3-D, live action and photo-realistic CGI to a new level. It rips through the emotional barrier of the screen to transport the audience to a fabulous new virtual world.

With cooperation from the often reclusive Cameron, author Rebecca Keegan has crafted a singularly revealing portrait of the director's life and work. We meet the young truck driver who sees "Star Wars" and resolves to make his own space blockbuster--starting by building a futuristic cityscape with cardboard and X-Acto knives. We observe the neophyte director deciding over lunch with Arnold Schwarzenegger that the ex-body builder turned actor is wrong in every way for the Terminator role as written, but perfect regardless. After the success of "The Terminator," Cameron refines his special-effects wizardry with a big-time Hollywood budget in the creation of the relentlessly exciting "Aliens." He builds an immense underwater set for "The Abyss" in the massive containment vessel of an abandoned nuclear power plant--where he pushes his scuba-equipped cast to and sometimes past their physical and emotional breaking points (including a white rat that Cameron saved from drowning by performing CPR). And on the set of "Titanic," the director struggles to stay in charge when someone maliciously spikes craft services' mussel chowder with a massive dose of PCP, rendering most of the cast and crew temporarily psychotic.

Now, after his movies have earned over $3 billion at the box office, James Cameron is astounding the world with the most expensive, innovative, and ambitious movie of his career. For decades the moviemaker has been ready to tell the "Avatar" story but was forced to hold off his ambitions until technology caught up with his vision. Going beyond the technical ingenuity and narrative power that Cameron has long demonstrated, "Avatar" shatters old cinematic paradigms and ushers in a new era of storytelling.

The Futurist is the story of the man who finally brought movies into the twenty-first century.

 

The 4-hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, with Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-edge Content by Timothy Ferriss

More than 100 pages of new, cutting-edge content.

Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan-there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more and working less, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint.

This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches:

•How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week
•How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
•How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
•How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
•How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent "mini-retirements"

The new expanded edition of Tim Ferriss' The 4-Hour Workweek includes:

•More than 50 practical tips and case studies from readers (including families) who have doubled income, overcome common sticking points, and reinvented themselves using the original book as a starting point
•Real-world templates you can copy for eliminating e-mail, negotiating with bosses and clients, or getting a private chef for less than $8 a meal
•How Lifestyle Design principles can be suited to unpredictable economic times
•The latest tools and tricks, as well as high-tech shortcuts, for living like a diplomat or millionaire without being either

 

Back To Top

• Home
• Store
• News
• Calendar
• Sitemap
• Links
• Contact