The 8th Confession

by James Patterson; Maxine Paetro

by

Publisher

Hachette Audio

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: As San Francisco's most glamorous millionaires mingle at the party of the year, someone is watching--waiting for a chance to take vengeance on Isa and Ethan Bailey, the city's most celebrated couple. Finally, the killer pinpoints the ideal moment, and it's the perfect murder. Not a trace of evidence is left behind in their glamorous home. As Detective Lindsay Boxer investigates the high-profile murder, someone else is found brutally executed--a preacher with a message of hope for the homeless. His death nearly falls through the cracks, but when reporter Cindy Thomas hears about it, she knows the story could be huge. Probing deeper into the victim's history, she discovers he may not have been quite as saintly as everyone thought.As the hunt for two criminals tests the limits of the Women's Murder Club, Lindsay sees sparks fly between Cindy and her partner, Detective Rich Conklin. The Women's Murder Club now faces its toughest challenge: will love destroy all that four friends have built? The exhilarating new chapter in the Women's Murder Club series, The 8th Confession serves up a double dose of speed-charged twists and shocking revelations as only James Patterson can. And remember, this is the only Murder Club episode of the year.

The 5th Horseman

by James Patterson; Maxine Paetro; Carolyn McCormick (Reader)

Publisher

Hachette Audio

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: The members of the Women's Murder Club face an unspeakable menace in the most suspenseful hospital drama since Coma. Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer is shopping with the newest member of the Women's Murder Club, lawyer Yuki Castellano, and Yuki's mother, Keiko, when suddenly Keiko collapses. She's rushed to San Francisco Medical Center where her condition stabilizes. Yet days later, the hospital calls Yuki with devastating news. Keiko was given the wrong medication and it brought on a fatal heart attack. Even more astonishing, this is not the first time SFMC has made this mistake. Just as patients are about to be released with a clean bill of health, their conditions take a mysterious turn for the worse. As the hospital comes under scrutiny, Lindsay and the Women's Murder Club investigate for themselves. Is there a maniac at work, playing God with peoples lives? And has Lindsay somehow made him -- or her -- even worse? The newest addition to the top-selling new mystery series takes the Women's Murder Club into the most terrifying situation they have yet to encounter.

The 47th Samurai: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel

by Stephen Hunter

by

Publisher

Simon & Schuster

Published

January 2010

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: In *The 47th Samurai,* Bob Lee Swagger, the gritty hero of Stephen Hunter's bestselling novels *Point of Impact* and *Time to Hunt,* returns in Hunter's most intense and exotic thriller to date. Bob Lee Swagger and Philip Yano are bound together by a single moment at Iwo Jima, 1945, when their fathers, two brave fighters on opposite sides, met in the bloody and chaotic battle for the island. Only Earl Swagger survived. More than sixty years later, Yano comes to America to honor the legacy of his heroic father by recovering the sword he used in the battle. His search has led him to Crazy Horse, Idaho, where Bob Lee, ex-marine and Vietnam veteran, has settled into a restless retirement and immediately pledges himself to Yano's quest. Bob Lee finds the sword and delivers it to Yano in Tokyo. On inspection, they discover that it is not a standard WWII blade, but a legendary shin-shinto katana, an artifact of the nation. It is priceless but worth killing for. Suddenly Bob is at the center of a series of terrible crimes he barely understands but vows to avenge. And to do so, he throws himself into the world of the samurai, Tokyo's dark, criminal yakuza underworld, and the unwritten rules of Japanese culture. Swagger's allies, hard-as-nails, American-born Susan Okada and the brave, cocaine-dealing tabloid journalist Nick Yamamoto, help him move through this strange, glittering, and ominous world from the shady bosses of the seamy Kabukicho district to officials in the highest echelons of the Japanese government, but in the end, he is on his own and will succeed only if he can learn that to survive samurai, you must become samurai. As the plot races and the violence escalates, it becomes clear that a ruthless conspiracy is in place, and the only thing that can be taken for granted is that money, power, and sex can drive men of all nationalities to gruesome extremes. If Swagger hopes to stop them, he must be willing not only to die but also to kill.

Act of Treason

by Vince Flynn

by

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published

August 2007

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: The fallout from a horrific Washington explosion has just begun -- and so has CIA superagent Mitch Rapp's hunt for a killer with a personal agenda.In the final weeks of a fierce presidential campaign, a motorcade carrying candidate Josh Alexander is shattered by a car bomb. Soon after the attack, Alexander is carried to victory by a sympathy vote, but his assailants have not been found. When CIA director Irene Kennedy and Special Agent Skip McMahon receive damaging intelligence on Washington's most powerful players, they call on Mitch Rapp -- the one man reckless enough to unravel a global network of contractkillers on an explosive mission that leads back to the heart of our nation's capital...and the inner sanctum of the Oval Office.

Along Came a Spider

by James Patterson

Publisher

Hachette Audio

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: A missing little girl named Maggie Rose. A family of three brutally murdered in the projects of Washington, D.C. The thrill-killing of a beautiful elementary school teacher. A psychopathic serial kidnapper/murderer who calls himself the Son of Lindbergh. He is so terrifying that the FBI, the Secret Service, and the police cannot outsmart him-even after he's been captured. Gary Soneji is a mild-mannered mathematics teacher at a Washington, D.C., private school for the children of the political and social elite. He's so popular that the kids all call him "Mr. Chips." And he's very, very smart. Growing up, he always knew he was smarter than the rest of them-he knew that the Great Ones always fooled everybody. He kidnaps Maggie Rose, the golden-haired daughter of a famous movie actress, and her best friend, Shrimpie Goldberg, the son of the secretary of the treasury, right out from under the noses of their two Secret Service agents. But Gary Soneji is not surprised at his skill. He's done it before. Hundreds of times before. Alex Cross must face the ultimate test as a psychologist: how do you outmaneuver a brilliant psychopath? Especially one who appears to have a split personality-one who won't let the other half remember those horrific acts? Soneji has outsmarted the FBI, the Secret Service, and the police. Who will be his next victim?

The Appeal

by John Grisham

Publisher

Dell

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: In a crowded courtroom in Mississippi, a jury returns a shocking verdict against a chemical company accused of dumping toxic waste into a small town’s water supply, causing the worst “cancer cluster” in history. The company appeals to the Mississippi Supreme Court, whose nine justices will one day either approve the verdict or reverse it. Who are the nine? How will they vote? Can one be replaced before the case is ultimately decided?The chemical company is owned by a Wall Street predator named Carl Trudeau, and Mr. Trudeau is convinced the Court is not friendly enough. With judicial elections looming, he decides to try to purchase himself a seat on the Court. The cost is a few million dollars, a drop in the bucket for a billionaire like Mr. Trudeau. Through an intricate web of conspiracy and deceit, his political operatives recruit a young, unsuspecting candidate. They finance him, manipulate him, market him, and mold him into a potential Supreme Court justice. Their Supreme Court justice.The Appeal is a powerful, timely, and shocking story of political and legal intrigue, a story that will leave listeners unable to think about our electoral process or judicial system in quite the same way ever again.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Ashes To Ashes

by Tami Hoag

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

June 2000

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: He performs his profane ceremony in a wooded Minneapolis park, anointing his victims, then setting the bodies ablaze. He has already claimed three lives, and he won't stop there. Only this time there is a witness. But she isn't talking.Enter Kate Conlan, former FBI agent turned victim/witness advocate. Not even she can tell if the reluctant witness is a potential victim or something more troubling still. Her superiors are interested only because the latest victim may be the daughter of Peter Bondurant, an enigmatic billionaire. When he pulls strings, Special Agent John Quinn gets assigned to the case. But the FBI's ace profiler of serial killers is the last person Kate wants to work with, not with their troubled history. Now she faces the most difficult role of her career—and her life. For she's the only woman who has what it takes to stop the killer...and the one woman he wants next.In the darkness a match is struck. Not for heat, not for light...but to ignite the fire of a killer. He leaves nothing behind but ashes...and the ice-cold certainty that he will strike again.

Assignment to Disaster

by Edward S. Aarons

Publisher

Fawcett World Library

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: It was the tough agent's toughest assignment. In SAM DURELL's deadly race against time, this girl was his only clue to the missing man. Another hardboiled spellbinder by a master of the spy-chase thriller, the FIRST in Edward S. Aarons' classic series starring Sam Durell of the K Section of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The Associate

by John Grisham

Publisher

Random House Audio

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: If you thought Mitch McDeere was in trouble in The Firm, waituntil you meet Kyle McAvoy, The AssociateKyle McAvoy grew up in his father’s small-town law office in York, Pennsylvania. He excelled in college, was elected editor-in-chief of The Yale Law Journal, and his future has limitless potential. But Kyle has a secret, a dark one, an episode from college that he has tried to forget. The secret, though, falls into the hands of the wrong people, and Kyle is forced to take a job he doesn’t want—even though it’s a job most law students can only dream about.Three months after leaving Yale, Kyle becomes an associate at the largest law firm in the world, where, in addition to practicing law, he is expected to lie, steal, and take part in a scheme that could send him to prison, if not get him killed.With an unforgettable cast of characters and villains—from Baxter Tate, a drug-addled trust fund kid and possible rapist, to Dale, a pretty but seemingly quiet former math teacher who shares Kyle’s “cubicle” at the law firm, to two of the most powerful and fiercely competitive defense contractors in the country—and featuring all the twists and turns that have made John Grisham the most popular storyteller in the world, The Associate is vintage Grisham.From the Hardcover edition.

The Beach House

by James Patterson; Peter de Jonge

Publisher

Little, Brown

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: James Patterson and Peter de Jonge's The Beach House opens with the death of a handsome townie on Memorial Day weekend in the Hamptons, where being a single-digit millionaire is laughable and being poor is unthinkable. Peter Mullen is a high school dropout who parks cars at the private bashes of the superwealthy Barry and Campion Neubauer. When Peter is found dead on the beach, the Neubauers and their friends insist that he drowned, but his brother Jack, a law student who saw Peter's body, knows he was beaten to death. As Jack uncovers evidence of his brother's secret life, he begins to realize that the very rich are indeed different from the rest of us. Revenge is a dish best served cold, and Jack's patiently plotted payback for Peter's death is one that the Hamptons will not soon forget. There are no big surprises in The Beach House, but it's vintage Patterson, with plenty of action, villains with hearts blacker than obsidian, and a working-class hero who pulls himself up by the bootstraps. Patterson and de Jonge previously coauthored the inspirational golf romance Miracle on the 17th Green, but this new game of money, mayhem, and murder clearly suits them to a tee. --Barrie Trinkle

A Bend in the Road

by Nicholas Sparks

by

Publisher

Warner Books

Published

June 2002

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: Where does a story truly begin? In life, there are seldom clear-cut beginnings, those moments when we can, in looking back, say that everything started. I'm not sure why I feel compelled to tell my story in the first place. What can be achieved by unearthing the past? But I know I must try to tell it, if for no other reason than to finally put this all behind me. This is, above all, a love story, and like so many love stories, it is rooted in tragedy. At the same time, it is also a story of forgiveness. And it is my story as well. I, too, played a role in all that happened -From A BEND IN THE ROAD Miles Ryan's life seemed to end the day his wife was killed in a hit-and-run accident two years ago. As deputy sheriff of New Bern, North Carolina, he not only grieves for her and worries about their young son Jonah but longs to bring the unknown driver to justice. Then Miles meets Sarah Andrews, Jonah's second-grade teacher. A young woman recovering from a difficult divorce, Sarah moved to New Bern hoping to start over. Tentatively, Miles and Sarah reach out to each other....soon they are falling in love. But what neither realizes is that they are also bound together by a shocking secret, one that will force them to reexamine everything they believe inincluding their love.

The Big Bad Wolf

by James Patterson

Publisher

Headline Book Publishing

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Alex Cross' family is in terrible danger--at the same time that his new job with the FBI brings him the scariest case of his career. A team of kidnappers has been snatching successful, upstanding men and women right before their families' eyes--possibly to sell them into slavery. Alex's knowledge of the D.C. streets, together with his unique insights into criminal psychology, make this mindbending case one that only he can solve--if he can just get his colleagues to set aside their staid and outdated methods. With unexpected twists and whiplash surprises, this is another brilliantly irresistible novel from America's bestselling suspense writer.

The Black Echo

by Michael Connelly

Publisher

Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: For LAPD homicide cop Harry Bosch -- hero, maverick, nighthawk -- the body in the drainpipe at Mulholland Dam is more than another anonymous statistic. This one is personal.The dead man, Billy Meadows, was a fellow Vietnam "tunnel rat" who fought side by side with him in a nightmare underground war that brought them to the depths of hell. Now, Bosch is about to relive the horror of Nam. From a dangerous maze of blind alleys to a daring criminal heist beneath the city to the torturous link that must be uncovered, his survival instincts will once again be tested to their limit.Joining with an enigmatic and seductive female FBI agent, pitted against enemies inside his own department, Bosch must make the agonizing choice between justice and vengeance, as he tracks down a killer whose true face will shock him.

The Black Ice

by Michael Connelly

Publisher

Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Narcotics officer Cal Moore's orders were to look into the city's latest drug killing. Instead, he ends up in a motel room with his head in several pieces and a suicide note stuffed in his back pocket.Years ago, Harry Bosch learned the first rule of the good cop: don't look for the facts, but the glue that holds them together. Now, Harry's making some very dangerous connections, starting with one dead cop and leading to a bloody string of murders that winds from Hollywood Boulevard's drug bazaar to the dusty back alleys south of the border and into the center of a complex and lethal game -- one in which Harry is the next and likeliest victim.

Bloodstream

by Tess Gerritsen

by

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published

July 1999

Rating

★★★★☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: With her acclaimed novels *Harvest* and *Life Support,* Tess Gerritsen has injected a powerful dose of adrenaline into the medical thriller. Now, in a new blockbuster, Gerritsen melds page-turning suspense with chilling realism as a small-town doctor races to unravel the roots of a violent outbreak -- before it destroys everything she loves. Lapped by he gentle waters of Locust Lake, the small resort town of Tranquility, Maine, seems like the perfect spot for Dr. Claire Elliot to shelter her adolescent son, Noah, from the distractions of the big city and the lingering memory of his father's death. But with the first snap of winter comes shocking news that puts her practise on the line: a teenage boy under her care has committed an appalling act of violence. And as Claire and all of Tranquility soon discover, it is just the start of a chain of lethal outbursts among the town's teenagers. As the rash of disturbing behavior grows, Claire uncovers a horrifying secret: this is not the first time it has happened. Twice a century,the children of Tranquility lash out with deadly violence. Claire suspects that there is a biological cause for the epidemic, and she fears that the placid Locust Lake may conceal an insidious danger. As she races to save Tranquility -- and her son -- from harm, Claire discovers an even greater threat: a shocking conspiracy to manipulate nature, and turn innocents to slaughter.

The Bone Garden

by Tess Gerritsen

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

July 2008

Rating

★★★★☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: Unknown bones, untold secrets, and unsolved crimes from the distant past cast ominous shadows on the present in the dazzling new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.****Present day: Julia Hamill has made a horrifying discovery on the grounds of her new home in rural Massachusetts: a skull buried in the rocky soil–human, female, and, according to the trained eye of Boston medical examiner Maura Isles, scarred with the unmistakable marks of murder. But whoever this nameless woman was, and whatever befell her, is knowledge lost to another time. . . . Boston, 1830: In order to pay for his education, Norris Marshall, a talented but penniless student at Boston Medical College, has joined the ranks of local “resurrectionists”–those who plunder graveyards and harvest the dead for sale on the black market. Yet even this ghoulish commerce pales beside the shocking murder of a nurse found mutilated on the university hospital grounds. And when a distinguished doctor meets the same grisly fate, Norris finds that trafficking in the illicit cadaver trade has made him a prime suspect. To prove his innocence, Norris must track down the only witness to have glimpsed the killer: Rose Connolly, a beautiful seamstress from the Boston slums who fears she may be the next victim. Joined by a sardonic, keenly intelligent young man named Oliver Wendell Holmes, Norris and Rose comb the city–from its grim cemeteries and autopsy suites to its glittering mansions and centers of Brahmin power–on the trail of a maniacal fiend who lurks where least expected . . . and who waits for his next lethal opportunity. With unflagging suspense and pitch-perfect period detail, The Bone Garden deftly interweaves the thrilling narratives of its nineteenth- and twenty-first century protagonists, tracing the dark mystery at its heart across time and place to a finale as ingeniously conceived as it is shocking. Bold, bloody, and brilliant, this is Tess Gerritsen’s finest achievement to date."An old mystery is crossed with a modern story in the latest from Gerritsen (*The Mephisto Club*, 2006, etc.).Julia Hamill, newly divorced and still smarting, purchases an old house outside Boston. Determined to dig a garden, she instead finds the bones of a long-dead woman–the apparent victim of murder–which starts her on a journey to ferret out the story behind her death. Julia connects with Henry, a no-nonsense 89-year-old with boxes of documents that once belonged to the now-deceased previous owner of Julia’s home. The two discover a mystery dating back to the 1830s. At the heart of it is a baby named Meggie, born to the beautiful but doomed Irish chambermaid, Aurnia. Married to a man who cares nothing for her, Aurnia lays dying in a maternity ward with her sister, Rose, at her side. Rose, a spirited 17-year-old, takes Meggie to protect her from Aurnia’s husband, but soon finds herself the target of a bizarre manhunt. Someone is after the child–and Rose, as well, because she witnessed a horrifying murder. The body count piles up as Rose struggles to remain free of those who would take Meggie from her. Meanwhile, a young medical student becomes the chief suspect of the West End Reaper killings when he stumbles onto another terrible homicide. Although he fights the prospect, eventually he and Rose join forces to solve the murders and protect the baby at the heart of the mysterious deaths. Readers with delicate stomachs may find Gerritsen’s graphic descriptions of corpse dissection hard to take, but the story, which digs up a dark Boston of times long past, entices readers to keep turning pages long after their bedtimes." - *Kirkus Reviews *(starred)*From the Hardcover edition.*

The Brass Verdict

by Michael Connelly

Publisher

Little, Brown and Company

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Things are finally looking up for defense attorney Mickey Haller. After two years of wrong turns, Haller is back in the courtroom. When Hollywood lawyer Jerry Vincent is murdered, Haller inherits his biggest case yet: the defense of Walter Elliott, a prominent studio executive accused of murdering his wife and her lover. But as Haller prepares for the case that could launch him into the big time, he learns that Vincent's killer may be coming for him next.Enter Harry Bosch. Determined to find Vincent's killer, he is not opposed to using Haller as bait. But as danger mounts and the stakes rise, these two loners realize their only choice is to work together.Bringing together Michael Connelly's two most popular characters, The Brass Verdictis sure to be his biggest book yet.

Breaking Dawn

by Stephenie Meyer

by

Publisher

Little, Brown

Published

August 2008

Rating

★★★☆☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: *When you loved the one who was killing you, it left you no options. How could you run, how could you fight, when doing so would hurt that beloved one? If your life was all you had to give, how could you not give it? If it was someone you truly loved?* To be irrevocably in love with a vampire is both fantasy and nightmare woven into a dangerously heightened reality for Bella Swan. Pulled in one direction by her intense passion for Edward Cullen, and in another by her profound connection to werewolf Jacob Black, a tumultuous year of temptation, loss, and strife have led her to the ultimate turning point. Her imminent choice to either join the dark but seductive world of immortals or to pursue a fully human life has become the thread from which the fates of two tribes hangs. Now that Bella has made her decision, a startling chain of unprecedented events is about to unfold with potentially devastating, and unfathomable, consequences. Just when the frayed strands of Bella's life--first discovered in *Twilight*, then scattered and torn in *New Moon* and *Eclipse*--seem ready to heal and knit together, could they be destroyed... forever? The astonishing, breathlessly anticipated conclusion to the Twilight Saga, *Breaking Dawn* illuminates the secrets and mysteries of this spellbinding romantic epic that has entranced millions.

The Brethren

by John Grisham

Publisher

Delta

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: John Grisham's novels have all been so systematically successful that it is easy to forget he is just one man toiling away silently with a pen, experimenting and improving with each book. While not as gifted a prose stylist as Scott Turow, Grisham is among the best plotters in the thriller business, and he infuses his books with a moral valence and creative vision that set them apart from their peers. The Brethren is in many respects his most daring book yet. The novel grows from two separate subplots. In the first, three imprisoned ex-judges (the "brethren" in the title), frustrated by their loss of power and influence, concoct an elaborate blackmail scheme that preys on wealthy, closeted gay men. The second story traces the rise of presidential candidate Aaron Lake, a puppet essentially created by CIA director Teddy Maynard to fulfill Maynard's plans for restoring the power of his beleaguered agency. Grisham's tight control of the two meandering threads leaves the reader guessing through most of the opening chapters how and when these two worlds will collide. Also impressive is Grisham's careful portraiture. Justice Hatlee Beech in particular is a fascinating, tragic anti-hero: a millionaire judge with an appointment for life who was rendered divorced, bankrupt, and friendless after his conviction for a drunk-driving homicide. The book's cynical view of presidential politics and criminal justice casts a somewhat gloomy shadow over the tale. CIA director Teddy Maynard is an all-powerful demon with absolute knowledge and control of the public will and public funds. Even his candidate, Congressman Lake, is a pawn in Maynard's egomaniacal game of ad campaigns, illicit contributions, and international intrigue. In the end, The Brethren marks a transition in Grisham's career toward a more thoughtful narrative style with less interest in the big-payoff blockbuster ending. But that's not to say that the last 50 pages won't keep your reading light turned on late. --Patrick O'Kelley

The Broker

by John Grisham

by

Publisher

BANTAM DELL

Published

February 2005

Rating

★★★☆☆

SUMMARY: Before he was sent to federal prison for treason (among other things), Joel Backman was an extremely powerful man. Known as "the broker," Backman was a high roller--a lawyer making $10 million a year who could "open any door in Washington." That is, until he tried to broker a deal selling access to the world's most powerful satellite surveillance system to the highest bidder. When caught, Backman accepted prison as the one option that would keep him safe and alive, since the interested parties (the Israelis, the Saudis, the Russians, and the Chinese) were all itching to get their hands on his secrets at any cost. Little does he know that his own government has designs on accessing that information--or at least letting it die with him. Now, six years after his incarceration, the director of the CIA convinces a lame duck president to pardon Backman, and the broker becomes a free man--and an open target. The Broker marries the best of John Grisham's many talents--his ability to immerse himself in the culture of small town life (in this case, Bologna, Italy), and his uncanny mastery of the chase. The first half of the book focuses on Backman's transformation from infamous power broker to helpless victim in his own game. Upon his release from prison, Backman is taken into "protective custody" and whisked off to Italy where he is assigned a new identity, and a tutor to help him blend in. Sure he is on the run, but some readers may feel that Backman's time spent in Bologna is a bit too leisurely--readers join him on an almost cinematic tour through the Italian town, complete with language and history lessons. Impatient readers will be happy to know that the final half of the novel is classic Grisham--a fast-paced, thrilling cat and mouse chase pitting Backman against the numerous agencies that want him dead--as the broker makes a move to take back his life. --Daphne Durham Exclusive Video Interview with John Grisham Watch the interview (high bandwith)Watch the interview (low bandwith) Grisham: The Books A Time to Kill, 1989The Firm, 1991The Pelican Brief, 1992The Client, 1993 The Chamber, 1994 The Rainmaker, 1995 The Runaway Jury, 1996The Partner, 1997The Street Lawyer, 1998The Testament, 1999 The Brethren, 2000 A Painted House, 2001 Skipping Christmas, 2001The Summons, 2002The King of Torts, 2003Bleachers, 2003 The Last Juror, 2004The Broker, 2005 Essential Grisham Amazon Editor Favorites A Time to Kill The Firm A Painted House The Client The Rainmaker The Pelican Brief Bestselling Grisham Amazon Customer Favorites The Last Juror Skipping Christmas Bleachers The Testament The Partner The King of Torts If You Like Grisham, You'll Love... John LescroartRichard North PattersonDavid Baldacci Lisa ScottolineRobert CraisMichael Crichton Harlan CobenDennis LehaneKen Follett Best Grisham Books on DVD A Time to Kill The Pelican Brief The Client The Firm The Rainmaker The Chamber SUMMARY: In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world’s most sophisticated satellite surveillance system.Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive—there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?From the Hardcover edition.

Carpe Jugulum

by Terry Pratchett

Publisher

Corgi

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Mightily Oats has not picked a good time to be priest. He thought he was there for a simple little religious ceremony. Now he’s caught up in a war between vampires and witches, and he’s not sure there is a right side. There’s the witches — Agnes, Magrat, Nanny Ogg, and the formidable Granny Weatherwax… And the vampires: the stakes are high but they’re intelligent — not easily got rid of with a garlic enema or going to the window and saying “I don’t know about you, but isn’t it a bit stuffy in here?” They’ve got style and fancy waistcoats. They’re out of the casket and want a bite of the future.

Cat and Mouse

by James Patterson

Publisher

Feature

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: That monstrous villain Gary Soneji is back in Cat & Mouse, the fourth book in James Patterson's series about Alex Cross, a police forensic psychologist, but he's not alone. In seeming support of the premise that you can never have too much of a bad thing, Patterson has thrown a second serial killer into the mix: Mr. Smith, a mysterious killer terrorizing Europe while Soneji practices his own brand of evil along the Eastern Seaboard. With two killers to track, Cross has his hands full--and Patterson has another hit.

Chasing the Dime

by Michael Connelly

Publisher

Little, Brown

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Henry Pierce is about to become very rich--as soon as his firm, Amedeo Technologies, gets an infusion of capital from a big backer. But the brilliant chemist's workaholic habits are disrupted when his lover, the former intelligence officer of his company, breaks up with him. Lonely and dispirited, he moves into a new apartment and gets a new phone number that attracts a lot of callers, but not for him. His new telephone number seems to have previously belonged to one Lilly Quinlan, an escort whose Internet photo arouses Henry's curiosity, especially when L.A. Darlings, whose Web page features the beautiful young woman, can't tell Henry how to find her. With the same single-mindedness that made him a high-tech superstar, Pierce pursues his search for the missing girl, motivated by his guilt over the disappearance years earlier of his own sister, who, like Lilly, was also a prostitute (and ultimately the victim of the Dollmaker, a serial killer from Connelly's 1994 novel The Concrete Blonde.) But that motive is too thin to support Pierce's sudden abandonment of his career at such a critical juncture, even if forces unknown to him are setting him up for a fall. Despite those holes in the plot and a less than compelling protagonist, the novel succeeds due to Connelly's literary and expository gifts and his more interesting secondary characters. --Jane Adams

City of Bones

by Michael Connelly

Publisher

Orion

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Since his first appearance in 1992's Edgar-winning The Black Echo, Detective Hieronymous "Harry" Bosch has joined Dennis Lehane's Patrick and Angie, George Pelecanos's Derek Strange, and Greg Rucka's Atticus Kodiak in the pantheon of new-school hard-boiled detectives. Rather than giving Bosch a clever gimmick (like Jeffery Deaver's Lincoln Rhyme, who is a quadriplegic), Michael Connelly embraces the noir archetype: Bosch, an L.A. homicide detective, is a chain-smoking loner who refuses to play by his superiors' rules. Although he has quit smoking, Harry's still the same tightlipped outsider, taking each crime as a personal affront as he tries to cleanse his beloved city of the darkness he sees engulfing it. In City of Bones, Connelly's eighth Bosch title, Bosch and his well-dressed partner, Jerry Edgar, are working to identify a child's skeleton, buried for 20 years in the forest off Hollywood's Wonderland Drive, and to bring the killer to belated justice. For Bosch this is more than just another homicide, as the mystery child, beaten and abandoned, comes to represent much of what he sees as evil in his city. Add in a tragic love affair with a fellow cop, complications from overzealous media, and the growing feeling that he's fighting a losing battle about which no one cares, and the usually stoic Bosch is pushed to his limits. This isn't the strongest plot Connelly has concocted for Bosch, but it leads to an ending the whole series has been building toward. The conclusion may not shock longtime fans, but it will leave them wondering where the series will go from here. --Benjamin Reese

The Closers

by Michael Connelly

Publisher

Orion

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: "A city that forgets its murder victims is a city lost. This is where we don't forget," Detective Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch is told by his new boss, as he ends a three-year retirement and rejoins the Los Angeles Police Department at the start of The Closers, the 11th installment of Michael Connelly's Edgar-winning series. Having long ago demonstrated his knack for cracking previously unsolved homicides, Bosch is assigned to the newly re-branded Open-Unsolved Unit (aka "cold case" squad), and charged with resolving the 17-year-old abduction and slaying of a mixed-race teenager. Rebecca Verloren, 16, was discovered missing from her Chatsworth home on a July morning in 1988. Her corpse and the gun that ended her life were later found on a hill behind the house. An autopsy revealed that she'd recently undergone an abortion, and a piece of skin tissue--presumably the killer's--was found trapped inside the murder weapon. Only now, though, has DNA science matched that tissue to Roland Mackey, a dyslexic 35-year-old tow-truck operator with no obvious connection to the deceased. It's up to Bosch, once more partnered with Kizmin Rider, to determine whether Mackey offed Becky Verloren, or was at least an accessory to that tragedy. But the more Bosch and Rider dig into this dusty crime, trying in part to determine whether racial animosity might have been involved, the more pain and resistance they encounter. Becky's white mother maintains the teen's old bedroom as a shrine, while her shattered father, an African-American chef, has vanished into LA's homeless community. Of the two original investigators on the case, one has since committed suicide, and Bosch suspects that the other--now a police commander--is helping to keep the lid tight on some old departmental secrets, perhaps linked to our hero's nemesis, Deputy Chief Irvin S. Irving. Understandably rusty after three years sans shield, Bosch makes his share of personal and professional mistakes here--including one that supplies The Closers with a lethal, plot-turning climax. But the greater problem is that Connelly exhausts so much time and effort following his protagonist through the tedium of modern police procedures, that he neglects what readers have liked more about this series in the past: its persistently deft exploration of Bosch's lonely, haunted soul (which remains mostly out of sight in this tale), and the author's frequent flights of lyrical prose (also not much in evidence). Would-be novelists wanting an example of a solidly constructed cop tale need look no further than The Closers. But readers hoping to learn why Connelly is so well-respected in this genre should turn, instead, to previous Bosch titles such as The Concrete Blonde, Angel's Flight, or City of Bones. --J. Kingston Pierce

Club Dead: A True Blood Novel

by Charlaine Harris

by

Publisher

Victor Gollancz Limited

Published

July 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: There's only one vampire Sookie Stackhouse is involved with - at least voluntarily - and that's Bill. But recently he's been a little distant - in another state distant. His sinister and sexy boss Eric has an idea where to find him, and next thing Sookie knows she's off to Jackson, Mississippi, to mingle with the underworld at Club Dead. It's a dangerous little haunt where the elusive vampire society can go to chill out and suck down some Type O - but when Sookie finally finds Bill caught in an act of serious betrayal she's not sure whether to save him, or to sharpen some stakes.The Sookie Stackhouse books are delightful Southern Gothic supernatural mysteries, starring Sookie, the telepathic cocktail waitress, and a cast of increasingly colourful characters, including vampires, werewolves and things that really do go bump in the night.

Coma

by Robin Cook

Publisher

Signet Book

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Still considered one of the best of the genre, Coma propelled Robin Cook to the top of his field and earned him a reputation as the "master of the medical thriller" (New York Times). Now readers have another chance to discover this classic masterwork of nightmarish possibility.

The Concrete Blonde

by Michael Connelly

Publisher

Macmillan

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Edgar Award-winner Michael Connelly brings back Detective Harry Bosch in a breathtaking breakthrough novel, a supercharged thriller that thrusts us into a blistering courtroom battle and a desperate search for a killer who should already be dead. Harry Bosch is sure that the man he killed was the sadistic serial murderer known as the Dollmaker, and that the killing was justified. Even if the dead man's widow wins her civil suit, it's the city of Los Angeles that will pay. Harry has already been exonerated in an internal investigation. The trial - and Harry's certainty that he shot the right man - are torn apart when a corpse is discovered beneath the concrete floor of a building that burned during the L.A. riots. It's the body of a woman, and all indications are that this is another of the Dollmaker's victims. But the autopsy report is unequivocal: this woman was killed after Harry shot the man he believes was the Dollmaker. Into the L.A. night Harry takes his investigation. By day the trial continues excruciatingly, with the prosecuting attorney focusing on Bosch's violent past and portraying him as a vigilante murderer protected by his badge. By night he reinvestigates the infamous Dollmaker case, frantically trying to understand where he went wrong - and what he can do to keep this murderer from carrying out his threats to make Harry his next victim.

Confessor

by Terry Goodkind

by

Publisher

Macmillan

Published

February 2007

Rating

★★★☆☆

SUMMARY: Descending into darkness, about to be overwhelmed by evil, those people still free are powerless to stop the coming dawn of a savage new world, while Richard faces the guilt of knowing that he must let it happen. Alone, he must bear the weight of a sin he dare not confess to the one person he loves…and has lost.  Join Richard and Kahlan in the concluding novel of one of the most remarkable and memorable journeys ever written. It started with one rule, and will end with the rule of all rules, the rule unwritten, the rule unspoken since the dawn of history. When next the sun rises, the world will be forever changed.

Cry Wolf

by Tami Hoag

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

June 1993

Rating

★★★☆☆

SUMMARY: The scream heard by no one is the deadliest.In the rural parishes of Louisiana's French Triangle, young women are disappearing one by one, only to turn up on the banks of the bayou, strangled and cast aside where they are sure to be found. But there is one trophy the killer prizes above all others, one woman who must be silenced forever....Attorney Laurel Chandler did not come back to Bayou Breaux to seek justice. That once-burning obsession had destroyed her credibility, her career, her marriage—and nearly her sanity. But when a ruthless predator strikes too close to home, she's lured into a perverse game from which there may be no escape. Once before, Laurel's cries against a monstrous evil went unanswered. Who will listen now?

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

by Fitzgerald, Francis Scott

by

Publisher

Feedbooks

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

This story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world I have scarcely given his idea a fair trial. Several weeks after completing it, I discovered an almost identical plot in Samuel Butler's "Note-books." The story was published in "Collier's" last summer and provoked this startling letter from an anonymous admirer in Cincinnati: "Sir-- I have read the story Benjamin Button in Colliers and I wish to say that as a short story writer you would make a good lunatic I have seen many peices of cheese in my life but of all the peices of cheese I have ever seen you are the biggest peice. I hate to waste a peice of stationary on you but I will."

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

by Fitzgerald, Francis Scott

by

Publisher

Feedbooks

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

This story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world I have scarcely given his idea a fair trial. Several weeks after completing it, I discovered an almost identical plot in Samuel Butler's "Note-books." The story was published in "Collier's" last summer and provoked this startling letter from an anonymous admirer in Cincinnati: "Sir-- I have read the story Benjamin Button in Colliers and I wish to say that as a short story writer you would make a good lunatic I have seen many peices of cheese in my life but of all the peices of cheese I have ever seen you are the biggest peice. I hate to waste a peice of stationary on you but I will."

Dark Horse

by Tami Hoag

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

May 2004

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: In her latest thriller, New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag takes readers on a suspense-filled ride of shocks and twists leading to an explosive finish. It is the story of an ex-cop, a missing girl, and a killer locked in a race where there can be only one winner—and the losers die trying. In a trailer in a Florida swamp, time is running out for eighteen year-old Erin Seabright. A pawn in a kidnapper's terrifying game for a ransom no one can pay, her last hope is a washed-up ex-cop who has already lost it all-not once, but twice.The wealthy world of the Palm Beach horse set seems a long way from a cop's world in the narcotics division. A lifetime ago, undercover sheriff's detective Elena Estes worked the mean streets and BackTop alleys, living by her wits and playing the long odds until she took one risk too many. Now Estes lives on the ragged edge of lost hope and self-hatred, hiding from the past and believing she doesn't deserve to have a future. But the past is about to come back with a vengeance, and the future is about to become a race between life and death.A young woman is missing and her twelve year-old stepsister comes to Estes for help. No one but serious, studious Molly Seabright seems concerned about what's happened to her troubled older sister. But Molly is convinced Erin is in danger. Estes has no P.I. license, no interest in a new career, and no desire to break her self-imposed exile. But the more she learns about the people Erin Seabright was involved with, the more her long-dormant cop instincts come back to life.One trip to the show grounds where Erin worked as a groom, and Estes is quickly pulled to the dark side of a glamorous sport. Behind the glittering, ultra-rich facade is an ultra-ruthless world of drugs, payoffs, and dirty deals. A world of dissolute playboys and crooked horse-dealers, of royalty and rabble, of rivals and enemies. An obscenely wealthy world where anything can be had for a price—including a life.And in that world stalks a killer who will lead Estes down a dark, twisted trail of decadence and deceit, mayhem and murder—from the gilded life of Palm Beach to the darkest corners of the Florida swamps, to a final show-down that could cost her everything. A race against time and evil. A race in which Estes is the dark horse—and no one is betting on her to win.

Dead to the World: A True Blood Novel

by Charlaine Harris

by

Publisher

Victor Gollancz Limited

Published

July 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Sookie comes to the rescue of a naked, amnesiac vampire - and ends up in the middle of a war between witches, werewolves and vampires! Sookie Stackhouse is a small-town cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's pretty. She does her job well. She keeps to herself - she has only a few close friends, because not everyone appreciates Sookie's gift: she can read minds. That's not exactly every man's idea of date bait - unless they're undead - vampires and the like can be tough to read. And that's just the kind of guy Sookie's been looking for. Maybe that's why, when she comes across a naked vampire on the way home from work, she doesn't just drive on by. He hasn't got a clue who he is, but Sookie has: Eric looks just as scary and sexy - and dead - as the day she met him. But now he has amnesia, he's sweet, vulnerable, and in need of Sookie's help - because whoever took his memory now wants his life. Sookie's investigation into what's going on leads her straight into a dangerous battle between witches, vampires and werewolves. But there could be even greater danger - to Sookie's heart, because the kinder, gentler Eric is very hard to resist. The Sookie Stackhouse books are delightful Southern Gothic supernatural mysteries, starring Sookie, the telepathic cocktail waitress, and a cast of increasingly colourful characters, including vampires, werewolves and things that really do go bump in the night.

Dead Until Dark. TV Tie-In: A True Blood Novel

by Charlaine Harris

by

Publisher

Gollancz

Published

June 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Sookie Stackhouse is a small-time cocktail waitress in small-town Louisiana. She's quiet, keeps to herself, and doesn't get out much - not because she's not pretty - she's a very cute bubbly blonde - or not interested in a social life. She really is . . . but Sookie's got a bit of a disability. She can read minds. And that doesn't make her too dateable. And then along comes Bill: he's tall, he's dark and he's handsome - and Sookie can't 'hear' a word he's thinking. He's exactly the type of guy she's been waiting all her life for. But Bill has a disability of his own: he's fussy about his food, he doesn't like suntans and he's never around during the day . . . Yep, Bill's a vampire. Worse than that, he hangs with a seriously creepy crowd, with a reputation for trouble - of the murderous kind. And then one of Sookie's colleagues at the bar is killed, and it's beginning to look like Sookie might be the next victim . . .

The Deadhouse

by Linda Fairstein

Publisher

Simon &amp; Schuster Audio

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Smart, sexy, Manhattan assistant DA Alexandra Cooper--hero of Linda Fairstein's increasingly popular series--is taking her latest murder case very personally. Lola Dakota, abused wife and brilliant university professor, wouldn't cooperate when Cooper wanted to charge her ex-husband with assault. So when she's murdered, he's the logical suspect--except that he had been arrested just before the murder. So Alex needs another suspect. Unable to protect Lola alive, Alex is determined to find the killer and bring him to justice. All she has to go on is a scrap of paper in the murdered woman's pocket with the words "The Deadhouse" on it, along with a series of numbers. Deciphering the clue leads Alex and Mike Chapman, her favorite homicide cop, to an abandoned gothic hospital on New York's Roosevelt Island, where smallpox victims went to die a century ago. Because of its history, the Deadhouse held a special attraction for Lola and for several of her university colleagues; and, as it turns out, almost all these deftly drawn minor characters had a reason to want Lola dead. Illuminating their personalities and motives gives Fairstein an opportunity to skewer the academic infighting that goes on at an elite Ivy League school. The author's background as head of the New York district attorney's Sex Crime Unit is just one of the many assets she brings to her fast-paced, intricately plotted thrillers. What makes this one a standout is the wealth of historical detail about 19th-century New York, which adds an extra dimension of verisimilitude to an engrossing, atmospheric, and suspenseful read. --Jane Adams

Dear John

by Nicholas Sparks

by

Publisher

Grand Central Publishing

Published

December 2009

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: An angry rebel, John dropped out of school and enlisted in the Army, not knowing what else to do with his life--until he meets the girl of his dreams, Savannah. Their mutual attraction quickly grows into the kind of love that leaves Savannah waiting for John to finish his tour of duty, and John wanting to settle down with the woman who captured his heart. But 9/11 changes everything. John feels it is his duty to re-enlist. And sadly, the long separation finds Savannah falling in love with someone else. "Dear John," the letter read...and with those two words, a heart was broken and two lives were changed forever. Returning home, John must come to grips with the fact that Savannah, now married, is still his true love--and face the hardest decision of his life.

Debt of Bones

by Terry Goodkind

by

Publisher

Macmillan

Published

October 2004

Rating

★★★☆☆

SUMMARY: A milestone of storytelling set in the world of The Sword of Truth, Debt of Bones is the story of young Abby's struggle to win the aid of the wizard Zedd Zorander, the most important man alive.Abby is trapped, not only between both sides of the war, but in a mortal conflict between two powerful men. For Zedd, who commands power most men can only imagine, granting Abby's request would mean forsaking his sacred duty. With the storm of the final battle about to break, both Abby and Zedd are caught in a desperate fight to save the life of a child...but neither can escape the shadow of an ancient betrayal.With time running out, their only choice may be a debt of bones. The world-for Zedd, for Abby, for everyone-will never again be the same.Discover why millions of readers the world over have elevated Terry Goodkind to the ranks of legend.

Deception Point

by Dan Brown

Publisher

Pocket

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Penzler Pick, December 2001: In the world of page-turning thrillers, Dan Brown holds a special place in the hearts of many of us. After his first book, Digital Fortress, almost passed me by, he wrote Angels and Demons, which was probably one of the half-dozen most exciting thrillers of last year. It is a pleasure to report that his new book lives up to his reputation as a writer whose research and talent make his stories exciting, believable, and just plain unputdownable. The time is now and President Zachary Herney is facing a very tough reelection. His opponent, Senator Sedgwick Sexton, is a powerful man with powerful friends and a mission: to reduce NASA's spending and move space exploration into the private sector. He has numerous supporters, including many beyond the businesses who will profit from this because of the embarrassment of 1996, when the Clinton administration was informed by NASA that proof existed of life on other planets. That information turned out to be premature, if not incorrect. (This story is true; I repeat, Dan Brown's research is very, very good.) The embattled president is assured that a rare object buried deep in the Arctic ice will prove to have far-reaching implications on America's space program. The find, however, needs to be verified. Enter Rachel Sexton, a gister for the National Reconnaissance Office. Gisters reduce complex reports into single-page briefs, and in this case the president needs that confirmation before he broadcasts to the nation, probably ensuring his reelection. It's tricky because Rachel is the daughter of his opponent. Rachel is thrilled to be on the team traveling to the Arctic circle. She is a realist about her father's politics and has little respect for his stand on NASA, but Senator Sexton cannot help but have a problem with her involvement. Adventure, romance, murder, skullduggery, and nail-biting tension ensue. By the end of Deception Point, the reader will be much better informed about how our space program works and how our politicians react to new information. Bring on the next Dan Brown thriller! --Otto Penzler

Double Cross (Alex Cross)

by James Patterson; Peter J. Fernandez (Narrator); Michael Stuhlbarg (Narrator)

Publisher

Hachette Audio

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Just when Alex thought his life was calming down into a routine of patients and therapy sessions, he finds himself back in the game--this time to catch a criminal mastermind like no other.A spate of elaborate murders in Washington, D.C. have the whole East Coast on edge. They are like nothing Alex Cross and his new girlfriend, Detective Brianna Stone, have ever seen. With each murder, the case becomes increasingly complex. There's only one thing Alex knows: the killer adores an audience.As victims are made into gruesome spectacles citywide, inducing a media hysteria, it becomes clear to Alex that the man he's after is a genius of terror--and he's after fame. The killer has the whole city by its strings--and he'll stop at nothing to become the most terrifying star that Washington, D.C. has ever seen.

Dust To Dust

by Tami Hoag

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

March 2002

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: Sorry. The single word was written on a mirror. In front of it hung the Minneapolis Internal Affairs cop. Was it suicide? Or a kinky act turned tragic?Either way, it wasn’t murder. At least not according to the powers that be. But veteran homicide detective Sam Kovac and his wisecracking, ambitious partner Nikki Liska think differently. Together they begin to dig at the too-neat edges of the young cop’s death, uncovering one motive and one suspect after another. The shadows of suspicion fall not only on the city’s elite, but into the very heart of the police department. Someone wants the case closed–quickly and forever. But neither Kovac nor Liska will give up. Now both their careers and their lives are on the line. From a murder case two months old to another case closed for twenty years, Kovac and Liska must unearth a connection the killer wants dead and buried. A killer who will stop at absolutely nothing to keep a dark and shattering secret . . .

Echo Park

by Michael Connelly

Publisher

Orion (an Imprint of The Orion Publishing Group Ltd )

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: In 1994 Marie Gesto disappeared after walking out of a supermarket in Hollywood. Fearing the worst, the case was elevated by LAPD commanders from the missing persons squad to the Homicide Division, where Harry Bosch was assigned the case. But the 22-year-old woman never turned up - dead or alive - and it was a case Bosch couldn't crack. Twelve years later Bosch is in the Open-Unsolved Unit, where he still keeps the Gesto file on his desk, when he gets a call from the DA's office. A man accused of two heinous killings is willing to come clean in regard to several other murders in a deal to avoid the death penalty. One of those murders, he says, is the killing of Marie Gesto. Bosch is now assigned to take Raynard Waits' confession and to make sure the killer is not scamming authorities to avoid a date with death. In confirming the confession Bosch must get close to the man he has sought - and hated - for twelve years. Bosch's whole being as a cop begins to crack when he comes to realise that he and his partner missed a clue back in 1994 that could have led them to Waits and would have stopped the nine murders that followed the killing of Marie Gesto.

Executive Power

by Vince Flynn

by

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published

December 2002

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: "CIA superagent Mitch Rapp battles global terrorism in a high-octane follow-up to The New York Times bestselling Separation of Power -- another chillingly authentic adventure from the master of the political thriller. Mitch Rapp's cover has been blown. After leading a team of commandos deep into Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein from joining the nuclear arms race, he was publicly hailed by the president as the single most important person in the fight against terrorism. But after years of working covertly behind the scenes, Rapp now lives in the glare of the public spotlight, lauded by the nation and an easy target for virtually every terrorist from Jakarta to London. As special advisor on counterterrorism to CIA director Dr. Irene Kennedy, Rapp is ready to fight the war on terrorism from CIA headquarters rather than the front line. That is, until a platoon of Navy SEALs, sent to the Philippines to save an American family kidnapped by radical Islamic terrorists, is caught in a deadly ambush. The mission had been top secret -- so who told the enemy? All evidence points to the State Department and the Philippine embassy. But a greater thre

Falling Angel

by William Hjortsberg

Publisher

No Exit Press

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: For New York private investigator Harry Angel, it's just another job for the missing persons file. An enigmatic client wants him to track down famous 40s crooner Johnny Favorite. The problem is, the singer was last seen in a hospital upstate more than fifteen years ago. And Johnny's current whereabouts-and his fate-are shrouded in mystery.With a trail as cold as stone, Angel delves into Favorite's murky past, discovering the singer had shocking connections to seamy carnival sideshows, black magic, and a grisly voodoo cult. And the deeper Angel digs, the further he descends into a dark underworld, where someone as evil as the blackest of shadows holds all the chilling answers.

Fatal Cure

by Robin Cook; Barry Bostwick (Contributor)

Publisher

Audio Renaissance

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Leaving their urban hospital for a modern medical facility in Bartlet, Vermont, Doctors Angela and David Wilson begin to notice puzzling details in the deaths of several terminal patients there. Simultaneous.

The Fifth Elephant

by Terry Pratchett; Tony Robinson (Narrator)

Publisher

Corgi

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Sam Vimes is a man on the run. Yesterday he was a duke, a chief of police and the ambassador to the mysterious, fat-rich country of Uberwald. Now he has nothing but his native wit, and the gloomy trousers of Uncle Vanya (don't ask). It's snowing. It's freezing. And if he can't make it through the forest to civilization, there's going to be a terrible war. But there are monsters on his trail. They're bright. They're fast. They're werewolves - and they're catching up. Sam Vimes is out of time, out of luck and already out of breath.

The Firm

by John Grisham

Publisher

Delta

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Hard to believe, but there was a time when the word "lawyer" wasn't synonymous with "criminal," and the idea of a law firm controlled by the Mafia was an outlandish proposition. This intelligent, ensnaring story came out of nowhere--Oxford, Mississippi, where Grisham was a small-town lawyer--and quickly catapulted to the top of the bestseller list, with good reason. Mitch McDeere, the appealing hero, is a poor kid whose only assets are a first-class mind, a Harvard law degree, and a beautiful, loving wife. When a Memphis law firm makes him an offer he really can't refuse, he trades his old Nissan for a new BMW, his cramped apartment for a house in the best part of town, and puts in long hours finding tax shelters for Texans who'd rather pay a lawyer than the IRS. Nothing criminal about that. He'd be set for life, if only associates at the firm didn't have a funny habit of dying, and the FBI wasn't trying to get Mitch to turn his colleagues in. The tempo and pacing are brilliant, the thrills keep coming, and the finish has a wonderful ironic flourish. It's not hard to see why Grisham changed the genre permanently with this one, and few of his colleagues in a very crowded field come close to equaling him. --Jane Adams

First Family

by David Baldacci

Publisher

Grand Central Publishing

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: #1 New York Times bestsellingauthor David Baldacci follows the instant success of Divine Justice with another unstoppable thriller. Sean King and Michelle Maxwell, back from their harrowing and near-fatal adventure in the blockbuster #1 bestseller Simple Genius, return in a mesmerizing new thriller. A daring kidnapping turns a children's birthday party at Camp David into a national security nightmare, but the hostage is not who anyone would expect. The First Lady enlists the services of King and Maxwell to bring the child back safely. Years ago, King saved her then-senator husband from an assassin's bullet; whether they shared anything else is their secret. With Michelle still recovering from her own demons the pair are pushed to the limit, with forces aligned on all sides against them, and the line between friend and foe impossible to define...or defend.

Flinx Transcendent

by Alan Dean Foster

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

May 2009

Rating

★★★☆☆

SUMMARY: From one of the most brilliant imaginations in science fiction comesFlinx Transcendent, Alan Dean Foster’s thrilling conclusion to the series that began over thirty-five years ago–the epic adventures of Flinx and his flying minidrag companion, Pip. Flinx is the only one with even the tiniest chance of stopping the evil colossus barreling in to destroy the Humanx Commonwealth (and everything else in the Milky Way). With time running out, Flinx is a man in search of a solution and in search of himself. His efforts take him to the land of his mortal enemies, the bloodthirsty AAnn, where chances are excellent that Flinx’s discovery–and summary execution–will eliminate all his demons and doubts in one masterstroke. The way Flinx is feeling, that might not be the worst imaginable end. After years of searching for his father, he finally has–and must bear–the truth. And now he must also seek out an ancient sentient weapons platform wandering around somewhere in the galaxy and then communicate with it, a powwow that could very well fry his already frazzled brain. Then there are the oblivion-craving assassins determined to stop Flinx before he can prevent total annihilation. With a future that rosy, it’s no surprise he’s flirting with disaster. Still, Flinx is no quitter, and he’s got something else going for him–an uncanny ability to improvise and triumph (or at least survive) in impossible situations. He’s certainly been through enough of them, and now he’s going to need every ounce of that know-how, because he’s venturing to places where the laws of physics fear to tread, where no one’s ever been, to do what no one’s ever done, and where his deadliest enemy is so close it’s invisible.

From Dead to Worse: A True Blood Novel

by Charlaine Harris

by

Publisher

Orion Publishing Group

Published

July 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: The supernatural community in Bon Temps, Louisiana is reeling from two hard blows: the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina, and the manmade horror of the explosion at the vampire summit in the up-north city of Rhodes. Sookie Stackhouse is safe but dazed, and she's yearning for things to get back to normal. But that's just not happening. Too many vampires - some friends, some not - were killed or injured, and her were-tiger boyfriend Quinn is among the missing. It's clear that things are changing, whether the weres and vamps like it or not. And Sookie, Friend to the Pack, blood-bonded to the leader of the local vampire community, is caught up in those changes. She's about to find herself facing danger and death and, not for the first time, betrayal by someone she loves. And when the fur has finished flying and the cold blood has stopped flowing, Sookie's world will be forever altered . . .

Guards! Guards! (Discworld Novels)

by Terry Pratchett

Publisher

Doubleday Books

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Here there be dragons...and the denizens of Ankh-Morpork wish one huge firebreather would return from whence it came. Long believed extinct, a superb specimen of draco nobilis ("noble dragon" for those who don't understand italics) has appeared in Discworld's greatest city. Not only does this unwelcome visitor have a nasty habit of charbroiling everything in its path, in rather short order it is crowned King (it is a noble dragon, after all...).

Guilty As Sin

by Tami Hoag

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

December 1996

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: A cold-blooded kidnapper has been playing a twisted game with a terrified Minnesota town. Now a respected member of the community sits in jail, accused of a chilling act of evil. But then another boy disappears, triggering panic in tiny Deer Lake. Have the police caught the wrong man? Or is there an even more sinister mind calculating each perverse move?Prosecutor Ellen North believes she's building a case against the right man—and that he has an accomplice in the shadows. Suddenly she's swept into their dark game, her role changed from hunter to prey. And soon she wonders if she's a match for her opponent...an evil mind as guilty as sin.

Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows

by J. K. Rowling

Publisher

Raincoast Book Dist Ltd

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: The Final Chapter It's official! Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the seventh and final book in J.K. Rowling's magical Harry Potter series, will be released on July 21, 2007. In the February 1 announcement from the book's publisher, Lisa Holton, President of Scholastic Children's Books, said, "We are thrilled to announce the publication date of the seventh installment in this remarkable series. We join J.K. Rowling's millions of readers--young and old, veterans and newcomers--in anticipating what lies ahead." Save the date, and let the countdown begin! Visit the Harry Potter Store Our Harry Potter Store features all things Harry, including books (box sets and collector's editions), audio CDs and cassettes, DVDs, soundtracks, games, and more. The Harry-est Town in America Do you live in one of the Harry-est Towns in America? Each day Amazon.com will update the Top 100 list of which towns in America, on a per capita basis, are pre-ordering the most copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Amazon.com will donate a $5,000 Amazon.com gift certificate to a charitable organization of its choice that serves the winning town. The winning town will be announced shortly after the deadline of 11:59 p.m. PDT on July 15, 2007. Begin at the Beginning Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Hardcover Paperback Harry Potter and the Chamber of SecretsHardcoverPaperback Harry Potter and the Prisoner of AzkabanHardcoverPaperback Harry Potter and the Goblet of FireHardcoverPaperback Harry Potter and the Order of the PhoenixHardcoverPaperback Harry Potter and the Half-Blood PrinceHardcoverPaperback Why We Love Harry Favorite Moments from the SeriesThere are plenty of reasons to love Rowling's wildly popular series--no doubt you have several dozen of your own. Our list features favorite moments, characters, and artifacts from the first five books. Keep in mind that this list is by no means exhaustive (what we love about Harry could fill ten books!) and does not include any of the spectacular revelatory moments that would spoil the books for those (few) who have not read them. Enjoy. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone * Harry's first trip to the zoo with the Dursleys, when a boa constrictor winks at him. * When the Dursleys' house is suddenly besieged by letters for Harry from Hogwarts. Readers learn how much the Dursleys have been keeping from Harry. Rowling does a wonderful job in displaying the lengths to which Uncle Vernon will go to deny that magic exists. * Harry's first visit to Diagon Alley with Hagrid. Full of curiosities and rich with magic and marvel, Harry's first trip includes a trip to Gringotts and Ollivanders, where Harry gets his wand (holly and phoenix feather) and discovers yet another connection to He-Who-Must-No-Be-Named. This moment is the reader's first full introduction to Rowling's world of witchcraft and wizards.* Harry's experience with the Sorting Hat. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets * The de-gnoming of the Weasleys' garden. Harry discovers that even wizards have chores--gnomes must be grabbed (ignoring angry protests "Gerroff me! Gerroff me!"), swung about (to make them too dizzy to come back), and tossed out of the garden--this delightful scene highlights Rowling's clever and witty genius. * Harry's first experience with a Howler, sent to Ron by his mother. * The Dueling Club battle between Harry and Malfoy. Gilderoy Lockhart starts the Dueling Club to help students practice spells on each other, but he is not prepared for the intensity of the animosity between Harry and Draco. Since they are still young, their minibattle is innocent enough, including tickling and dancing charms. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban * Ron's attempt to use a telephone to call Harry at the Dursleys'. * Harry's first encounter with a Dementor on the train (and just about any other encounter with Dementors). Harry's brush with the Dementors is terrifying and prepares Potter fans for a darker, scarier book. * Harry, Ron, and Hermione's behavior in Professor Trelawney's Divination class. Some of the best moments in Rowling's books occur when she reminds us that the wizards-in-training at Hogwarts are, after all, just children. Clearly, even at a school of witchcraft and wizardry, classes can be boring and seem pointless to children. * The Boggart lesson in Professor Lupin's classroom. * Harry, Ron, and Hermione's knock-down confrontation with Snape. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire * Hermione's disgust at the reception for the veela (Bulgarian National Team Mascots) at the Quidditch World Cup. Rowling's fourth book addresses issues about growing up--the dynamic between the boys and girls at Hogwarts starts to change. Nowhere is this more plain than the hilarious scene in which magical cheerleaders nearly convince Harry and Ron to jump from the stands to impress them. * Viktor Krum's crush on Hermione--and Ron's objection to it. * Malfoy's "Potter Stinks" badge. * Hermione's creation of S.P.E.W., the intolerant bigotry of the Death Eaters, and the danger of the Triwizard Tournament. Add in the changing dynamics between girls and boys at Hogwarts, and suddenly Rowling's fourth book has a weight and seriousness not as present in early books in the series. Candy and tickle spells are left behind as the students tackle darker, more serious issues and take on larger responsibilities, including the knowledge of illegal curses. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix * Harry's outburst to his friends at No. 12 Grimmauld Place. A combination of frustration over being kept in the dark and fear that he will be expelled fuels much of Harry's anger, and it all comes out at once, directly aimed at Ron and Hermione. Rowling perfectly portrays Harry's frustration at being too old to shirk responsibility, but too young to be accepted as part of the fight that he knows is coming. * Harry's detention with Professor Umbridge. Rowling shows her darker side, leading readers to believe that Hogwarts is no longer a safe haven for young wizards. Dolores represents a bureaucratic tyrant capable of real evil, and Harry is forced to endure their private battle of wills alone. * Harry and Cho's painfully awkward interactions. Rowling clearly remembers what it was like to be a teenager. * Harry's Occlumency lessons with Snape. * Dumbledore's confession to Harry. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince * The introduction of the Horcrux. * Molly Weasley asking Arthur Weasley about his "dearest ambition." Rowling has always been great at revealing little intriguing bits about her characters at a time, and Arthur's answer "to find out how airplanes stay up" reminds us about his obsession with Muggles.* Harry's private lessons with Dumbledore, and more time spent with the fascinating and dangerous pensieve, arguably one of Rowling's most ingenious inventions.* Fred and George Weasley's Joke Shop, and the slogan: "Why Are You Worrying About You-Know-Who? You Should Be Worrying About U-NO-POO--the Constipation Sensation That's Gripping the Nation!"* Luna's Quidditch commentary. Rowling created scores of Luna Lovegood fans with hilarious and bizarre commentary from the most unlikely Quidditch commentator.* The effects of Felix Felicis. Magic, Mystery, and Mayhem: A Conversation with J.K. Rowling "I am an extraordinarily lucky person, doing what I love best in the world. I'm sure that I will always be a writer. It was wonderful enough just to be published. The greatest reward is the enthusiasm of the readers." --J.K. Rowling Find out more about Harry's creator in our exclusive interview with J.K. Rowling. Did You Know? The Little White Horse was J.K. Rowling's favorite book as a child. Jane Austen is Rowling's favorite author. Roddy Doyle is Rowling's favorite living writer. A Few Words from Mary GrandPré "When I illustrate a cover or a book, I draw upon what the author tells me; that's how I see my responsibility as an illustrator. J.K. Rowling is very descriptive in her writing--she gives an illustrator a lot to work with. Each story is packed full of rich visual descriptions of the atmosphere, the mood, the setting, and all the different creatures and people. She makes it easy for me. The images just develop as I sketch and retrace until it feels right and matches her vision." Check out more Harry Potter art from illustrator Mary GrandPré.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

by J. K. Rowling

Publisher

Bloomsbury Pub Ltd

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: It's hard to fall in love with an earnest, appealing young hero like Harry Potter and then to watch helplessly as he steps into terrible danger! And in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the much anticipated sequel to the award-winning Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, he is in terrible danger indeed. As if it's not bad enough that after a long summer with the horrid Dursleys he is thwarted in his attempts to hop the train to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to begin his second year. But when his only transportation option is a magical flying car, it is just his luck to crash into a valuable (but clearly vexed) Whomping Willow. Still, all this seems like a day in the park compared to what happens that fall within the haunted halls of Hogwarts. Chilling, malevolent voices whisper from the walls only to Harry, and it seems certain that his classmate Draco Malfoy is out to get him. Soon it's not just Harry who is worried about survival, as dreadful things begin to happen at Hogwarts. The mysteriously gleaming, foot-high words on the wall proclaim, "The Chamber of Secrets Has Been Opened. Enemies of the Heir, Beware." But what exactly does it mean? Harry, Hermione, and Ron do everything that is wizardly possible--including risking their own lives--to solve this 50-year-old, seemingly deadly mystery. This deliciously suspenseful novel is every bit as gripping, imaginative, and creepy as the first; familiar student concerns--fierce rivalry, blush-inducing crushes, pedantic professors--seamlessly intertwine with the bizarre, horrific, fantastical, or just plain funny. Once again, Rowling writes with a combination of wit, whimsy, and a touch of the macabre that will leave readers young and old desperate for the next installment. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

by J.K. Rowling

Publisher

Bloomsbury

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling offers up equal parts danger and delight--and any number of dragons, house-elves, and death-defying challenges. Now 14, her orphan hero has only two more weeks with his Muggle relatives before returning to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Yet one night a vision harrowing enough to make his lightning-bolt-shaped scar burn has Harry on edge and contacting his godfather-in-hiding, Sirius Black. Happily, the prospect of attending the season's premier sporting event, the Quidditch World Cup, is enough to make Harry momentarily forget that Lord Voldemort and his sinister familiars--the Death Eaters--are out for murder. Readers, we will cast a giant invisibility cloak over any more plot and reveal only that You-Know-Who is very much after Harry and that this year there will be no Quidditch matches between Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. Instead, Hogwarts will vie with two other magicians' schools, the stylish Beauxbatons and the icy Durmstrang, in a Triwizard Tournament. Those chosen to compete will undergo three supreme tests. Could Harry be one of the lucky contenders? But Quidditch buffs need not go into mourning: we get our share of this great game at the World Cup. Attempting to go incognito as Muggles, 100,000 witches and wizards converge on a "nice deserted moor." As ever, Rowling magicks up the details that make her world so vivid, and so comic. Several spectators' tents, for instance, are entirely unquotidian. One is a minipalace, complete with live peacocks; another has three floors and multiple turrets. And the sports paraphernalia on offer includes rosettes "squealing the names of the players" as well as "tiny models of Firebolts that really flew, and collectible figures of famous players, which strolled across the palm of your hand, preening themselves." Needless to say, the two teams are decidedly different, down to their mascots. Bulgaria is supported by the beautiful veela, who instantly enchant everyone--including Ireland's supporters--over to their side. Until, that is, thousands of tiny cheerleaders engage in some pyrotechnics of their own: "The leprechauns had risen into the air again, and this time, they formed a giant hand, which was making a very rude sign indeed at the veela across the field." Long before her fourth installment appeared, Rowling warned that it would be darker, and it's true that every exhilaration is equaled by a moment that has us fearing for Harry's life, the book's emotions running as deep as its dangers. Along the way, though, she conjures up such new characters as Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, a Dark Wizard catcher who may or may not be getting paranoid in his old age, and Rita Skeeter, who beetles around Hogwarts in search of stories. (This Daily Prophet scoop artist has a Quick-Quotes Quill that turns even the most innocent assertion into tabloid innuendo.) And at her bedazzling close, Rowling leaves several plot strands open, awaiting book 5. This fan is ready to wager that the author herself is part veela--her pen her wand, her commitment to her world complete. (Ages 9 and older) --Kerry Fried

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

by J. K. Rowling

Publisher

Raincoast Books

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: The long-awaited, eagerly anticipated, arguably over-hyped Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince has arrived, and the question on the minds of kids, adults, fans, and skeptics alike is, "Is it worth the hype?" The answer, luckily, is simple: yep. A magnificent spectacle more than worth the price of admission, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will blow you away. However, given that so much has gone into protecting the secrets of the book (including armored trucks and injunctions), don't expect any spoilers in this review. It's much more fun not knowing what's coming--and in the case of Rowling's delicious sixth book, you don't want to know. Just sit tight, despite the earth-shattering revelations that will have your head in your hands as you hope the words will rearrange themselves into a different story. But take one warning to heart: do not open Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince until you have first found a secluded spot, safe from curious eyes, where you can tuck in for a good long read. Because once you start, you won't stop until you reach the very last page. A darker book than any in the series thus far with a level of sophistication belying its genre, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince moves the series into murkier waters and marks the arrival of Rowling onto the adult literary scene. While she has long been praised for her cleverness and wit, the strength of Book 6 lies in her subtle development of key characters, as well as her carefully nuanced depiction of a community at war. In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, no one and nothing is safe, including preconceived notions of good and evil and of right and wrong. With each book in her increasingly remarkable series, fans have nervously watched J.K. Rowling raise the stakes; gone are the simple delights of butterbeer and enchanted candy, and days when the worst ailment could be cured by a bite of chocolate. A series that began as a colorful lark full of magic and discovery has become a dark and deadly war zone. But this should not come as a shock to loyal readers. Rowling readied fans with Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by killing off popular characters and engaging the young students in battle. Still, there is an unexpected bleakness from the start of Book 6 that casts a mean shadow over Quidditch games, silly flirtations, and mountains of homework. Ready or not, the tremendous ending of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will leave stunned fans wondering what great and terrible events await in Book 7 if this sinister darkness is meant to light the way. --Daphne Durham Visit the Harry Potter Store Our Harry Potter Store features all things Harry, including books (box sets and collector's editions), audio CDs and cassettes, DVDs, soundtracks, games, and more. Begin at the Beginning Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone Hardcover Paperback Harry Potter and the Chamber of SecretsHardcoverPaperback Harry Potter and the Prisoner of AzkabanHardcoverPaperback Harry Potter and the Goblet of FireHardcoverPaperback Harry Potter and the Order of the PhoenixHardcoverPaperback Why We Love Harry Favorite Moments from the SeriesThere are plenty of reasons to love Rowling's wildly popular series--no doubt you have several dozen of your own. Our list features favorite moments, characters, and artifacts from the first five books. Keep in mind that this list is by no means exhaustive (what we love about Harry could fill ten books!) and does not include any of the spectacular revelatory moments that would spoil the books for those (few) who have not read them. Enjoy. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone * Harry's first trip to the zoo with the Dursleys, when a boa constrictor winks at him. * When the Dursleys' house is suddenly besieged by letters for Harry from Hogwarts. Readers learn how much the Dursleys have been keeping from Harry. Rowling does a wonderful job in displaying the lengths to which Uncle Vernon will go to deny that magic exists. * Harry's first visit to Diagon Alley with Hagrid. Full of curiosities and rich with magic and marvel, Harry's first trip includes a trip to Gringotts and Ollivanders, where Harry gets his wand (holly and phoenix feather) and discovers yet another connection to He-Who-Must-No-Be-Named. This moment is the reader's first full introduction to Rowling's world of witchcraft and wizards.* Harry's experience with the Sorting Hat. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets * The de-gnoming of the Weasleys' garden. Harry discovers that even wizards have chores--gnomes must be grabbed (ignoring angry protests "Gerroff me! Gerroff me!"), swung about (to make them too dizzy to come back), and tossed out of the garden--this delightful scene highlights Rowling's clever and witty genius. * Harry's first experience with a Howler, sent to Ron by his mother. * The Dueling Club battle between Harry and Malfoy. Gilderoy Lockhart starts the Dueling Club to help students practice spells on each other, but he is not prepared for the intensity of the animosity between Harry and Draco. Since they are still young, their minibattle is innocent enough, including tickling and dancing charms. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban * Ron's attempt to use a telephone to call Harry at the Dursleys'. * Harry's first encounter with a Dementor on the train (and just about any other encounter with Dementors). Harry's brush with the Dementors is terrifying and prepares Potter fans for a darker, scarier book. * Harry, Ron, and Hermione's behavior in Professor Trelawney's Divination class. Some of the best moments in Rowling's books occur when she reminds us that the wizards-in-training at Hogwarts are, after all, just children. Clearly, even at a school of witchcraft and wizardry, classes can be boring and seem pointless to children. * The Boggart lesson in Professor Lupin's classroom. * Harry, Ron, and Hermione's knock-down confrontation with Snape. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire * Hermione's disgust at the reception for the veela (Bulgarian National Team Mascots) at the Quidditch World Cup. Rowling's fourth book addresses issues about growing up--the dynamic between the boys and girls at Hogwarts starts to change. Nowhere is this more plain than the hilarious scene in which magical cheerleaders nearly convince Harry and Ron to jump from the stands to impress them. * Viktor Krum's crush on Hermione--and Ron's objection to it. * Malfoy's "Potter Stinks" badge. * Hermione's creation of S.P.E.W., the intolerant bigotry of the Death Eaters, and the danger of the Triwizard Tournament. Add in the changing dynamics between girls and boys at Hogwarts, and suddenly Rowling's fourth book has a weight and seriousness not as present in early books in the series. Candy and tickle spells are left behind as the students tackle darker, more serious issues and take on larger responsibilities, including the knowledge of illegal curses. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix * Harry's outburst to his friends at No. 12 Grimmauld Place. A combination of frustration over being kept in the dark and fear that he will be expelled fuels much of Harry's anger, and it all comes out at once, directly aimed at Ron and Hermione. Rowling perfectly portrays Harry's frustration at being too old to shirk responsibility, but too young to be accepted as part of the fight that he knows is coming. * Harry's detention with Professor Umbridge. Rowling shows her darker side, leading readers to believe that Hogwarts is no longer a safe haven for young wizards. Dolores represents a bureaucratic tyrant capable of real evil, and Harry is forced to endure their private battle of wills alone. * Harry and Cho's painfully awkward interactions. Rowling clearly remembers what it was like to be a teenager. * Harry's Occlumency lessons with Snape. * Dumbledore's confession to Harry. Magic, Mystery, and Mayhem: A Conversation with J.K. Rowling "I am an extraordinarily lucky person, doing what I love best in the world. I'm sure that I will always be a writer. It was wonderful enough just to be published. The greatest reward is the enthusiasm of the readers." --J.K. Rowling Find out more about Harry's creator in our exclusive interview with J.K. Rowling. Did You Know? The Little White Horse was J.K. Rowling's favorite book as a child. Jane Austen is Rowling's favorite author. Roddy Doyle is Rowling's favorite living writer. A Few Words from Mary GrandPré "When I illustrate a cover or a book, I draw upon what the author tells me; that's how I see my responsibility as an illustrator. J.K. Rowling is very descriptive in her writing--she gives an illustrator a lot to work with. Each story is packed full of rich visual descriptions of the atmosphere, the mood, the setting, and all the different creatures and people. She makes it easy for me. The images just develop as I sketch and retrace until it feels right and matches her vision." Check out more Harry Potter art from illustrator Mary GrandPré.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

by J.K. Rowling

Publisher

Bloomsbury

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: As his fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry approaches, 15-year-old Harry Potter is in full-blown adolescence, complete with regular outbursts of rage, a nearly debilitating crush, and the blooming of a powerful sense of rebellion. It's been yet another infuriating and boring summer with the despicable Dursleys, this time with minimal contact from our hero's non-Muggle friends from school. Harry is feeling especially edgy at the lack of news from the magic world, wondering when the freshly revived evil Lord Voldemort will strike. Returning to Hogwarts will be a relief... or will it? The fifth book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series follows the darkest year yet for our young wizard, who finds himself knocked down a peg or three after the events of last year. Somehow, over the summer, gossip (usually traced back to the magic world's newspaper, the Daily Prophet) has turned Harry's tragic and heroic encounter with Voldemort at the Triwizard Tournament into an excuse to ridicule and discount the teen. Even Professor Dumbledore, headmaster of the school, has come under scrutiny by the Ministry of Magic, which refuses to officially acknowledge the terrifying truth that Voldemort is back. Enter a particularly loathsome new character: the toadlike and simpering ("hem, hem") Dolores Umbridge, senior undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, who takes over the vacant position of Defense Against Dark Arts teacher--and in no time manages to become the High Inquisitor of Hogwarts, as well. Life isn't getting any easier for Harry Potter. With an overwhelming course load as the fifth years prepare for their Ordinary Wizarding Levels examinations (O.W.Ls), devastating changes in the Gryffindor Quidditch team lineup, vivid dreams about long hallways and closed doors, and increasing pain in his lightning-shaped scar, Harry's resilience is sorely tested. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, more than any of the four previous novels in the series, is a coming-of-age story. Harry faces the thorny transition into adulthood, when adult heroes are revealed to be fallible, and matters that seemed black-and-white suddenly come out in shades of gray. Gone is the wide-eyed innocent, the whiz kid of Sorcerer's Stone. Here we have an adolescent who's sometimes sullen, often confused (especially about girls), and always self-questioning. Confronting death again, as well as a startling prophecy, Harry ends his year at Hogwarts exhausted and pensive. Readers, on the other hand, will be energized as they enter yet again the long waiting period for the next title in the marvelous, magical series. (Ages 9 and older) --Emilie Coulter

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

by J. K. Rowling

Publisher

Raincoast Book Dist Ltd

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: For most children, summer vacation is something to look forward to. But not for our 13-year-old hero, who's forced to spend his summers with an aunt, uncle, and cousin who detest him. The third book in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series catapults into action when the young wizard "accidentally" causes the Dursleys' dreadful visitor Aunt Marge to inflate like a monstrous balloon and drift up to the ceiling. Fearing punishment from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon (and from officials at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry who strictly forbid students to cast spells in the nonmagic world of Muggles), Harry lunges out into the darkness with his heavy trunk and his owl Hedwig. As it turns out, Harry isn't punished at all for his errant wizardry. Instead he is mysteriously rescued from his Muggle neighborhood and whisked off in a triple-decker, violently purple bus to spend the remaining weeks of summer in a friendly inn called the Leaky Cauldron. What Harry has to face as he begins his third year at Hogwarts explains why the officials let him off easily. It seems that Sirius Black--an escaped convict from the prison of Azkaban--is on the loose. Not only that, but he's after Harry Potter. But why? And why do the Dementors, the guards hired to protect him, chill Harry's very heart when others are unaffected? Once again, Rowling has created a mystery that will have children and adults cheering, not to mention standing in line for her next book. Fortunately, there are four more in the works. (Ages 9 and older) --Karin Snelson

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

by J.K. Rowling

Publisher

Arthur A. Levine Books

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Say you've spent the first 10 years of your life sleeping under the stairs of a family who loathes you. Then, in an absurd, magical twist of fate you find yourself surrounded by wizards, a caged snowy owl, a phoenix-feather wand, and jellybeans that come in every flavor, including strawberry, curry, grass, and sardine. Not only that, but you discover that you are a wizard yourself! This is exactly what happens to young Harry Potter in J.K. Rowling's enchanting, funny debut novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. In the nonmagic human world--the world of "Muggles"--Harry is a nobody, treated like dirt by the aunt and uncle who begrudgingly inherited him when his parents were killed by the evil Voldemort. But in the world of wizards, small, skinny Harry is famous as a survivor of the wizard who tried to kill him. He is left only with a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, curiously refined sensibilities, and a host of mysterious powers to remind him that he's quite, yes, altogether different from his aunt, uncle, and spoiled, piglike cousin Dudley. A mysterious letter, delivered by the friendly giant Hagrid, wrenches Harry from his dreary, Muggle-ridden existence: "We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry." Of course, Uncle Vernon yells most unpleasantly, "I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" Soon enough, however, Harry finds himself at Hogwarts with his owl Hedwig... and that's where the real adventure--humorous, haunting, and suspenseful--begins. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, first published in England as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, continues to win major awards in England. So far it has won the National Book Award, the Smarties Prize, the Children's Book Award, and is short-listed for the Carnegie Medal, the U.K. version of the Newbery Medal. This magical, gripping, brilliant book--a future classic to be sure--will leave kids clamoring for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. (Ages 8 to 13) --Karin Snelson

Harvest

by Tess Gerritsen

by

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published

July 1997

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: Medical resident Dr. Abby Matteo is elated when the elite cardiac transplant team at Boston's Bayside Hospital taps her as a potential recruit. But faced with a tormenting life-and-death decision, Abby helps direct a crash victim's harvested heart to a dying teenager -- instead of the wealthy older woman who was supposed to receive it. The repercussions leave Abby shaken and plagued with self-doubt.Suddenly, a new heart appears, and the woman's transplant is completed. Then Abby makes a terrible discovery. The donor records have been falsified -- the new heart has not come through the proper channels. Defying the hospital's demands for silence, she begins her own investigation that reveals a murderous, unthinkable conspiracy. Every move Abby makes spawns a vicious backlash...and on a ship anchored in the waters of Boston harbor, the grisly truth lies waiting.

The Help

by Kathryn Stockett

by

Publisher

Penguin Group

Published

February 2009

Rating

★★★★☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step. Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone. Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken. Minny, Aibileen’s best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can cook like nobody’s business, but she can’t mind her tongue, so she’s lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own. Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed. In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women—mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends—view one another. A deeply moving novel filled with poignancy, humor, and hope, *The Help* is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t.

I, Alex Cross

by James Patterson

Publisher

Little Brown and Company

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: You can't runDetective Alex Cross is pulled out of a family celebration and given the awful news that a beloved relative has been found brutally murdered. Alex vows to hunt down the killer, and soon learns that she was mixed up in one of Washington's wildest scenes. And she was not this killer's only victim.You can't hideThe hunt for her murderer leads Alex and his girlfriend, Detective Brianna Stone, to a place where every fantasy is possible, if you have the credentials to get in. Alex and Bree are soon facing down some very important, very protected, very dangerous people in levels of society where only one thing is certain--they will do anything to keep their secrets safe. Alex Cross is your only hope to stay aliveAs Alex closes in on the killer, he discovers evidence that points to the unimaginable--a revelation that could rock the entire world. With the unstoppable action, unforeseeable twists, and edge-of-your-seat suspense that only a James Patterson thriller delivers, I, Alex Cross is the master of suspense at his sharpest and best.

I, Sniper: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel

by Stephen Hunter

by

Publisher

Simon & Schuster

Published

February 2010

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Four famed '60s radicals are gunned down at long range by a sniper. Under enormous media scrutiny, the FBI quickly concludes that Marine war hero Carl Hitchcock, whose ninety-three kills were considered the leading body count tally among American marksman in Vietnam, was the shooter. But as the Bureau, led by Special Agent Nick Memphis, bears down, Hitchcock commits suicide. In closing out the investigation, Nick discovers a case made in heaven: everything fits, from timeline, ballistics, and forensics to motive, means, and opportunity. Maybe it's a little too perfect.Nick asks his friend, the retired Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger, to examine the data. Using a skill set no other man on earth possesses, Swagger soon discovers unseen anomalies and gradually begins to unravel a sophisticated conspiracy -- one that would require the highest level of warcraft by the most superb special operations professionals. As Swagger penetrates the deepest secrets of the sniper world and its new technology, Nick stands firm in the face of hardball PR initiatives and an inflamed media calling for his ouster.Swagger soon closes in, and those responsible will stop at nothing to take him out. But these heavily armed men make the mistake of thinking they are hunting Bob, when he is, in fact, hunting them.I, Sniperwill satisfy Stephen Hunter's legions of fans and win him droves of new ones with its signature blend of brilliant plotting, vivid characters, razor-sharp dialogue, and extraordinary gunfights. And when Swagger and the last of his antagonists finally face each other, reenacting a classic ritual of arms, it is clear that at times there's nothing more necessary than a good man with a gun and the guts to use it.

The Innocent Man

by John Grisham

Publisher

Dell

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: In the major league draft of 1971, the first player chosen from the State of Oklahoma was Ron Williamson. When he signed with the Oakland A’s, he said goodbye to his hometown of Ada and left to pursue his dreams of big league glory.Six years later he was back, his dreams broken by a bad arm and bad habits—drinking, drugs, and women. He began to show signs of mental illness. Unable to keep a job, he moved in with his mother and slept twenty hours a day on her sofa.In 1982, a 21-year-old cocktail waitress in Ada named Debra Sue Carter was raped and murdered, and for five years the police could not solve the crime. For reasons that were never clear, they suspected Ron Williamson and his friend Dennis Fritz. The two were finally arrested in 1987 and charged with capital murder.With no physical evidence, the prosecution’s case was built on junk science and the testimony of jailhouse snitches and convicts. Dennis Fritz was found guilty and given a life sentence. Ron Williamson was sent to death row.If you believe that in America you are innocent until proven guilty, this book will shock you. If you believe in the death penalty, this book will disturb you. If you believe the criminal justice system is fair, this book will infuriate you.From the Hardcover edition.

Invasion

by Robin Cook

Publisher

Doubleday Books

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Fans of Robin Cook's many thrillers will be happy to know another one is on the way. In this latest outing, Invasion, Cook envisions a contact with extraterrestials that is closer to Alien than to E.T.. A gigantic spaceship arrives in the stratosphere to dump some black disks onto Earth. Touch these things at your own risk, however; unsuspecting souls who handle the disks receive a sting, soon followed by flulike symptoms and ending in a kind of zombie assimilation into the alien consciousness. And make no mistake: these aliens are up to no good--we know this because the victims of the UFO-flu are soon transformed into hideous reptilian creatures. Apparently, one consequence of being trapped by the aliens is that victims lose all semblance of natural speech--most notably, contractions. The book abounds in dialogue such as, "You must flee, Cassy," and "The electrical grid has been interrupted. There will be no force counteracting the antigravity ..." Still, readers looking for a good beach or bathtub book will find Invasion is right on the money.

Jack & Jill (Alex Cross)

by James Patterson

Publisher

Grand Central Publishing

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: A child killer is stalking the inner city of Washington, D.C., his latest victim Shanelle Green, an adorable first grader from Sojourner Truth School. This killing is especially unsettling to Detective Alex Cross. Sojourner Truth is the school his son Damon attends, just four blocks from his home. While the death of an inner-city black child doesn't garner much media attention, another murder is making big headlines. The same day that Shanelle was beaten to death, Senator Daniel Fitzpatrick was found handcuffed to a bed and shot execution style. The only clue the police have to go on is a bizarre rhyme, signed "Jack and Jill," promising more high-profile executions, ultimately targeting the president of the United States. When Cross is called in to help protect the president, he begins to suspect that the two cases are somehow related. As he races to put all the pieces together, the killers continue their bloody rampage, paralyzing the city. Like Along Came a Spider and Cat Mouse, Jack Jill is a rapid-fire thriller from start to finish, with enough plot twists to satisfy even the most jaded mystery fan.

Keeping Faith

by Jodi Picoult

Publisher

Hodder Paperback

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: For the second time in her marriage, Mariah White catches her husband with another woman, and Faith, their seven-year-old daughter, witnesses every painful minute. In the aftermath of a sudden divorce, Mariah struggles with depression and Faith seeks solace in a new friend -- a friend who may or may not be imaginary. Faith talks to her "Guard" constantly and begins to recite passages from the Bible -- a book she's never read. Fearful for her daughter's sanity, Mariah sends her to several psychiatrists. Yet when Faith develops stigmata and begins to perform miraculous healings, Mariah wonders if her daughter -- a girl with no religious background -- might indeed be seeing God. As word spreads and controversy heightens, Mariah and Faith are besieged by believers and disbelievers alike; they are caught in a media circus that threatens what little stability they have left.What are you willing to believe? Is Faith a prophet or a troubled little girl? Is Mariah a good mother facing an impossible crisis...or a charlatan using her daughter to reclaim the attention her unfaithful husband withheld? As the story builds to a climactic battle for custody, Mariah must discover that spirit is not necessarily something that comes from religion but from inside oneself. Fascinating, thoughtful, and suspenseful, Keeping Faith explores a family plagued by the media, the medical profession, and organized religion in a world where everyone has an opinion but no one knows the truth. At her controversial and compelling best, Jodi Picoult masterfully explores the moment when boundaries break down, when illusions become reality, and when the only step left to take is a leap of faith.

The Keepsake

by Tess Gerritsen

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: When a perfectly preserved "mummy" is discovered in the dusty basement of Boston's Crispin Museum and an archaeologist turns up missing, medical examiner Maura Isles and Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli have precious little time to derail the Archaeology Killer before he adds another chilling piece to his monstrous collection.

Kill the Messenger

by Tami Hoag

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

February 2006

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: With this new thriller, The New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag delivers her own message to suspense fans everywhere: Don't turn off the lights, and keep reading if you dare. From the gritty streets of Los Angeles to its most protected enclaves of prestige and power to the ruthless glamour of Hollywood, a killer stalks his prey. A killer so merciless no one in his way is safe—not even the innocent.At the end of a long day battling street traffic, bike messenger Jace Damon has one last drop to make. But en route to delivering a package for one of L.A.'s sleaziest defense attorneys, he's nearly run down by a car, chased through back alleys, and shot at. Only the instincts acquired while growing up on the streets of L.A. allow him to escape with his life—and with the package someone wants badly enough to kill for. Jace returns to Lenny Lowell's office only to find the cops there, the lawyer dead, and Jace himself considered the prime suspect in the savage murder. Suddenly he's on the run from both the cops and a killer, and the key to saving himself and his ten-year-old brother is the envelope he still has—which holds a message no one wants delivered: the truth.In a city fueled by money, celebrity, and sensationalism, the murder of a bottom-feeding mouthpiece like Lenny Lowell won't make the headlines. So when detectives from the LAPD's elite robbery/homicide division show up, homicide detective Kev Parker wants to know why. Parker is on the downhill slide of a once-promising career, and he doesn't want to be reminded that he used to be one of the hotshots, working cases that made instant celebrities of everyone involved. Like the case of fading retty-boy actor Rob Cole, accused of the brutal murder of his wife, Tricia Crowne-Cole, daughter of one of the most powerful men in the city, L.A.'s latest "crime of the century."Robbery/Homicide has no reason to be looking at a dead small-time scumbag lawyer or chasing a bike messenger...unless there's something in it for them. Maybe Lenny Lowell had a connection to something big enough to be killed for. Parker begins a search for answers that will lead him to a killer—or the end of his career. Because if there's one lesson he's learned over the years, it's that in a town built on fantasy and fame, delivering the truth can be deadly.From the Hardcover edition.

Killing Joe

by Treanor, Marie

by

Publisher

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

<P>How many times can one man die?</P> <P>To professional assassin Joe, life is cheap, and crash researcher Anna just another hit. Until his own unplanned car crash changes everything. </P> <P>Dr. Anna Baird, dedicated to the point of obsession, suddenly finds her state-of-the-art crash test dummy haunted by a weird and exciting stranger—who seems doomed to repeatedly experience the fate he’d intended for Anna.</P> <P>Lost in a reality only he and Anna inhabit, Joe finds himself falling in love with his intended victim, and ultimately fighting to save her life—because whoever hired him still wants her dead.</P> <P>Warning: This title contains explicit sex, occasional bad language and extreme violence perpetrated against crash test dummies.</P>

The King of Torts

by John Grisham

Publisher

Delta

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: The office of the public defender is not known as a training ground for bright young litigators. Clay Carter has been there too long and, like most of his colleagues, dreams of a better job in a real firm. When he reluctantly takes the case of a young man charged with a random street killing, he assumes it is just another of the many senseless murders that hit D.C. every week.As he digs into the background of his client, Clay stumbles on a conspiracy too horrible to believe. He suddenly finds himself in the middle of a complex case against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, looking at the kind of enormous settlement that would totally change his life—that would make him, almost overnight, the legal profession’s newest king of torts...From the Hardcover edition.

The Kite Runner

by Khaled Hosseini

Publisher

Bloomsbury

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: In his debut novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini accomplishes what very few contemporary novelists are able to do. He manages to provide an educational and eye-opening account of a country's political turmoil--in this case, Afghanistan--while also developing characters whose heartbreaking struggles and emotional triumphs resonate with readers long after the last page has been turned over. And he does this on his first try. The Kite Runner follows the story of Amir, the privileged son of a wealthy businessman in Kabul, and Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant. As children in the relatively stable Afghanistan of the early 1970s, the boys are inseparable. They spend idyllic days running kites and telling stories of mystical places and powerful warriors until an unspeakable event changes the nature of their relationship forever, and eventually cements their bond in ways neither boy could have ever predicted. Even after Amir and his father flee to America, Amir remains haunted by his cowardly actions and disloyalty. In part, it is these demons and the sometimes impossible quest for forgiveness that bring him back to his war-torn native land after it comes under Taliban rule. ("...I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare of epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night.") Some of the plot's turns and twists may be somewhat implausible, but Hosseini has created characters that seem so real that one almost forgets that The Kite Runner is a novel and not a memoir. At a time when Afghanistan has been thrust into the forefront of America's collective consciousness ("people sipping lattes at Starbucks were talking about the battle for Kunduz"), Hosseini offers an honest, sometimes tragic, sometimes funny, but always heartfelt view of a fascinating land. Perhaps the only true flaw in this extraordinary novel is that it ends all too soon. --Gisele Toueg

The Lake House

by James Patterson

Publisher

Warner Books

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: The six children have escaped horrifying government experiments, a childhood in captivity, and a frightening brush with death. Living out in the world for the first time, they yearn to be reunited with Kit and Frannie, the couple who saved their lives. And Max, the leader of the flock, is seized by an overpowering fear that the kids are about to face a danger greater than any they've ever known. All that the children want is to return to the one place they have ever felt truly protected--the waterfront cabin known as the Lake House. But in order to get there, they must thwart the sinister plans of a survivor from their worst nightmare--plans that not only keep Kit, Frannie, and the children in constant peril, but threaten the future of human existence. And it's a battle they must be willing to pay any price to win. ï THE LAKE HOUSE is the completion of James Patterson's most original and compelling story ever, When the Wind Blows--a conclusion that millions of readers have awaited for years.

The Last Continent

by Terry Pratchett

Publisher

Doubleday

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Terry Pratchett's 22nd Discworld novel, The Last Continent, is a lighthearted tour of the fantasy land of Fourecks, a very Australian sort of place, with brief courses in theoretical physics and evolution thrown in for good measure. Pratchett returns to his first Discworld protagonist, the inept and cowardly wizard Rincewind, who habitually runs into trouble as fast as he flees. Rincewind's arrival in Fourecks has distorted the space-time continuum, and he has to sort it out before the whole place dries up and blows away. The situation is complicated because the actual problem is located 30,000 years in the past--just where the Faculty of the Unseen University currently are. Pretty frightening, given "the true wizard's instinct to amble aimlessly into dangerous places," and then "stop and argue ... about exactly what kind of danger it [is]." If you're baffled by all this, no worries, mate. You needn't have read Pratchett before--not even the five previous Discworld novels starring Rincewind (The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, Sourcery, Eric, and Interesting Times)--to enjoy this latest romp. Nor to have visited Australia. When you finish, however, you'll likely want to rush out and do both. --Nona Vero

The Last Hero: A Discworld Fable (Discworld Novels)

by Terry Pratchett; Paul Kidby (Illustrator)

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: A new Discworld story is always an event. Terry Pratchett's The Last Hero is unusually short, a 40,000-word "Discworld Fable" rather than a full novel, but is illustrated throughout in sumptuous color by Paul Kidby. The 160 pages cover the series' longest and most awesome (but still comic) journey yet, a mission to save all Discworld from a new threat. An old threat, actually. Aged warrior Cohen the Barbarian has decided to go out with a bang and take the gods with him. So, with the remnants of his geriatric Silver Horde, he's climbing to the divine retirement home Dunmanifestin with the Discworld equivalent of a nuke--a fifty-pound keg of Agatean Thunder Clay. This will, for excellent magical reasons, destroy the world. It's up to Leonard of Quirm, Discworld's da Vinci, to invent the technology that might just beat Cohen to his goal. His unlikely vessel is powered by dragons, crewed by himself and two popular regular characters, and secretly harbors a stowaway. Before long we hear the Discworld version of "Houston, we have a problem...." Kidby rises splendidly to the challenge of painting both funny faces and cosmic vistas. As Pratchett puts it, The Last Hero "has an extra dimension: some parts of it are written in paint!" New characters include Evil Dark Lord Harry Dread, who started out with "just two lads and his Shed of Doom," and a god so tiresome that his worshippers are forbidden chocolate, ginger, mushrooms and garlic. Pratchett's story alone is strong and effective, with several hair-raising frissons contrasting with high comedy; Kidby's paintings make it something very special. Not to be missed. --David Langford, Amazon.co.uk

The Last Juror

by John Grisham

Publisher

Century

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: In 1970, small town newspaper The Clanton Times went belly up. With financial assistance from a rich relative, it's purchased by 23-year-old Willie Traynor, formerly the paper's cub reporter. Soon afterward, his new business receives the readership boost it needs thanks to his editorial efforts and coverage of a particularly brutal rape and murder committed by the scion of the town's reclusive bootlegger family. Rather than shy from reporting on the subsequent open-and-shut trial (those who oppose the Padgitt family tend to turn up dead in the area's swampland), Traynor launches a crusade to ensure the unrepentant murderer is brought to justice. When a guilty verdict is returned, the town is relieved to find the Padgitt family's grip on the town did not sway the jury, though Danny Padgitt is sentenced to life in prison rather than death. But, when Padgitt is released after serving less than a decade in jail and members of the jury are murdered, Clanton once again finds itself at the mercy of its renegade family. When it comes, the dénouement is no surprise; The Last Juror is less a story of suspense than a study of the often idyllic southern town of Clanton, Mississippi (the setting for Grisham's first novel, A Time to Kill). Throughout the nine years between Padgitt's trial and release, Traynor finds acceptance in Clanton, where the people "don't really trust you unless they trusted your grandfather." He grows from a long-haired idealist into another of the town's colorful characters--renovating an old house, sporting a bowtie, beloved on both sides of the color line, and the only person to have attended each of the town's 88 churches at least once. The Last Juror returns Grisham to the courtroom where he made his name, but those who enjoyed the warm sentiment of his recent novels (Bleachers, A Painted House) will still find much to love here. --Benjamin Reese

Life Support

by Tess Gerritsen

by

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published

July 1998

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen weaves authenticity into another novel of searing medical suspense, as a dedicated woman doctor probes into the cause of a mystifying and lethal outbreak. The quiet overnight shift at Springer Hospital ER suits Dr. Toby Harper just fine -- until she admits a man in critical condition from a possible viral infection of the brain. The delirious man barely responds to treatment -- and then disappears without a trace. Before Toby can find him, a second case occurs, revealing a terrifying fact: the virus can only be spread through direct tissue exchange. Following a trail of death that winds from a pregnant sixteen-year-old prostitute to her own home, Toby discovers the unthinkable: the epidemic didn't just happen -- someone let it loose....

Lovely Bones

by Alice Sebold

Publisher

Picador

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: On her way home from school on a snowy December day in 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon ("like the fish") is lured into a makeshift underground den in a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer--the man she knew as her neighbor, Mr. Harvey. Alice Sebold's haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, The Lovely Bones, unfolds from heaven, where "life is a perpetual yesterday" and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case. As Sebold fashions it, everyone has his or her own version of heaven. Susie's resembles the athletic fields and landscape of a suburban high school: a heaven of her "simplest dreams," where "there were no teachers.... We never had to go inside except for art class.... The boys did not pinch our backsides or tell us we smelled; our textbooks were Seventeen and Glamour and Vogue." The Lovely Bones works as an odd yet affecting coming-of-age story. Susie struggles to accept her death while still clinging to the lost world of the living, following her family's dramas over the years like an episode of My So-Called Afterlife.Her family disintegrates in their grief: her father becomes determined to find her killer, her mother withdraws, her little brother Buckley attempts to make sense of the new hole in his family, and her younger sister Lindsey moves through the milestone events of her teenage and young adult years with Susie riding spiritual shotgun. Random acts and missed opportunities run throughout the book--Susie recalls her sole kiss with a boy on Earth as "like an accident--a beautiful gasoline rainbow." Though sentimental at times, The Lovely Bones is a moving exploration of loss and mourning that ultimately puts its faith in the living and that is made even more powerful by a cast of convincing characters. Sebold orchestrates a big finish, and though things tend to wrap up a little too well for everyone in the end, one can only imagine (or hope) that heaven is indeed a place filled with such happy endings. --Brad Thomas Parsons

Lucky's Lady

by Tami Hoag

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

December 2003

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: As wild and mysterious as the Louisiana swamp he called home, Lucky Doucet was a dangerously attractive Cajun no woman could handle. His solitary life left no room for the likes of elegant Serena Sheridan, but Lucky couldn't deny her desperate need to find her missing grandfather. He would help her, but nothing more—yet once he felt the lure of the flaxen-haired beauty, an adventurer like Lucky couldn't help playing with fire.Serena felt unnerved, aroused, and excited by the ruggedly sensual renegade whose gaze burned her with its heat, but she did not dare tangle with a rebel whose intensity was overwhelming, who claimed his heart was off limits? Deeper and deeper they traveled into the steamy bayou, until with one electrifying kiss her resistance melted into liquid desire. And the devilish rogue found he'd do anything to make Serena Lucky's Lady.

Mary, Mary

by James Patterson

Publisher

Headline Book Publishing Ltd

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: FBI agent Alex Cross is on vacation with his family at Disneyland when he gets a call from the Director. A well-known actress was shot outside her home in Beverly Hills. Shortly afterward, an editor for the Los Angeles Times receives an e-mail describing the murder in vivid detail. Alex quickly learns that this is not an isolated incident. The killer, known as Mary Smith, has done this before and plans to kill again. Right from the beginning, this case is like nothing Alex has ever confronted. Is this the plan of an obsessed fan or a spurned actor, or is it part of something much more frightening? And particularly baffling, how could a woman be capable of these vicious crimes? Members of Hollywoods A-list fear theyre next on Marys list, and the case grows by blockbuster proportions as the LAPD and FBI scramble to find a pattern before Mary can send one more chilling update. Filled with the ruthless and shocking twists that make his fans hunger for more, MARY, MARY is James Pattersons most sophisticated thriller yet.

Men At Arms

by Terry Pratchett

Publisher

Corgi

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Another wild romp through Discworld! Corporal Carrot, a young dwarf, is newly in charge of the recruits guarding Ankh-Morpork. Edward, the 37th Lord d'Eath, has just discovered that Ankh-Morpork, kingless for generations, has a sovereign ruler, who must be convinced that he is, in fact, the King. The fate of Ankh-Morpork rides on a young man's courage, an ancient sword's magic, and a three-legged poodle's bladder.

Mercy

by Jodi Picoult

Publisher

Washington Square Press

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Police chief of a small Massachusetts town, Cameron McDonald makes the toughest arrest of his life when his own cousin Jamie comes to him and confesses outright that he has killed his terminally ill wife out of mercy. Now, a heated murder trial plunges the town into upheaval, and drives a wedge into a contented marriage: Cameron, aiding the prosecution in their case against Jamie, is suddenly at odds with his devoted wife, Allie -- seduced by the idea of a man so in love with his wife that he'd grant all her wishes, even her wish to end her life. And when an inexplicable attraction leads to a shocking betrayal, Allie faces the hardest questions of the heart: when does love cross the line of moral obligation? And what does it mean to truly love another? Praised for her "personal, detail-rich style" (Glamour), Jodi Picoult infuses this page-turning novel with heart, warmth, and startling candor, taking readers on an unforgettable emotional journey.

Message In A Bottle

by Nicholas Sparks

by

Publisher

Warner Books

Published

January 1999

Rating

★★★☆☆

SUMMARY: Divorced and disillusioned about relationships, Theresa Osborne is jogging when she finds a bottle on the beach. Inside is a letter of love and longing to "Catherine," signed simply "Garrett." Challenged by the mystery and pulled by emotions she doesn't fully understand, Theresa begins a search for this man that will change her life. What happens to her is unexpected, perhaps miraculous-an encounter that embraces all our hopes for finding someone special, for having a love that is timeless and everlasting.... Nicholas Sparks exquisitely chronicles the human heart. In his first bestselling novel, The Notebook, he created a testament to romantic love that touched readers around the world. Now in this New York Times bestseller, he renews our faith in destiny, in the ability of lovers to find each other no matter where, no matter when...

Monstrous Regiment (Discworld)

by Terry Pratchett

Publisher

Corgi Adult

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: What do you get when you cross a vampire, a troll, Igor, a collection of misfits, and a young woman who shoves a pair of socks down her pants to join the army? The answer's simple. You have Monstrous Regiment, the characteristically charming novel by Terry Pratchett. Polly becomes Private Oliver Perks, who is on a quest to find her older brother, who's recently MIA in one of the innumerable wars the tiny nation of Borogravia has a habit of starting with its neighbors. This peevish tendency has all but expended Borogravia's ranks of cannon fodder. Whether Sergeant Jackrum knows her secret or not, he can't afford to be choosy, as Perks and her/his comrades are among the last able-bodied recruits left in Borogravia. This collection of misfits includes the aforementioned vampire (reformed and off the blood, thank you), troll, and macabre Igor, who is only too happy to sew you a new leg if you aren't too particular about previous ownership. Off to war, Polly/Oliver learns that having a pair of, um, socks is a good way to open up doors in this man's army. For those who haven't made this underrated author's acquaintance, Monstrous Regiment is as good a place to start as any. Readers will encounter Pratchett's subtle and disarming wit, his trademark footnoted asides along with a not-too-shabby tale of honor, courage, and duty in the face of absurd circumstances. --Jeremy Pugh

My Sister's Keeper

by Jodi Picoult

Publisher

Hodder & Stoughton

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness.Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate -- a life and a role that she has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister -- and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves. My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are, if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart, or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity.

Naked Empire

by Terry Goodkind

by

Publisher

Tom Doherty Associates

Published

October 2006

Rating

★★★★☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: This Mass Market Boxed Set, is the Third Boxed Set of *The Sword of Truth *series by Terry Goodkind: The Box Set includes: *Pillars of Creation*, 0-765-34074-7 *Naked Empire*, 0-765-34430-7 *Chainfire*, 0-765-34431-9 Book 7: *Pillars of Creation* Sequel to the *New York Times* bestselling *Faith of the Fallen* *New York Times* bestselling author Terry Goodkind has created his most lavish adventure yet. Tormented her entire life by inhuman voices, a young woman named Lauren seeks to end her intolerable agony. She at last discovers a way to silence the voices. For everyone else, the torment is about to begin. With winter descending and the paralyzing dread of an army of annihilation occupying their homeland, Richard Rahl and his wife Kahlan must venture deep into a strange and desolate land. Their quest turns to terror when they find themselves the helpless prey of a tireless hunter. Meanwhile, Lauren finds herself drawn into the center of a struggle for conquest and revenge. Worse yet, she finds her will seized by forces more abhorrent than anything she ever envisioned. Only then does she come to realize that the voices were real. Staggered by loss and increasingly isolated, Richard and Kahlan must stop the relentless, unearthly threat which has come out of the darkest night of the human soul. To do so, Richard will be called upon to face the demons stalking among the Pillars of Creation. Discover breathtaking adventure and true nobility of spirit. Find out why millions of readers the world over have elevated Terry Goodkind to the ranks of legend. Book 8: *Naked Empire* Beginning with *Wizard's First Rule* and continuing with six subsequent fantasy masterpieces, Terry Goodkind has thrilled and awed millions of readers worldwide. Now Goodkind returns with a broad-canvas adventure of epic intrigue, violent conflict, and terrifying peril for the beautiful Kahlan Amnell and her husband, the heroic Richard Rahl, the Sword of Truth. Richard Rahl has been poisoned. Saving an empire from annihilation is the price of the antidote. With the shadow of death looming near, the empire crumbling before the invading hordes, and time running out, Richard is offered not only his own life but the salvation of a people, in exchange for delivering his wife, Kahlan, into bondage to the enemy. Book 9: *Chainfire***** With *Wizard's First Rule* and seven subsequent masterpieces, Terry Goodkind has thrilled readers worldwide with the unique sweep of his storytelling. Now Goodkind returns with a new novel of Richard and Kahlan, the beginning of a sequence of three novels that will bring their epic story to its culmination. After being gravely injured in battle, Richard awakes to discover Kahlan missing. To his disbelief, no one remembers the woman he is frantically trying to find. Worse, no one believes that she really exists, or that he was ever married. Alone as never before, he must find the woman he loves more than life itself....if she is even still alive. If she was ever even real.

The Narrows

by Michael Connelly

Publisher

Orion Pub Co

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Former FBI agent Rachel Walling is working a dead-end stint in South Dakota when she gets the call she's been dreading for four years. The Poet is back. And he has not forgotten Rachel. He has a special present for her. Harry Bosch is adjusting to life in Las Vegas as a private investigator and a new father. He gets a call, too - from the widow of a friend who died recently. Previously in his FBI career, the friend worked on the famous case tracking the killer known as The Poet. That fact makes some of the elements of his death doubly suspicious. This novel places Michael Connelly's much-loved hero, Harry Bosch, square in the path of the most ruthless and inventive murderer he has ever encountered. It is a spectacularly dramatic and shocking novel that should take Michael Connelly to the No 1 slot again on the SUNDAY TIMES bestseller list.

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

by Eckhart Tolle

Publisher

Walker and Co.

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: In A NEW EARTH, Tolle shows how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering through out the world. Tolle describes how our attachment to the ego creates the dysfunction that leads to anger, jealousy, and unhappiness, and shows readers how to awken to a new state of consciousness.

New Moon

by Stephenie Meyer

Publisher

ATOM

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Legions of readers entranced by Twilight are hungry for more and they won't be disappointed. In New Moon, Stephenie Meyer delivers another irresistible combination of romance and suspense with a supernatural twist. The "star-crossed" lovers theme continues as Bella and Edward find themselves facing new obstacles, including a devastating separation, the mysterious appearance of dangerous wolves roaming the forest in Forks, a terrifying threat of revenge from a female vampire and a deliciously sinister encounter with Italy's reigning royal family of vampires, the Volturi. Passionate, riveting, and full of surprising twists and turns, this vampire love saga is well on its way to literary immortality.

Night and Day

by Robert B. Parker

Publisher

Putnam Adult

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Paradise, Massachusetts, police chief Jesse Stone confronts a town’s darkest secrets in the shocking new novel from the New York Times–bestselling author and “America’s greatest mystery writer” (The New York Sun). Things are getting strange in Paradise, Massachusetts. Police Chief Jesse Stone is called to the junior high school when reports of lewd conduct by the school’s principal, Betsy Ingersoll, filter into the station. Ingersoll claims she was protecting the propriety of her students when she inspected each girl’s undergarments in the locker room. Jesse would like nothing more than to see Ingersoll punished, but her high-powered attorney husband stands in the way. At the same time, the women of Paradise are faced with a threat to their sense of security with the emergence of a tormented voyeur, dubbed “The Night Hawk.” Initially, he’s content to peer through windows, but as times goes on, he becomes more reckless, forcing his victims to strip at gunpoint, then photographing them at their most vulnerable. And according to the notes he’s sending to Jesse, he’s not satisfied to stop there. It’s up to Jesse to catch the Night Hawk, before it’s too late.

Night Fall

by Nelson DeMille

by

Publisher

Warner Books

Published

November 2004

Rating

★★★☆☆

SUMMARY: bA New York Times Bestselling Author /b POn a Long Island beach at dusk, Bob Mitchell and Janet Whitney conduct their illicit love affair in front of a video camera, set to record each steamy moment. Suddenly a terrible explosion lights up the sky. Grabbing the camera, the couple flees as approaching police cars speed toward the scene. Five years later, the crash of Flight 800 has been attributed to a mechanical malfunction. But for John Corey and Kate Mayfield, both members of the elite Anti-terrorist Task Force, the case is not closed. Suspecting a cover-up at the highest levels and disobeying orders, they set out to find the one piece of evidence that will prove the truth about what really happened to Flight 800 - the videotape that shows a couple making love on the beach and the last moments of the doomed airliner.

Night Sins

by Tami Hoag

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

January 1996

Rating

★★★☆☆

SUMMARY: A sensational "New York Times" bestseller and subject of a CBS-TVminiseries, "Night Sins" has confirmed Tami Hoag's reputation as the newmodern master of suspense. This gripping tale unfolds in a peaceful Minnesotatown, where crime is something that just doesn't happen. But when a young boydisappears, it marks the beginning of a unspeakable nightmare. There are nowitnesses, no clues--only a note, cleverly taunting, casually cruel. Has acold-blooded kidnapper struck? Or is this the reawakening of a long-quietserial killer? Now, a tough-minded investigator on her first, make-or-breakcase, and a local cop who fears that big city evils have invaded his smalltown, are hunting for a madman. Together, they must outsmart a killer whoknows no bounds...and protect a town that may never feel safe again. " "Night Sins" is nerve-shattering, explosive entertainment. This is suspense at the highest level."--Michael Palmer, author of "Critical Judgment" "Lock the doors and turn on all the lights--Hoag has crafted a knuckle-whitening, spine-chilling thriller." "--New Woman" "This is a book best read in a well-lit room, with the certain knowledge that all locks are securely bolted and all closets uninhabited. We are all afraid of something and Tami Hoag has a good handle on what it is." "--Mostly Murder"

Nights in Rodanthe

by Nicholas Sparks

by

Publisher

Warner Vision Books

Published

July 2004

Rating

★★★☆☆

SUMMARY: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Nicholas Sparks comes a tender story of hope and joy, of sacrifice and forgiveness-a moving reminder that love is possible at any age, at any time, and often comes when we least expect it. At forty-five, Adrienne Willis must rethink her entire life when her husband abandons her for a younger woman. Reeling with heartache and in search of a respite, she flees to the small coastal town of Rodanthe, North Carolina, to tend to a friend's inn for the weekend. But when a major storm starts moving in, it appears that Adrienne's perfect getaway will be ruined-until a guest named Paul Flanner arrives. At fifty-four, Paul has just sold his medical practice and come to Rodanthe to escape his own shattered past. Now, with the storm closing in, two wounded people will turn to each other for comfort-and in one weekend set in motion feelings that will resonate throughout the rest of their lives.

Nine Dragons

by Michael Connelly

by

Publisher

Little Brown and Company

Published

October 2009

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: LAPD Detective Harry Bosch is off the chain in the fastest, fiercest, and highest-stakes case of his life. Fortune Liquors is a small shop in a tough South L.A. neighborhood, a store Bosch has known for years. The murder of John Li, the store's owner, hits Bosch hard, and he promises Li's family that he'll find the killer. The world Bosch steps into next is unknown territory. He brings in a detective from the Asian Gang Unit for help with translation--not just of languages but also of the cultural norms and expectations that guided Li's life. He uncovers a link to a Hong Kong triad, a lethal and far-reaching crime ring that follows many immigrants to their new lives in the U.S. And instantly his world explodes. The one good thing in Bosch's life, the person he holds most dear, is taken from him and Bosch travels to Hong Kong in an all-or-nothing bid to regain what he's lost. In a place known as Nine Dragons, as the city's Hungry Ghosts festival burns around him, Bosch puts aside everything he knows and risks everything he has in a desperate bid to outmatch the triad's ferocity.

Open: An Autobiography

by Andre Agassi

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

November 2009

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: From Andre Agassi, one of the most beloved athletes in history and one of the most gifted men ever to step onto a tennis court, a beautiful, haunting autobiography.Agassi’s incredibly rigorous training begins when he is just a child. By the age of thirteen, he is banished to a Florida tennis camp that feels like a prison camp. Lonely, scared, a ninth-grade dropout, he rebels in ways that will soon make him a 1980s icon. He dyes his hair, pierces his ears, dresses like a punk rocker. By the time he turns pro at sixteen, his new look promises to change tennis forever, as does his lightning-fast return. And yet, despite his raw talent, he struggles early on. We feel his confusion as he loses to the world’s best, his greater confusion as he starts to win. After stumbling in three Grand Slam finals, Agassi shocks the world, and himself, by capturing the 1992 Wimbledon. Overnight he becomes a fan favorite and a media target.Agassi brings a near-photographic memory to every pivotal match and every relationship. Never before has the inner game of tennis and the outer game of fame been so precisely limned. Alongside vivid portraits of rivals from several generations—Jimmy Connors, Pete Sampras, Roger Federer—Agassi gives unstinting accounts of his brief time with Barbra Streisand and his doomed marriage to Brooke Shields. He reveals a shattering loss of confidence. And he recounts his spectacular resurrection, a comeback climaxing with his epic run at the 1999 French Open and his march to become the oldest man ever ranked number one.In clear, taut prose, Agassi evokes his loyal brother, his wise coach, his gentle trainer, all the people who help him regain his balance and find love at last with Stefanie Graf. Inspired by her quiet strength, he fights through crippling pain from a deteriorating spine to remain a dangerous opponent in the twenty-first and final year of his career. Entering his last tournament in 2006, he’s hailed for completing a stunning metamorphosis, from nonconformist to elder statesman, from dropout to education advocate. And still he’s not done. At a U.S. Open for the ages, he makes a courageous last stand, then delivers one of the most stirring farewells ever heard in a sporting arena.With its breakneck tempo and raw candor, Open will be read and cherished for years. A treat for ardent fans, it will also captivate readers who know nothing about tennis. Like Agassi’s game, it sets a new standard for grace, style, speed, and power.

The Overlook

by Michael Connelly

Publisher

Vision

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: In his first case since he left the LAPD's Open Unsolved Unit for the prestigious Homicide Special squad, Harry Bosch is called out to investigate a murder that may have chilling consequences for national security. A doctor with access to a dangerous radioactive substance is found murdered in the trunk of his car. Retracing his steps, Harry learns that a large quantity of radioactive cesium was stolen shortly before the doctor's death. With the cesium in unknown hands, Harry fears the murder could be part of a terrorist plot to poison a major American city. Soon, Bosch is in a race against time, not only against the culprits, but also against the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI (in the form of Harry's one-time lover Rachel Walling), who are convinced that this case is too important for the likes of the LAPD. It is Bosch's job to prove all of them wrong.

A Painted House

by John Grisham

Publisher

Delta

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Ever since he published The Firm in 1991, John Grisham has remained the undisputed champ of the legal thriller. With A Painted House, however, he strikes out in a new direction. As the author is quick to note, this novel includes "not a single lawyer, dead or alive," and readers will search in vain for the kind of lowlife machinations that have been his stock-in-trade. Instead, Grisham has delivered a quieter, more contemplative story, set in rural Arkansas in 1952. It's harvest time on the Chandler farm, and the family has hired a crew of migrant Mexicans and "hill people" to pick 80 acres of cotton. A certain camaraderie pervades this bucolic dream team. But it's backbreaking work, particularly for the 7-year-old narrator, Luke: "I would pick cotton, tearing the fluffy bolls from the stalks at a steady pace, stuffing them into the heavy sack, afraid to look down the row and be reminded of how endless it was, afraid to slow down because someone would notice." What's more, tensions begin to simmer between the Mexicans and the hill people, one of whom has a penchant for bare-knuckles brawling. This leads to a brutal murder, which young Luke has the bad luck to witness. At this point--with secrets, lies, and at least one knife fight in the offing--the plot begins to take on that familiar, Grisham-style momentum. Still, such matters ultimately take a back seat in A Painted House to the author's evocation of time and place. This is, after all, the scene of his boyhood, and Grisham waxes nostalgic without ever succumbing to deep-fried sentimentality. Meanwhile, his account of Luke's Baptist upbringing occasions some sly (and telling) humor: I'd been taught in Sunday school from the day I could walk that lying would send you straight to hell. No detours. No second chances. Straight into the fiery pit, where Satan was waiting with the likes of Hitler and Judas Iscariot and General Grant. Thou shalt not bear false witness, which, of course, didn't sound exactly like a strict prohibition against lying, but that was the way the Baptists interpreted it. Whether Grisham will continue along these lines, or revert to the judicial shark tank for his next book, is anybody's guess. But A Painted House suggests that he's perfectly capable of telling an involving story with nary a subpoena in sight. --James Marcus

The Partner

by John Grisham

Publisher

Dell

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: They watched Danilo Silva for days before they finally grabbed him. He was living alone, a quiet life on a shady street in Brazil; a simple life in a modest home, certainly not one of luxury. Certainly no evidence of the fortune they thought he had stolen. He was much thinner and his face had been altered. He spoke a different language, and spoke it very well.But Danilo had a past with many chapters. Four years earlier he had been Patrick Lanigan, a young partner in a prominent Biloxi law firm. He had a pretty wife, a new daughter, and a bright future. Then one cold winter night Patrick was trapped in a burning car and died a horrible death. When he was buried his casket held nothing more than his ashes.From a short distance away, Patrick watched his own burial. Then he fled. Six weeks later, a fortune was stolen from his ex-law firm's offshore account. And Patrick fled some more.But they found him.From the Hardcover edition.

The Patient

by Michael Palmer

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

July 2001

Rating

★★★★☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: WARNING: USE OF THIS BOOK MAY CAUSE SIDE EFFECTS INCLUDING SOARING BLOOD PRESSURE, SLEEPLESSNESS, AND HEART-POUNDING TERROR.Neurosurgeon Jessie Copeland works at the very frontier of neurosurgery, developing technology that could revolutionize the treatment of brain tumors. But her work brings her to the attention of an infinitely dangerous man.Claude Malloche is brilliant, remorseless — a terrorist without regard for human life. He is also ill with a brain tumor considered to be inoperable. Nothing can stop Malloche from getting to the woman he believes can cure him. For those caught in his path, the nightmare has just begun...and no one is more aware of the stakes than Jessie Copeland.In brain surgery there are no guarantees — but that’s exactly what Malloche demands. With disaster just one cut away, Jessie faces the most harrowing case of her life — and the price of failure may be thousands of lives....

The Pelican Brief

by John Grisham

Publisher

Delta

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: In suburban Georgetown a killer's Reeboks whisper on the front floor of a posh home... In a seedy D.C. porno house a patron is swiftly garroted to death... The next day America learns that two of its Supreme Court justices have been assassinated. And in New Orleans, a young law student prepares a legal brief... To Darby Shaw it was no more than a legal shot in the dark, a brilliant guess. To the Washington establishment it was political dynamite. Suddenly Darby is witness to a murder -- a murder intended for her. Going underground, she finds there is only one person she can trust -- an ambitious reporter after a newsbreak hotter than Watergate -- to help her piece together the deadly puzzle. Somewhere between the bayous of Louisiana and the White House's inner sanctums, a violent cover-up is being engineered. For somone has read Darby's brief. Someone who will stop at nothing to destroy the evidence of an unthinkable crime.

Phantom, Limited Edition

by Terry Goodkind

by

Publisher

Tom Doherty Associates

Published

July 2006

Rating

★★★☆☆

SUMMARY: On the day she awoke remembering nothing but her name, Kahlan Amnell became the most dangerous woman alive. For everyone else, that was the day that the world began to end.As her husband, Richard, desperately searches for his beloved, whom only he remembers, he knows that if she doesn't soon discover who she really is, she will unwittingly become the instrument that will unleash annihilation. But Kahlan learns that if she ever were to unlock the truth of her lost identity, then evil itself would finally possess her, body and soul.If she is to survive in a murky world of deception and betrayal, where life is not only cheap but fleeting, Kahlan must find out why she is such a central figure in the war-torn world swirling around her. What she uncovers are secrets darker than she could ever have imagined.

The Pillars of Creation

by Terry Goodkind

by

Publisher

Tom Doherty Associates

Published

October 2006

Rating

★★★★☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: This Mass Market Boxed Set, is the Third Boxed Set of *The Sword of Truth *series by Terry Goodkind: The Box Set includes: *Pillars of Creation*, 0-765-34074-7 *Naked Empire*, 0-765-34430-7 *Chainfire*, 0-765-34431-9 Book 7: *Pillars of Creation* Sequel to the *New York Times* bestselling *Faith of the Fallen* *New York Times* bestselling author Terry Goodkind has created his most lavish adventure yet. Tormented her entire life by inhuman voices, a young woman named Lauren seeks to end her intolerable agony. She at last discovers a way to silence the voices. For everyone else, the torment is about to begin. With winter descending and the paralyzing dread of an army of annihilation occupying their homeland, Richard Rahl and his wife Kahlan must venture deep into a strange and desolate land. Their quest turns to terror when they find themselves the helpless prey of a tireless hunter. Meanwhile, Lauren finds herself drawn into the center of a struggle for conquest and revenge. Worse yet, she finds her will seized by forces more abhorrent than anything she ever envisioned. Only then does she come to realize that the voices were real. Staggered by loss and increasingly isolated, Richard and Kahlan must stop the relentless, unearthly threat which has come out of the darkest night of the human soul. To do so, Richard will be called upon to face the demons stalking among the Pillars of Creation. Discover breathtaking adventure and true nobility of spirit. Find out why millions of readers the world over have elevated Terry Goodkind to the ranks of legend. Book 8: *Naked Empire* Beginning with *Wizard's First Rule* and continuing with six subsequent fantasy masterpieces, Terry Goodkind has thrilled and awed millions of readers worldwide. Now Goodkind returns with a broad-canvas adventure of epic intrigue, violent conflict, and terrifying peril for the beautiful Kahlan Amnell and her husband, the heroic Richard Rahl, the Sword of Truth. Richard Rahl has been poisoned. Saving an empire from annihilation is the price of the antidote. With the shadow of death looming near, the empire crumbling before the invading hordes, and time running out, Richard is offered not only his own life but the salvation of a people, in exchange for delivering his wife, Kahlan, into bondage to the enemy. Book 9: *Chainfire***** With *Wizard's First Rule* and seven subsequent masterpieces, Terry Goodkind has thrilled readers worldwide with the unique sweep of his storytelling. Now Goodkind returns with a new novel of Richard and Kahlan, the beginning of a sequence of three novels that will bring their epic story to its culmination. After being gravely injured in battle, Richard awakes to discover Kahlan missing. To his disbelief, no one remembers the woman he is frantically trying to find. Worse, no one believes that she really exists, or that he was ever married. Alone as never before, he must find the woman he loves more than life itself....if she is even still alive. If she was ever even real.

Plain Truth

by Jodi Picoult

Publisher

Hodder & Stoughton

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Jodi Picoult has touched readers deeply with her acclaimed novels, such as Keeping Faith and The Pact. Gifted with "a remarkable ability to make us share her characters' feelings" (People), Picoult now explores the complex choices of the heart for a young Amish woman -- the compelling journey of discovery for an urban lawyer who befriends and protects her. The small town of Paradise, Pennsylvania, is a jewel in Lancaster County -- known for its picture-postcard landscapes and bucolic lifestyle. But that peace is shattered by the discovery of a dead infant in the barn of an Amish farmer. A police investigation quickly leads to two startling disclosures: the newborn's mother is an unmarried Amish woman, eighteen-year-old Katie Fisher. And the infant did not die of natural causes. Although Katie denies the medical proof that she gave birth to the child, circumstantial evidence leads to her arrest for the murder of her baby. One hundred miles away, Philadelphia defense attorney Ellie Hathaway has achieved an enviable, high-profile career. But her latest court "victory" has set the sands shifting beneath her. Single at thirty-nine and unsatisfied with her relationship, Ellie doesn't look back when she turns down her chance to make partner and takes off for an open-ended stay at her great-aunt's home in Paradise. Fate brings her to Katie Fisher. Suddenly, Ellie sees the chance to defend a client who truly needs her, not just one who can afford her. But taking on this case challenges Ellie in more ways than one. She finds herself not only in a clash of wills with a client who does not want to be defended but also in a clash of cultures with a people whose channels of justice are markedly different from her own. Immersing herself in Katie Fisher's life -- and in a world founded on faith, humility, duty, and honesty -- Ellie begins to understand the pressures and sacrifices of those who to live "plain." As she peels away the layers of fact and fantasy, Ellie calls on an old friend for guidance. Now, just as this man from Ellie's past reenters her life, she must uncover the truth about a complex case, a tragic loss, the bonds of love -- and her own deepest fears and desires. Moving seamlessly from psychological drama to courtroom suspense, Plain Truth is a triumph of contemporary storytelling. Jodi Picoult presents a fascinating portrait of Amish life rarely witnessed by those outside the faith -- and discovers a place where circumstances are not always what they seem, where love meets falsehood, and where relationships grow strong enough to span two worlds.

Pride and Prejudice

by JANE AUSTEN

Publisher

Bantam

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Elizabeth Bennet is the perfect Austen heroine: intelligent, generous, sensible, incapable of jealousy or any other major sin. That makes her sound like an insufferable goody-goody, but the truth is she's a completely hip character, who if provoked is not above skewering her antagonist with a piece of her exceptionally sharp -- but always polite -- 18th century wit. The point is, you spend the whole book absolutely fixated on the critical question: will Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy hook up?

Prior Bad Acts

by Tami Hoag

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

February 2007

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag returns with a thriller that begins with a shocking crime scene you’ll never forget and follows two relentless detectives on a manhunt that ends in a chilling confrontation with the essence of human evil.It was a crime so brutal, it changed the lives of even the most hardened homicide cops. The Haas family murders left a scar on the community nothing can erase, but everyone agrees that convicting the killer, Karl Dahl, is a start. Only Judge Carey Moore seems to be standing in the way. Her ruling that Dahl’s prior criminal record is inadmissible raises a public outcry—and puts the judge in grave danger.When an unknown assailant attacks Judge Moore in a parking garage, two of Minneapolis’s top cops are called upon to solve the crime and keep the judge from further harm. Detective Sam Kovac is as hard-boiled as they come, and his wisecracking partner, Nikki Liska, isn’t far behind. Neither one wants to be on this case, but when Karl Dahl escapes from custody, everything changes, and a seemingly straightforward case cartwheels out of control.The stakes go even higher when the judge is kidnapped—snatched out of her own bed even as the police sit outside, watching her house. Now Kovac and Liska must navigate through a maze of suspects that includes the stepson of a murder victim, a husband with a secret life, and a rogue cop looking for revenge where the justice system failed.With no time to spare, the detectives are pulled down a strange dark trail of smoke and mirrors, where no one is who they seem and everyone is guilty of Prior Bad Acts.From the Hardcover edition.

Pursuit of Honor

by Vince Flynn

by

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published

October 2009

Rating

★★★☆☆

SUMMARY: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR VINCE FLYNN RETURNS WITH HIS MOST EXHILARATING POLITICAL THRILLER TO DATE, A PULSE-POUNDING TALE OF ESPIONAGE, COVERT INTELLIGENCE, AND COUNTERTERRORISM.The action begins six days after a series of explosions devastated Washington, D.C., targeting the National Counterterrorism Center and killing 185 people, including public officials and CIA employees. It was a bizarre act of extreme violence that called for extreme measures on the part of elite counterterrorism operative Mitch Rapp and his trusted team member, Mike Nash. Now that the initial shock of the catastrophe is over, key Washington officials are up in arms over whether to make friends or foes of the agents who stepped between the enemy's bullets and countless American lives regardless of the legal consequences. Not for the first time, Rapp finds himself in the frustrating position of having to illustrate the realities of national security to politicians whose view from the sidelines is inevitably obstructed.Meanwhile, three of the al Qaeda terrorists are still at large, and Rapp has been unofficially ordered to find them by any means necessary. No one knows the personal, physical, and emotional sacrifices required of the job better than Rapp. When he sees Nash cracking under the pressure of the mission and the memories of the horrors he witnessed during the terrorist attack, he makes a call he hopes will save his friend, assuage the naysayers on Capitol Hill, and get him one step closer to the enemy before it's too late. Once again, Rapp proves himself to be a hero unafraid "to walk the fine line between the moral high ground and violence" (The Salt Lake Tribune) for our country's safety, for the sake of freedom, for the pursuit of honor.

Pyramids

by Terry Pratchett

Publisher

Gollancz

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: It's bad enough being new on the job, but Teppic hasn't a clue as to what a pharaoh is supposed to do. After all, he's been trained at Ankh-Morpork's famed assassins' school, across the sea from the Kingdom of the Sun.First, there's the monumental task of building a suitable resting place for Dad -- a pyramid to end all pyramids. Then there are the myriad administrative duties, such as dealing with mad priests, sacred crocodiles, and marching mummies. And to top it all off, the adolescent pharaoh discovers deceit, betrayal -- not to mention aheadstrong handmaiden -- at the heart of his realm.

The Quickie

by James Patterson; Michael Ledwidge

Publisher

Grand Central Publishing

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: When Lauren Stillwell discovers her husband leaving a hotel room with another woman, she decides to beat him at his own game. But while she's sneaking around, her husband is hatching a plan of his own. After a torrid quickie with a co-worker, Lauren hears a struggle outside her window and looks out just in time to see her husband loading her lover's limp body into the trunk of a car. When the body shows up in a pool of shallow water, she races to the scene of the crime. But Lauren Stillwell is no regular wronged woman. She's a NYC cop--and she's just been assigned to this case. Unable to tell anyone what she saw and unwilling to turn her husband in, Lauren is paralyzed by a secret that will tear her life apart. But as she attempts to point fingers away from her husband, she uncovers something shocking: her husband didn't have an affair--what he did was far worse than she could have ever imagined. A gripping story of secrets and infidelities that begins where Adrian Lyne's movie Unfaithful leaves off, THE QUICKIE will have readers' hearts pounding to the very last page.

The Rainmaker

by John Grisham

Publisher

Doubleday Books

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Michael Beck (The Golden Seal, Xanadu), who seems to be making a career out of reading books on audio (A Time to Kill, The Runaway Jury), has returned with John Grisham's The Rainmaker, bringing the backwoods of Tennessee's legal world to life. His sultry, southern drawl animates the world of Rudy Baylor, an out-of-luck, budding lawyer who has more things going against him than bedraggled, disaster-magnet Joe from Lil' Abner. The law firm that hired Baylor was gobbled up by a larger firm just three weeks before his graduation, and now he has no job and no chance of finding one. To make matters worse, when he gets home there's an eviction notice, a process server, and a lawsuit waiting for him. What's a bumbling baby-lawyer to do? Get a case and some cold hard cash--fast. Baylor stumbles upon two possible jackpots: A tight-lipped widow with millions squirreled away and a young man whose life is cut short by a negligent insurance company. Baylor gets in over his head and finds himself up against a pack of superpower attorneys; losing could cost him his life and winning would make him a rainmaker cum laude. Grisham's knack for making tedious legalities interesting, coupled with Beck's gift for shifting in and out character like a Mercedes roadster, makes for an exciting, entertaining listen. Running time: 360 minutes.

The Road

by Cormac McCarthy

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

December 2006

Rating

★★★★☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: National Bestseller National Book Critic's Circle Award Finalist A *New York Times* Notable Book One of the Best Books of the Year *The Boston Globe, The Christian Science Monitor, The Denver Post, The Kansas City Star, Los Angeles Times, New York, People, Rocky Mountain News, Time, The Village Voice, The Washington Post* The searing, postapocalyptic novel destined to become Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece. A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don't know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food--and each other. *The Road* is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, "each the other's world entire," are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.

Roses Are Red

by James Patterson

Publisher

Headline

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: The Mastermind is a deadly criminal who orchestrates a series of bank robberies that are notable for their precise demands - and their explosive violence when the demands are not met exactly. Detective Alex Cross takes on the case, promptly getting under The Mastermind's skin, who makes it his personal goal to take revenge on Cross and his entire team. The team, which includes an attractive FBI agent named Betsy Cavalierre, faces pressure on every front right up to the shocking and explosive climax. Patterson, author of seven national bestsellers, is a past winner of the prestigious Edgar Award. "Patterson keeps the pages turning all the way up to the jaw-dropping conclusion...this one is not to be missed." (Booklist)

Salem Falls

by Jodi Picoult

Publisher

Hodder And Stoughton Ltd.

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: When Jack St. Bride arrives by chance in the sleepy New England town of Salem Falls, he decides to reinvent himself. Tall, blond, and handsome, Jack was once a beloved teacher and soccer coach at a girls' prep school -- until a student's crush sparked a powder keg of accusation and robbed him of his reputation. Now, working for minimum wage washing dishes for Addie Peabody at the Do-Or-Diner, Jack buries his past, content to become the mysterious stranger who has appeared out of the blue. With ghosts of her own haunting her, Addie Peabody is as cautious around men as Jack St. Bride is around women. But as this unassuming stranger steps smoothly into the diner's daily routine, she finds him fitting just as comfortably inside her heart -- and slowly, a gentle, healing love takes hold between them. Yet planting roots in Salem Falls may prove fateful for Jack. Amid the white-painted centuries-old churches, a quartet of bored, privileged teenage girls have formed a coven that is crossing the line between amusement and malicious intent. Quick to notice the attractive new employee at Addie's diner, the girls turn Jack's world upside down with a shattering allegation that causes history to repeat itself -- and forces Jack to proclaim his innocence once again. Suddenly nothing in Salem Falls is as it seems: a safe haven turns dangerous, an innocent girl meets evil face-to-face, a dishwasher with a Ph.D. is revealed to be an ex-con. As Jack's hidden past catches up with him, the seams of this tiny town begin to tear, and the emerging truth becomes a slippery concept written in shades of gray. Now Addie, desperate for answers, must look into her heart -- and into Jack's lies and shadowy secrets -- for evidence that will condemn or redeem the man she has come to love.

Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports: A Maximum Ride Novel

by James Patterson

Publisher

Little, Brown Young Readers

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: There's one last chance to save the world in the third book in the Maximum Ride series, SAVING THE WORLD AND OTHER EXTREME SPORTS.The time has arrived for Max and her winged "flock" to face their ultimate enemy and discover their original purpose: to defeat the takeover of "Re-evolution"--a sinister experiment to re-engineer a select population into a scientifically superior master race...and to terminate the rest. Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, and Angel have always worked together to defeat the forces working against them--but can they save the world when they are torn apart, living in hiding and captivity, halfway across the globe from one another?

Scarpetta

by Patricia Cornwell

Publisher

Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: From Americas #1 bestselling crime writers comes the extraordinary new Kay Scarpetta novel. Leaving behind her private forensic pathology practice in Charleston, South Carolina, Kay Scarpetta accepts an assignment in New York City, where the NYPD has asked her to examine an injured man on Bellevue Hospitals psychiatric prison ward. The handcuffed and chained patient, Oscar Bane, has specifically asked for her, and when she literally has her gloved hands on him, he begins to talkand the story he has to tell turns out to be one of the most bizarre she has ever heard. The injuries, he says, were sustained in the course of a murder . . . that he did not commit. Is Bane a criminally insane stalker who has fixed on Scarpetta? Or is his paranoid tale true, and it is he who is being spied on, followed and stalked by the actual killer? The one thing Scarpetta knows for certain is that a woman has been tortured and murderedand more violent deaths will follow. Gradually, an inexplicable and horrifying truth emerges: Whoever is committing the crimes knows where his prey is at all times. Is it a person, a government? And what is the connection between the victims? In the days that follow, Scarpetta; her forensic psychologist husband, Benton Wesley; and her niece, Lucy, who has recently formed her own forensic computer investigation firm in New York, will undertake a harrowing chase through cyberspace and the all-too-real streets of the cityan odyssey that will take them at once to places they never knew, and much, much too close to home. Throughout, Cornwell delivers shocking twists and turns, and the kind of cutting-edge technology that only she can provide. Once again, she proves her exceptional ability to entertain and enthrall.

The Scarpetta Factor

by Patricia Cornwell

by

Publisher

Penguin Group USA, Inc

Published

October 2009

Rating

★★★☆☆

It is the week before Christmas. A tanking economy has prompted Dr. Kay Scarpetta - despite her busy schedule and her continuing work as the senior forensic analyst for CNN - to offer her services pro bono to New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of unexpected and unsettling events. She is asked live on the air about the sensational case of Hannah Starr, who has vanished and is presumed dead. Moments later during the same telecast she receives a startling call-in from a former psychiatrist patient of Benton Wesley's. When she returns after the show to the apartment where she and Benton live, she finds an ominous package - possibly a bomb - waiting for her at the front desk. Soon the apparent threat on Scarpetta's life finds her embroiled in a surreal plot that includes a famous actor accused of an unthinkable sex crime and the disappearance of a beautiful millionaires with whom Lucy seems to have shared a secret past. Scarpetta's CNN producer wants her to launch a TV show called The Scarpetta Factor. Given the bizarre events already in play, she fears that her growing fame will generate the illusion that she has a 'special factor,' a mythical ability to solve all her cases. She wonders if she will end up like other TV personalities: her own stereotype. The Scarpetta Factor, the seventeenth in the series, finds the familiar cast of characters together again in New York. Marino is working for the NYPD; Benton Wesley uses his forensic psychological expertise at Kirby and Bellevue; and Lucy continues to dazzle with her expertise in forensic computer investigations as she works yet another case with NY prosecutor Jaime Berger. SUMMARY: From the world's #1 bestselling crime writer comes the extraordinary new Kay Scarpetta novel. It is the week before Christmas. A tanking economy has prompted Dr. Kay Scarpetta-despite her busy schedule and her continuing work as the senior forensic analyst for CNN- to offer her services pro bono to New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of unexpected and unsettling events. She is asked live on the air about the sensational case of Hannah Starr, who has vanished and is presumed dead. Moments later during the same telecast, she receives a startling call-in from a former psychiatric patient of Benton Wesley's. When she returns after the show to the apartment where she and Benton live, she finds an ominous package-possibly a bomb-waiting for her at the front desk. Soon the apparent threat on Scarpetta's life finds her embroiled in a surreal plot that includes a famous actor accused of an unthinkable sex crime and the disappearance of a beautiful millionairess with whom Lucy seems to have shared a secret past. Scarpetta's CNN producer wants her to launch a TV show called The Scarpetta Factor. Given the bizarre events already in play, she fears that her growing fame will generate the illusion that she has a "special factor," a mythical ability to solve all her cases. She wonders if she will end up like other TV personalities: her own stereotype. The Scarpetta Factor, the seventeenth in the series, finds the familiar cast of characters together again in New York. Marino is working for the NYPD; Benton Wesley uses his forensic psychological expertise at Kirby and Bellevue; and Lucy continues to dazzle with her expertise in forensic computer investigations as she works yet another case with NY prosecutor Jaime Berger.

Side Effects

by Michael Palmer

by

Publisher

Bantam

Published

February 1985

Rating

★★★☆☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: At a hi-tech health facility for women, a strange and puzzling illness has killed two patients. When pathologist Kate Bennett is called in to investigate, she uncovers a horrifying secret, which certain influential people will stop at nothing to protect.

Silent Treatment

by Michael Palmer

by

Publisher

G.K. Hall

Published

August 1995

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: In his five bestselling novels, from The Sisterhood to Natural Causes, physician Michael Palmer has drawn on years of firsthand emergency-room experience to create the drama of a frighteningly authentic world--a world where the line between medicine and murder is scalpel-thin. Now, in his most harrowing suspense novel yet, Palmer reveals how the power to heal can become a license to kill.... With his wife, Evie, scheduled for surgery the next day, Dr. Harry Corbett goes to the hospital for what he hopes will be a quiet evening of reconciliation. In recent weeks Evie, never quick to share her feelings, has been more closed and distant than ever. But when Harry reaches Evie's room, it is too late for reconciliation. Shockingly, without warning, Evie is dead. The police suspect homicide. And their only suspect is Dr. Harry Corbett. Harry is not prepared for the stunning revelations that follow: His bright, beautiful, highly ambitious wife was leading a double life; she may have had dangerous secrets. But what secret could have been explosive enough to die for? Then the killer strikes again, boldly, tauntingly murdering one of Harry's favorite patients in such a way that only Harry knows the death was not natural. This time Harry is certain: The killer, medically sophisticated, coolly arrogant, moving undetected through a busy urban hospital, could only be a doctor. And he wonders--how many more will die? Desperately Harry probes deeper, following the only clue Evie left. What he finds is a sinister pattern that threatens patients in every hospital in the city. Harry is engaged in a life-and-death battle of wits with a chillingly efficient monster. And until the doctor is unmasked, no patient is safe from his lethal silent treatment. Michael Palmer has done it again, delivering a no-holds-barred novel of medical intrigue-- a gripping thriller that features the most terrifying physician since Hannibal Lecter. Silent Treatment will keep your pulse racing from beginning to end

Small Gods

by Terry Pratchett

Publisher

Corgi

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Discworld is an extragavanza--among much else, it has billions of gods. "They swarm as thick as herring roe," writes Terry Pratchett in Small Gods, the 13th book in the series. Where there are gods galore, there are priests, high and low, and... there are novices. Brutha is a novice with little chance to become a priest--thinking does not come easily to him, although believing does. But it is to Brutha that the great god Om manifests, in the lowly form of a tortoise. --Blaise Selby

Sourcery

by Terry Pratchett

Publisher

Orion Publishing Co

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: There was an eighth son of an eighth son. He was, quite naturally, a wizard. And there it should have ended. However (for reasons we'd better not go into), he had seven sons. And then he had an eighth son...a wizard squared...a source of magic...a Sourcerer.SOURCERY SEES THE RETURN OF RINCEWIND AND THE LUGGAGE AS THE DISCWORLD FACES ITS GREATEST-AND FUNNIEST-CHALLENGE YET.

The Stand

by Stephen King

Publisher

Signet

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: In 1978, science fiction writer Spider Robinson wrote a scathing review of The Stand in which he exhorted his readers to grab strangers in bookstores and beg them not to buy it. The Stand is like that. You either love it or hate it, but you can't ignore it. Stephen King's most popular book, according to polls of his fans, is an end-of-the-world scenario: a rapidly mutating flu virus is accidentally released from a U.S. military facility and wipes out 99 and 44/100 percent of the world's population, thus setting the stage for an apocalyptic confrontation between Good and Evil. "I love to burn things up," King says. "It's the werewolf in me, I guess.... The Stand was particularly fulfilling, because there I got a chance to scrub the whole human race, and man, it was fun! ... Much of the compulsive, driven feeling I had while I worked on The Stand came from the vicarious thrill of imagining an entire entrenched social order destroyed in one stroke." There is much to admire in The Stand: the vivid thumbnail sketches with which King populates a whole landscape with dozens of believable characters; the deep sense of nostalgia for things left behind; the way it subverts our sense of reality by showing us a world we find familiar, then flipping it over to reveal the darkness underneath. Anyone who wants to know, or claims to know, the heart of the American experience needs to read this book. --Fiona Webster

Still Waters

by Tami Hoag

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

September 1992

Rating

★★★☆☆

SUMMARY: The deepest waters hide the darkest secrets....When the body of a murdered man literally falls at Elizabeth Stuart's feet, she's able to wash away the blood--but not the terror. Unwelcome newcomers to Still Creek, Minnesota, she and her troubled teenage son are treated with suspicion by the locals, including the sheriff. Yet nothing will stop her from digging beneath the town's placid surface for the truth—except the killer.Running from a messy divorce, Elizabeth believed buying a small-town newspaper offered a fresh start for herself and her son. But idyllic Still Creek, nestled in the heart of lush Amish farmlands, hides secrets dangerous enough to push someone to commit murder. Now Elizabeth must risk everything to save herself and her son, and to unmask the killer...before the current of evil flowing through Still Creek drags her under.When Elizabeth Stuart searched for a quiet, peaceful home for herself and her son, Still Creek seemed perfect. Nestled in the heart of lush Amish farmlands, this small, idyllic Minnesota town would allow her to put a shattering divorce behind her. But the locals were noticeably cool to the newcomer—who was rumored to be a gold-digger—especially when she started stirring up controversy with her newspaper. And now when a murdered body literally falls at her feet, she has a slight credibility problem...particularly with the arrogant sheriff whose blue eyes seem to know her darkest secrets.An ex-pro athlete who had returned to Still Creek a hero, Sheriff Dane Jantzen doesn't have much use for the media—especially not in the form of this glamorous, gutsy outsider who spells trouble with every word she prints. So when she becomes his suspect in a vicious crime, the last thing Dane expects is the jolt of attraction at their every encounter.Elizabeth would soon challenge Dane's every assumption, including the one that he's better off without love. But as they risk everything to uncover the truth, the current of evil that contaminates Still Creek threatens to pull them both under...

Stone of Tears

by Terry Goodkind

by

Publisher

Tor Books

Published

October 1998

Rating

★★★★☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: The Sword of Truth, Boxed Set I, Books 1-3*Wizard's First Rule*, *Stone of Tears*, and *Blood of the Fold*Book 1: Wizards First Rule**The masterpiece that started *The New York Times* bestselling epic Sword of Truth**In the aftermath of the brutal murder of his father, a mysterious woman, Kahlan Amnell, appears in Richard Cypher's forest sanctuary seeking help . . . and more. His world, his very beliefs, are shattered when ancient debts come due with thundering violence.In a dark age it takes courage to live, and more than mere courage to challenge those who hold dominion, Richard and Kahlan must take up that challenge or become the next victims. Beyond awaits a bewitching land where even the best of their hearts could betray them. Yet, Richard fears nothing so much as what secrets his sword might reveal about his own soul. Falling in love would destroy them--for reasons Richard can't imagine and Kahlan dare not say.In their darkest hour, hunted relentlessly, tormented by treachery and loss, Kahlan calls upon Richard to reach beyond his sword--to invoke within himself something more noble. Neither knows that the rules of battle have just changed . . . or that their time has run out.This is the beginning. One book. One Rule. Witness the birth of a legend.Book 2: *Stone of Tears***An Epic of Awesome Power**Kahlan has at last gained the one goal she had always thought was beyond her grasp ... love. Against all odds, the ancient bonds of secret oaths, and the dark talents of men long dead, Richard has won her heart.Amid sudden and disastrous events, Richard's life is called due to satisfy those treacherous oaths. To save his life, Kahlan must forsake Richard's love and cast him into the chains of slavery, knowing there could be no sin worse than such a betrayal.Richard is determined to unlock the secrets bound in the magic of ancient oaths and to again be free. Kahlan, alone with the terrible truth of what she has done, must set about altering the course of a world thrown into war. But even that may be easier than ever winning back the heart of the only man she will ever love.Book 3: *Blood of the Fold***An Epic of Two Worlds**In a world as rich and real as our own, Richard Rahl and Kahlan Amnell stand against the ancient forces which besiege the New World-- forces so terrible that when last they threatened, they could only be withstood by sealing off the Old World from whence they came. Now the barrier has been breached, and the New World is again beset by their evil power.War and treachery plague the world, and only Richard and Kahlan can save it from an armageddon of unimaginable savagery and destruction.Terry Goodkind, author of the brilliant bestsellers *Wizard's First Rule *and *Stone of Tears*, has created his most masterful epic yet, a sumptuous feast of magic and excitement replete with the wonders of his unique fantasy vision.

The Summons

by John Grisham

Publisher

Delta

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Law professor Ray Atlee and his prodigal brother, Forrest, are summoned home to Clanton, Mississippi, by their ailing father to discuss his will. But when Ray arrives the judge is already dead, and the one-page document dividing his meager estate between the two sons seems crystal clear. What it doesn't mention, however, is the small fortune in cash Ray discovers hidden in the old man's house--$3 million he can't account for and doesn't mention to brother Forrest, either. Ray's efforts to keep his find a secret, figure out where it came from, and hide it from a nameless extortioner, who seems to know more about it than he does, culminate in a denouement with an almost biblical twist. It's a slender plot to hang a thriller on, and in truth it's not John Grisham's best in terms of pacing, dramatic tension, and interesting characters (except for Harry Rex, a country lawyer who was the judge's closest friend and in many ways is the father Ray wishes he'd had. He's so vivid he jumps off the page). But Grisham's legions of fans are likely to enjoy The Summons even if it lacks the power of some of his classic earlier books, like The Firm, The Brethren, and The Testament. --Jane Adams

Taken by Storm

by Tami Hoag

by

Publisher

Random House, Inc.

Published

October 2007

Rating

★★☆☆☆

SUMMARY: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag comes this bittersweet romance classic about a woman who’s rebuilt her life—and her heart—after the disappointments of the past, only to find her carefully laid plans shattered by a knock on the door.…As a trauma nurse, Julia McCarver is accustomed to dealing with life-and-death emergencies. But she is the one in shock when she answers the door and finds the past standing there in the person of S. T. “Storm” Dalton. Julia had painstakingly put her life together not just once but three times in the wake of his abrupt and devastating departures, and she has no intention of doing it a fourth time. Because that’s what S.T. promises he will do—break her engagement to another man, her heart, and her future all over again. Except, of course, that’s not what he calls his plan to win her back. He gives himself two weeks to convince Julia that he’s changed, that she is still in love with him, and that—despite conventional wisdom—the fourth time lightning struck can be a charm.

Term Limits

by Vince Flynn

by

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published

December 2000

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: In a night of shattering brutality, three of Washington's most powerful and unscrupulous politicians have been executed with surgical precision. Their assassins, vanishing without a trace, have delivered a shocking ultimatum to the leaders of the American government: set aside petty, partisan politics and restore power to the people, or be held to deadly account. No one, they warn, is out of their reach -- not even the president. A joint FBI-CIA task force reveals that the killers are elite military commandos, but no one knows exactly who they are or when they will strike next. Only Michael O'Rourke, a former U.S. Marine and freshman congressman, holds a clue to the violence: a haunting incident in his own past with explosive implications for his country's future.... In a tour de force of action and suspense, Vince Flynn takes the ultimate American ideal -- a government of the people -- to a devastating extreme.

Testament

by John Grisham

Publisher

Doubleday Direct

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Troy Phelan, a 78-year-old eccentric and the 10th-richest man in America, is about to read his last will and testament, divvying up an estate worth $11 billion. Phelan's three ex-wives, their grasping spawn, a legion of lawyers, several psychiatrists, and a plethora of sound technicians wait breathlessly, all eyes glued to digital monitors as they watch the old man read his verdict. But Phelan shocks everyone with a bizarre, last-gasp attempt to redistribute the spoils, setting in motion a legal morality tale of a contested will, sin, and redemption. Our hero, Nate O'Riley--a washed-up, alcoholic litigator with two ruined marriages in his wake and the IRS on his tail--is dispatched to the Brazilian wetlands in search of a mysterious heir named in the will. After a harrowing trip upriver to a remote settlement in the Pantanal, he encounters Rachel Lane, a pure-hearted missionary living with an indigenous tribe and carrying out "God's work." Rachel's grave dedication and kindness impress the jaded lawyer, so much that a nasty bout of dengue fever leads him to a vision that could change his life. Back in the States, the legal proceedings drag on and Grisham has a high time with Phelan's money-hungry descendents, a regrettable bunch who squandered millions, married strippers, got druggy, and befriended the Mob. The youngest son, Ramble, is a multi-pierced, tattoo-covered malcontent with big dreams for his rock band, the Demon Monkeys. Will Nate get straight with Rachel's aid? Do the greedy heirs get theirs? What's the real legacy of a lifetime's work? The Testament is classic Grisham: a down-and-out lawyer, a lot of money, an action-packed pursuit, and the highest issues at stake. It's not just about great characters; it's about the question of what character is. --Rebekah Warren

A Thin Dark Line

by Tami Hoag

by

Publisher

Bantam Books

Published

January 1997

Rating

★★★★☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: When a sadistic act of violence leaves a woman dead... When a tainted piece of evidence lets her killer walk... How far would you go to see justice done? From *New York Times* bestselling author Tami Hoag comes a taut, terrifying thriller as chilling as *Night Sins*, as nerve-shattering as*Guilty as Sin*. When murder erupts in a small Southern town, Tami Hoag leads readers on a frightening journey to the shadowy boundary between attraction and obsession, law and justice--and exposes the rage that lures people over... Pamela Bichon's killer is free, the case against him dismissed on a technicality. In the eyes of the law it doesn't matter that the prosecutor's key piece of evidence proves Marcus Renard's guilt beyond a shadow of a doubt. All that matters is that the evidence was never listed on a search warrant and it was seized by a detective with a questionable past and a nasty reputation. But the investigation isn't over--not for Cajun cop Nick Fourcade, who stands accused of planting the evidence. He's stepped over the line before and this case could push him over the edge. His orders are to move on, but obsession fills his mind with the nightmare images of Pamela Bichon's agonizing death, of Marcus Renard's arrogant triumph, and of his own capacity for exacting vengeance. Deputy Annie Broussard can't walk away from the homicide either. She found the body. She still hears the phantom echoes of dying screams, still feels the shadow of a woman taken by violence and denied justice. But pursuing the investigation will mean forming an uneasy alliance with Fourcade, a man she doesn't trust. It will mean subjecting herself to growing harassment from her fellow cops. And it will mean letting herself be drawn into the confidence of a suspected killer. As Fourcade challenges her again and again to reach deeper into the case and into her own soul, Annie will find herself at the center of a maze of treachery and deceit. And the closer she draws to the brutal truth, the deadlier the chase will become. The search for the truth has begun--one that will lead down a twisted trail through the steamy bayous of Louisiana, and deep into the darkest reaches of the human heart.

The Third Option

by Vince Flynn

by

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published

October 2001

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: When diplomacy has failed and military intervention is deemed inappropriate, our leaders sometimes take The Third Option Mitch Rapp, the CIA's most lethal and efficient counterterrorism operative, is putting into play a meticulous plan to take out a notorious sponsor of terrorism -- when he falls prey to government forces with an agenda of their own. Dr. Irene Kennedy is named the successor to dying CIA Director Thomas Stansfield -- a choice that enrages many inside the world's most powerful intelligence agency. And her detractors will resort to extreme measures to prevent her from taking the reins. But what the Washington conspirators and backstabbing insiders do not know is that Mitch Rapp won't tolerate being their pawn. And he will stop at nothing to find out who has set him up. New York Times bestselling author Vince Flynn brings this first-rate political thriller to life with authentic detail and action that sizzles.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

by Khaled Hosseini

Publisher

Simon & Schuster

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: It's difficult to imagine a harder first act to follow than The Kite Runner: a debut novel by an unknown writer about a country many readers knew little about that has gone on to have over four million copies in print worldwide. But when preview copies of Khaled Hosseini's second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, started circulating at Amazon.com, readers reacted with a unanimous enthusiasm that few of us could remember seeing before. As special as The Kite Runner was, those readers said, A Thousand Splendid Suns is more so, bringing Hosseini's compassionate storytelling and his sense of personal and national tragedy to a tale of two women that is weighted equally with despair and grave hope. We wanted to spread the word on the book as widely, and as soon, as we could. See below for an exclusive excerpt from A Thousand Splendid Suns and early reviews of the book from some of our top customer reviewers.--The Editors An Exclusive Excerpt from A Thousand Splendid Suns We have arranged with the publisher to make an exclusive excerpt of A Thousand Splendid Suns available on Amazon.com. Click here to read a scene from the novel. It's not the opening scene, but rather one from a crucial moment later in the book when Mariam, one of the novel's two main characters, steps into a new role. Early Buzz from Amazon.com Top Reviewers We queried our top 100 customer reviewers as of March 6, 2007, and asked them to read A Thousand Splendid Suns and share their thoughts. We've included these early reviews below in the order they were received. For the sake of space, we've only included a brief excerpt of each reviewer's response, but each review is available for reading in its entirety by clicking the "Read the review" link. Joanna Daneman: "His style is deceptively simple and clear, the characters drawn deftly and swiftly, his themes elemental and huge. This is a brilliant writer and I look forward to more of his work." Read Joanna Daneman's review Seth J. Frantzman: "Khaled Hosseini has done it again with 'A Thousand Splendid Sons', presenting a new, dashing and dark tale of two generations of women trapped in a loveless marriage, bracketed by great events." Read Seth J. Frantzman's review Donald Mitchell: "Khaled Hosseini has succeeded in capturing many important historical and contemporary themes in a way that will make your heart ache again and again. Why will your reaction be so strong? It's because you'll identify closely with the suffering of almost all the characters, a reaction that's very rare to a modern novel." Read Donald Mitchell's review Lawrance M. Bernabo: "All things considered, following up on a successful first novel is probably harder than coming up with the original effort and Hosseini could have rested on his laurels in the manner of Harper Lee, but as "A Thousand Splendid Suns" amply proves, this native of Kabul has more stories to tell about the land of Afghanistan." Read Lawrance M. Bernabo's review Amanda Richards: "There are parts of this book that will have grown men surreptitiously blotting the tears that are on the verge of overflowing their ducts, and by the time you get to the middle, you won't be able to put it down. Hosseini's simple but richly descriptive prose makes for an engrossing read, and in my opinion, "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is among the best I have ever read. This is definitely not one to be missed." Read Amanda Richards's review N. Durham: "All that being said, "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is a bit more enjoyable than Hosseini's previous "The Kite Runner", and once again he manages to give we readers another glimpse of a world that we know little about but frequently condemn and discard. However, if you were one of the many that for some reason absolutely loved "The Kite Runner", chances are that you'll love this as well." Read N. Durham's review John Kwok: "Khaled Hosseini's "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is a genuine instant literary classic, and one destined to be remembered as one of 2007's best novels. It should be compared favorably to such legendary Russian novels like "War and Peace" and "Doctor Zhivago"." Read John Kwok's review Thomas Duff: "Normally I'm more of an action-adventure type reader when it comes to novels and recreational reading. But I was given the chance to read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (author of The Kite Runner), so I decided to try something out of my normal genre. I am *so* glad I did. This is a stunning and moving novel of life and love in Afghanistan over a 30 year period." Read Thomas Duff's review Charles Ashbacher: "This book manages to simultaneously capture the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years and how women are treated in conservative Islamic societies.... In many ways it is a sad book, your heart goes out to these two women in their hopeless struggle to have a decent life with a brutal man in an unforgiving, intolerant society." Read Charles Ashbacher's review W. Boudville: "Hosseini presents a piognant view into the recent tortured decades of the Afghan experience. From the 1970s, under a king, to the Soviet takeover, to the years of resistance. And then the rise and fall of the Taliban. An American reader will recognise many of the main political events. But to many Americans, Afghanistan and its peoples and religion remain an opaque and troubling mystery." Read W. Boudville's review Mark Baker: "I tend to read plot heavy books, so this character study was a definite change of pace for me. I found the first half slow going at times, mainly because I knew where the story was going. Once I got into the second half, things really picked up. The ending was very bittersweet. I couldn't think of a better way to end it." Read Mark Baker's review Grady Harp: "Hosseini takes us behind those walls for forty some years of Afghanistan's bloody history and while he does not spare us any of the descriptions of the terror that continues to besiege that country, he does offer us a story that speaks so tenderly about the fragile beauty of love and devotion and lasting impression people make on people." Read Grady Harp's review Robert P. Beveridge: "When I was actively reading it, the pages kept turning, and more than once I found myself foregoing food or sleep temporarily to get in just one more chapter. When I had put it down, however, I felt no particular compulsion to pick it back up again. It's a good book, and a relatively well-written one, but it's not a great book. Enjoyable without leaving a lasting impression." Read Robert P. Beveridge's review B. Marold: "While the events in Afghanistan and the wider world create a familiar framework for the stories of these two women, it is nothing more than a framework. The warp and weft of everyday life, and the interaction of the two women and their close relatives is the heartbeat of the story." Read B. Marold's review Daniel Jolley: "Khaled Hosseini has written a majestic, sweeping, emotionally powerful story that provides the reader with a most telling window into Afghan society over the past thirty-odd years. It's also a moving story of friendship and sacrifice, giving Western readers a rare glimpse into the suffering and mistreatment of Afghan women that began long before the Taliban came to power." Read Daniel Jolley's review

Time to hunt: a novel

by Stephen Hunter

by

Publisher

Doubleday

Published

May 1998

Rating

★★★★☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: He is the most dangerous man alive. He only wants to live in peace with his family, and forget the war that nearly killed him... It's not going to happen. Stephen Hunter's epic national bestsellers, *Point of Impact* and *Black Light,* introduced millions of readers to Bob Lee Swagger, called "Bob the Nailer," a heroic but flawed Vietnam War veteran forced twice to use his skills as a master sniper to defend his life and his honor. Now, in his grandest, most intensely thrilling adventure yet, Bob the Nailer must face his deadliest foe from Vietnam--and his own demons--to save his wife and daughter. During the latter days of the Vietnam War, deep in-country, a young idealistic Marine named Donny Fenn was cut down by a sniper's bullet as he set out on patrol with Swagger, who himself received a grievous wound. Years later Swagger married Donny's widow, Julie, and together they raise their daughter, Nikki, on a ranch in the isolated Sawtooth Mountains in Idaho. Although he struggles with the painful legacy of Vietnam, Swagger's greatest wish--to leave his violent past behind and live quietly with his family--seems to have come true. Then one idyllic day, a man, a woman, and a girl set out from the ranch on horseback. High on a ridge above a mountain pass, a thousand yards distant, a calm, cold-eyed shooter, one of the world's greatest marksmen, peers through a telescopic sight at the three approaching figures. Out of his tortured past, a mortal enemy has once again found Bob the Nailer. *Time to Hunt* proves anew why so many consider Stephen Hunter to be our best living thriller writer. With a plot that sweeps from the killing fields of Vietnam to the corridors of power in Washington to the shadowy plots of the new world order, Hunter delivers all the complex, stay-up-all-night action his fans demand in a masterful tale of family heartbreak and international intrigue--and shows why, for Bob Lee Swagger, it's once again time to hunt.

A Time to Kill

by John Grisham

Publisher

Dell

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: This addictive tale of a young lawyer defending a black Vietnam war hero who kills the white druggies who raped his child in tiny Clanton, Mississippi, is John Grisham's first novel, and his favorite of his first six. He polished it for three years and every detail shines like pebbles at the bottom of a swift, sunlit stream. Grisham is a born legal storyteller and his dialogue is pitch perfect. The plot turns with jeweled precision. Carl Lee Hailey gets an M-16 from the Chicago hoodlum he'd saved at Da Nang, wastes the rapists on the courthouse steps, then turns to attorney Jake Brigance, who needs a conspicuous win to boost his career. Folks want to give Carl Lee a second medal, but how can they ignore premeditated execution? The town is split, revealing its social structure. Blacks note that a white man shooting a black rapist would be acquitted; the KKK starts a new Clanton chapter; the NAACP, the ambitious local reverend, a snobby, Harvard-infested big local firm, and others try to outmaneuver Jake and his brilliant, disbarred drunk of an ex-law partner. Jake hits the books and the bottle himself. Crosses burn, people die, crowds chant "Free Carl Lee!" and "Fry Carl Lee!" in the antiphony of America's classical tragedy. Because he's lived in Oxford, Mississippi, Grisham gets compared to Faulkner, but he's really got the lean style and fierce folk moralism of John Steinbeck. --Tim Appelo

Timeline

by Michael Crichton

Publisher

Ballantine Books

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: When you step into a time machine, fax yourself through a "quantum foam wormhole," and step out in feudal France circa 1357, be very, very afraid. If you aren't strapped back in precisely 37 hours after your visit begins, you'll miss the quantum bus back to 1999 and be stranded in a civil war, caught between crafty abbots, mad lords, and peasant bandits all eager to cut your throat. You'll also have to dodge catapults that hurl sizzling pitch over castle battlements. On the social front, you should avoid provoking "the butcher of Crecy" or Sir Oliver may lop your head off with a swoosh of his broadsword or cage and immerse you in "Milady's Bath," a brackish dungeon pit into which live rats are tossed now and then for prisoners to eat. This is the plight of the heroes of Timeline, Michael Crichton's thriller. They're historians in 1999 employed by a tech billionaire-genius with more than a few of Bill Gates's most unlovable quirks. Like the entrepreneur in Crichton's Jurassic Park, Doniger plans a theme park featuring artifacts from a lost world revived via cutting-edge science. When the project's chief historian sends a distress call to 1999 from 1357, the boss man doesn't tell the younger historians the risks they'll face trying to save him. At first, the interplay between eras is clever, but Timeline swiftly becomes a swashbuckling old-fashioned adventure, with just a dash of science and time paradox in the mix. Most of the cool facts are about the Middle Ages, and Crichton marvelously brings the past to life without ever letting the pulse-pounding action slow down. At one point, a time-tripper tries to enter the Chapel of Green Death. Unfortunately, its custodian, a crazed giant with terrible teeth and a bad case of lice, soon has her head on a block. "She saw a shadow move across the grass as he raised his ax into the air." I dare you not to turn the page! Through the narrative can be glimpsed the glowing bones of the movie that may be made from Timeline and the cutting-edge computer game that should hit the market in 2000. Expect many clashing swords and chase scenes through secret castle passages. But the book stands alone, tall and scary as a knight in armor shining with blood. --Tim Appelo

Transfer of Power

by Vince Flynn

by

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published

December 2000

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: On a busy Washington morning, amid the shuffle of tourists and the brisk rush of government officials, the stately calm of the White House is shattered in a hail of gunfire. A group of terrorists has descended on the Executive Mansion, and gained access by means of a violent massacre that has left dozens of innocent bystanders murdered. Through the quick actions of the Secret Service, the president is evacuated to his underground bunker, but not before almost one hundred hostages are taken. While the politicians and the military leaders argue over how to negotiate with the terrorists, one man is sent in to break through the barrage of panicked responses and political agendas surrounding the chaotic crisis. Mitch Rapp, the CIA's top counterterrorism operative, makes his way into the White House and soon discovers that the president is not as safe as Washington's power elite had thought. Moving stealthily among the corridors and secret passageways of the White House, stepping terrifyingly close to the enemy, Rapp scrambles to save the hostages before the terrorists can extract the president from the safety of his bunker. In a race against time, Rapp makes a chilling discovery that could rock Washington to its core: someone within his own government is maneuvering in hopes that his rescue attempt will fail. With the crackling tension and explosive action that made Term Limits "a roller-coaster, edge-of-your-seat thriller" (Minneapolis Star-Tribune), Vince Flynn delivers Transfer of Power -- a blockbuster novel that carries us just beyond today's headlines.

Transfer of Power

by Vince Flynn

by

Publisher

Simon and Schuster

Published

December 2000

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: On a busy Washington morning, amid the shuffle of tourists and the brisk rush of government officials, the stately calm of the White House is shattered in a hail of gunfire. A group of terrorists has descended on the Executive Mansion, and gained access by means of a violent massacre that has left dozens of innocent bystanders murdered. Through the quick actions of the Secret Service, the president is evacuated to his underground bunker, but not before almost one hundred hostages are taken. While the politicians and the military leaders argue over how to negotiate with the terrorists, one man is sent in to break through the barrage of panicked responses and political agendas surrounding the chaotic crisis. Mitch Rapp, the CIA's top counterterrorism operative, makes his way into the White House and soon discovers that the president is not as safe as Washington's power elite had thought. Moving stealthily among the corridors and secret passageways of the White House, stepping terrifyingly close to the enemy, Rapp scrambles to save the hostages before the terrorists can extract the president from the safety of his bunker. In a race against time, Rapp makes a chilling discovery that could rock Washington to its core: someone within his own government is maneuvering in hopes that his rescue attempt will fail. With the crackling tension and explosive action that made Term Limits "a roller-coaster, edge-of-your-seat thriller" (Minneapolis Star-Tribune), Vince Flynn delivers Transfer of Power -- a blockbuster novel that carries us just beyond today's headlines.

Under the Dome

by Stephen King

Publisher

Scribner

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when -- or if -- it will go away.Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens -- town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing -- even murder -- to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn't just short. It's running out.

Violets Are Blue

by James Patterson

Publisher

Headline Book Publishing

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Fans of James Patterson's resourceful cop Alex Cross will be relieved to find that he's back on familiar territory with Violets Are Blue--and, more importantly, that this is one of the best Alex Cross thrillers yet. The malign criminal genius of Roses Are Red is fixing to give Alex a hard time once again. The FBI joins Patterson's dogged cop in a particularly unsettling investigation: two San Francisco joggers have been viciously murdered and are found suspended by their feet, with all the blood drained from their corpses. And when further brutal deaths follow in California and on the East Coast, Alex is forced to contemplate the bizarre possibility of modern-day vampires, although his instincts point him to one of the many sinister religious cults that flourish on the West Coast. Aided by Jamilla Hughes, a streetwise young woman detective from San Francisco, Alex finds that he has to crack not one but two impenetrable mysteries to stop further bloodletting. Patterson fans expect the extremely concise, page-turning chapters (116 of them here!), along with a reluctance to dawdle over details of his hero's personal life, and both characteristics are firmly back in place. If you can resist reading this one in just a few sittings, you deserve some kind of a thriller reader's medal. --Barry Forshaw, Amazon.co.uk

A Walk to Remember

by Nicholas Sparks

by

Publisher

Warner Books

Published

August 2000

Rating

★★★★☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: In the prologue to his latest novel, Nicholas Sparks makes the rather presumptuous pledge "first you will smile, and then you will cry," but sure enough, he delivers the goods. With his calculated ability to throw your heart around like a yo-yo (try out his earlier Message in the Bottle or The Notebook if you really want to stick it to yourself), Sparks pulls us back to the perfect innocence of a first love.In 1958 Landon Carter is a shallow but well-meaning teenager who spends most of his time hanging out with his friends and trying hard to ignore the impending responsibilities of adulthood. Then Landon gets roped into acting the lead in the Christmas play opposite the most renowned goody two-shoes intown: Jamie Sullivan. Against his best intentions and the taunts of his buddies, Landon finds himself falling for Jamie and learning some central lessons in life.Like John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany, Sparks maintains a delicate and rarely seen balance of humor and sentiment. While the plot may not be the most original, this boy-makes-good tearjerker will certainly reel in the fans. Look for a movie starring beautiful people or, better yet, snuggle under the covers with your tissues nearby and let your inner sap run wild. --Nancy R.E. O'Brien

Water for Elephants

by Sara Gruen

Publisher

Algonquin Books

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Jacob Jankowski says: "I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other." At the beginning of Water for Elephants, he is living out his days in a nursing home, hating every second of it. His life wasn't always like this, however, because Jacob ran away and joined the circus when he was twenty-one. It wasn't a romantic, carefree decision, to be sure. His parents were killed in an auto accident one week before he was to sit for his veterinary medicine exams at Cornell. He buried his parents, learned that they left him nothing because they had mortgaged everything to pay his tuition, returned to school, went to the exams, and didn't write a single word. He walked out without completing the test and wound up on a circus train. The circus he joins, in Depression-era America, is second-rate at best. With Ringling Brothers as the standard, Benzini Brothers is far down the scale and pale by comparison. Water for Elephants is the story of Jacob's life with this circus. Sara Gruen spares no detail in chronicling the squalid, filthy, brutish circumstances in which he finds himself. The animals are mangy, underfed or fed rotten food, and abused. Jacob, once it becomes known that he has veterinary skills, is put in charge of the "menagerie" and all its ills. Uncle Al, the circus impresario, is a self-serving, venal creep who slaps people around because he can. August, the animal trainer, is a certified paranoid schizophrenic whose occasional flights into madness and brutality often have Jacob as their object. Jacob is the only person in the book who has a handle on a moral compass and as his reward he spends most of the novel beaten, broken, concussed, bleeding, swollen and hungover. He is the self-appointed Protector of the Downtrodden, and... he falls in love with Marlena, crazy August's wife. Not his best idea. The most interesting aspect of the book is all the circus lore that Gruen has so carefully researched. She has all the right vocabulary: grifters, roustabouts, workers, cooch tent, rubes, First of May, what the band plays when there's trouble, Jamaican ginger paralysis, life on a circus train, set-up and take-down, being run out of town by the "revenooers" or the cops, and losing all your hooch. There is one glorious passage about Marlena and Rosie, the bull elephant, that truly evokes the magic a circus can create. It is easy to see Marlena's and Rosie's pink sequins under the Big Top and to imagine their perfect choreography as they perform unbelievable stunts. The crowd loves it--and so will the reader. The ending is absolutely ludicrous and really quite lovely. --Valerie Ryan

The Wedding

by Nicholas Sparks

by

Publisher

Warner Books

Published

July 2004

Rating

★★★★☆

SUMMARY: With The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, and his other beloved novels, #1 New York Times bestselling author Nicholas Sparks has given voice to our deepest beliefs about the power of love. Now he brings us the long-awaited follow-up to The Notebook-a story of an ordinary man who goes to extraordinary lengths to win back the love of his life... After thirty years, Wilson Lewis is forced to face a painful truth: the romance has gone out of his marriage. His wife, Jane, has fallen out of love with him, and it is entirely his fault. Despite the shining example of his in-laws, Noah and Allie Calhoun, and their fifty-year love affair (originally recounted in The Notebook), Wilson himself is a man unable to express his true feelings. He has spent too little time at home and too much at the office, leaving the responsibility of raising their children to Jane. Now his daughter is about to marry, and his wife is thinking about leaving him. But if Wilson is sure of anything, it is this: His love for Jane has only grown over the years, and he will do everything he can to save their marriage. With the memories of Noah and Allie's inspiring life together as his guide, he vows to find a way to make his wife fall in love with him...all over again. In this powerfully moving tale of love lost, rediscovered, and renewed, Nicholas Sparks once again brings readers his unique insight into the only emotion that ultimately really matters.

The Wee Free Men

by Terry Pratchett

Publisher

HarperTrophy

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Nine-year-old Tiffany Aching needs magic--fast! Her sticky little brother Wentworth has been spirited away by the evil Queen of faerie, and its up to her to get him back safely. Having already decided to grow up to be a witch, now all Tiffany has to do is find her power. But she quickly learns that its not all black cats and broomsticks. According to her witchy mentor Miss Tick, "Witches dont use magic unless they really have to...We do other things. A witch pays attention to everything thats going on...A witch uses her head...A witch always has a piece of string!" Luckily, besides her trusty string, Tiffanys also got the Nac Mac Feegles, or the Wee Free Men on her side. Small, blue, and heavily tattooed, the Feegles love nothing more than a good fight except maybe a drop of strong drink! Tiffany, heavily armed with an iron skillet, the feisty Feegles, and a talking toad on loan from Miss Tick, is a formidable adversary. But the Queen has a few tricks of her own, most of them deadly. Tiffany and the Feegles might get more than they bargained for on the flip side of Faerie! Prolific fantasy author Terry Pratchett has served up another delicious helping of his famed Discworld fare. The not-quite-teen set will delight in the Feegles spicy, irreverent dialogue and Tiffanys salty determination. Novices to Pratchetts prose will find much to like here, and quickly go back to devour the rest of his Discworld offerings. Scrumptiously recommended. (Ages 10 to 14) --Jennifer Hubert

When the Wind Blows

by James Patterson

Publisher

Warner Vision

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Taking a break from his phenomenally successful Alex Cross series, James Patterson's When the Wind Blows is as much child's fantasy as it is an adult nightmare. The novel moves away from the gritty Washington, D.C., setting of the Cross books and follows the daily life of Frannie O'Neill, a Colorado veterinarian. After the mysterious death of her husband several years before, Frannie retreated to an isolated life in her Colorado practice. But a series of bizarre events suddenly disrupts her lonely routine. On a personal level, she is shaken by her new tenant--Kit Harrison. Kit's too handsome and too friendly and he's a hunter (or so Frannie thinks). He's also recovering from a devastating personal tragedy, and, as Frannie eventually learns, he's really an FBI agent using his vacation to follow a crucial lead. But Kit isn't the one that's got Frannie concerned. As she says after stopping her Suburban one night to check out something on the side of the road: "What I saw was way beyond my abilities to imagine, beyond my comprehension, my system of belief, and maybe beyond my ability to communicate right now. The little girl's arms were folded back in a peculiar way, but when she lifted them--feathers fanned out." The girl is Max, and the mystery of her wings leads Frannie and Kit into a massive conspiracy involving secret genetic research and the scientific manipulation of the human species. Patterson, a former advertising executive who coined such catchy phrases as "Nupe it!," knows how to entertain. His chapters are always short (some only two pages), and his writing is clear and unobtrusive; the reading experience is brisk--akin to watching a summer blockbuster. The book is not as dark or as weighty as the tales of detective-psychologist Alex Cross, but while some fans may be disappointed by Patterson's migration from pure suspense fiction, his first-person narrator Frannie, has a quirky realism that keeps this flight of fancy mostly on stable ground. --Patrick O'Kelley

White Wolf

by David Gemmell

Publisher

CORGI BOOKS (TWLD)

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: White Wolf marks a return to the bestselling Drenai series and David Gemmell’s most popular hero of all, Druss the Legend.Skilgannon the Damned had vanished from the pages of history. No-one knew where he had gone, following the terrible triumph at Perapolis, and the assasins sent by the Witch Queen could find no trace of his passing. Three years later, a murderous mob gathers outside a monastery, faced by a single, unarmed priest. In a few terrifying seconds their world is changed for ever, and word spreads across the lands of the East -- Skilgannon is back.Now he must travel across a perilous, demon-haunted realm seeking a mysterious temple and the ageless goddess who rules it. With assassins on his trail and an army of murderous foes ahead, the Damned sets off on a quest to bring the dead to life. But he does not travel alone. The man beside him is Druss the Legend.In this tale of love, betrayal and treachery, in a world torn by war, White Wolf examines the nature of heroism and friendship and the narrow lines dividing good and evil.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Witches Abroad

by Terry Pratchett

Publisher

Orion

Published

November 2009

Rating

☆☆☆☆☆

SUMMARY: Be careful what you wish for...Once upon a time there was a fairy godmother named Desiderata who had a good heart, a wise head, and poor planning skills--which unforunately left the Princess Emberella in the care of her other (not quite so good and wise) godmother when DEATH came for Desiderata. So now it's up to Magrat Garlick, Granny Weatherwax, and Nanny Ogg to hop on broomsticks and make for far-distant Genua to ensure the servant girl doesn't marry the Prince.But the road to Genua is bumpy, and along the way the trio of witches encounters the occasional vampire, werewolf, and falling house (well this is a fairy tale, after all). The trouble really begins once these reluctant foster-godmothers arrive in Genua and must outwit their power-hungry counterpart who'll stop at nothing to achieve a proper "happy ending"--even if it means destroying a kingdom.

Wizard's First Rule

by Terry Goodkind

by

Publisher

Tor Books

Published

October 1998

Rating

★★★★☆

EDITORIAL REVIEW: The Sword of Truth, Boxed Set I, Books 1-3*Wizard's First Rule*, *Stone of Tears*, and *Blood of the Fold*Book 1: Wizards First Rule**The masterpiece that started *The New York Times* bestselling epic Sword of Truth**In the aftermath of the brutal murder of his father, a mysterious woman, Kahlan Amnell, appears in Richard Cypher's forest sanctuary seeking help . . . and more. His world, his very beliefs, are shattered when ancient debts come due with thundering violence.In a dark age it takes courage to live, and more than mere courage to challenge those who hold dominion, Richard and Kahlan must take up that challenge or become the next victims. Beyond awaits a bewitching land where even the best of their hearts could betray them. Yet, Richard fears nothing so much as what secrets his sword might reveal about his own soul. Falling in love would destroy them--for reasons Richard can't imagine and Kahlan dare not say.In their darkest hour, hunted relentlessly, tormented by treachery and loss, Kahlan calls upon Richard to reach beyond his sword--to invoke within himself something more noble. Neither knows that the rules of battle have just changed . . . or that their time has run out.This is the beginning. One book. One Rule. Witness the birth of a legend.Book 2: *Stone of Tears***An Epic of Awesome Power**Kahlan has at last gained the one goal she had always thought was beyond her grasp ... love. Against all odds, the ancient bonds of secret oaths, and the dark talents of men long dead, Richard has won her heart.Amid sudden and disastrous events, Richard's life is called due to satisfy those treacherous oaths. To save his life, Kahlan must forsake Richard's love and cast him into the chains of slavery, knowing there could be no sin worse than such a betrayal.Richard is determined to unlock the secrets bound in the magic of ancient oaths and to again be free. Kahlan, alone with the terrible truth of what she has done, must set about altering the course of a world thrown into war. But even that may be easier than ever winning back the heart of the only man she will ever love.Book 3: *Blood of the Fold***An Epic of Two Worlds**In a world as rich and real as our own, Richard Rahl and Kahlan Amnell stand against the ancient forces which besiege the New World-- forces so terrible that when last they threatened, they could only be withstood by sealing off the Old World from whence they came. Now the barrier has been breached, and the New World is again beset by their evil power.War and treachery plague the world, and only Richard and Kahlan can save it from an armageddon of unimaginable savagery and destruction.Terry Goodkind, author of the brilliant bestsellers *Wizard's First Rule *and *Stone of Tears*, has created his most masterful epic yet, a sumptuous feast of magic and excitement replete with the wonders of his unique fantasy vision.

(

Robin Cook; Barry Bostwick (Contributor)

✓ Fatal Cure

Terry Pratchett; Paul Kidby (Illustrator)

✓ The Last Hero: A Discworld Fable (Discworld Novels)

James Patterson; Peter J. Fernandez (Narrator); Michael Stuhlbarg (Narrator)

✓ Double Cross (Alex Cross)

Terry Pratchett; Tony Robinson (Narrator)

✓ The Fifth Elephant

James Patterson; Maxine Paetro; Carolyn McCormick (Reader)

✓ The 5th Horseman

A

Edward S. Aarons

✓ Assignment to Disaster

JANE AUSTEN

✓ Pride and Prejudice

B

David Baldacci

✓ First Family

Dan Brown

✓ Deception Point

C

Charlaine Harris

✓ Club Dead: A True Blood Novel

✓ Dead to the World: A True Blood Novel

✓ Dead Until Dark. TV Tie-In: A True Blood Novel

Michael Connelly

✓ The Black Echo

✓ The Black Ice

✓ The Brass Verdict

✓ Chasing the Dime

✓ City of Bones

✓ The Closers

✓ The Concrete Blonde

✓ Echo Park

✓ The Narrows

✓ Nine Dragons

✓ The Overlook

Robin Cook

✓ Coma

✓ Invasion

Patricia Cornwell

✓ Scarpetta

✓ The Scarpetta Factor

Michael Crichton

✓ Timeline

E

Michael Palmer

✓ Side Effects

F

Linda Fairstein

✓ The Deadhouse

Nelson DeMille

✓ Night Fall

Fitzgerald, Francis Scott

✓ The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

✓ The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Vince Flynn

✓ Executive Power

✓ Pursuit of Honor

✓ Term Limits

✓ The Third Option

✓ Transfer of Power

Alan Dean Foster

✓ Flinx Transcendent

G

David Gemmell

✓ White Wolf

Tess Gerritsen

✓ Bloodstream

✓ The Bone Garden

✓ Harvest

✓ The Keepsake

✓ Life Support

Terry Goodkind

✓ Confessor

✓ Debt of Bones

✓ Naked Empire

✓ Phantom, Limited Edition

✓ The Pillars of Creation

✓ Stone of Tears

✓ Wizard's First Rule

John Grisham

✓ The Appeal

✓ The Associate

✓ The Brethren

✓ The Broker

✓ The Firm

✓ The Innocent Man

✓ The King of Torts

✓ The Last Juror

✓ A Painted House

✓ The Partner

✓ The Pelican Brief

✓ The Rainmaker

✓ The Summons

✓ Testament

✓ A Time to Kill

Sara Gruen

✓ Water for Elephants

H

Charlaine Harris

✓ From Dead to Worse: A True Blood Novel

William Hjortsberg

✓ Falling Angel

Tami Hoag

✓ Cry Wolf

✓ Dark Horse

✓ Dust To Dust

✓ Guilty As Sin

✓ Lucky's Lady

✓ Night Sins

✓ Still Waters

✓ A Thin Dark Line

Khaled Hosseini

✓ The Kite Runner

✓ A Thousand Splendid Suns

Stephen Hunter

✓ The 47th Samurai: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel

✓ I, Sniper: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel

✓ Time to hunt: a novel

J

James Patterson

✓ I, Alex Cross

James Patterson; Peter de Jonge

✓ The Beach House

K

Kathryn Stockett

✓ The Help

Stephen King

✓ The Stand

✓ Under the Dome

L

Nicholas Sparks

✓ A Bend in the Road

✓ Nights in Rodanthe

James Patterson; Michael Ledwidge

✓ The Quickie

M

Cormac McCarthy

✓ The Road

Stephenie Meyer

✓ Breaking Dawn

✓ New Moon

P

James Patterson; Maxine Paetro

✓ The 8th Confession

Michael Palmer

✓ The Patient

Robert B. Parker

✓ Night and Day

James Patterson

✓ Along Came a Spider

✓ The Big Bad Wolf

✓ Cat and Mouse

✓ Jack & Jill (Alex Cross)

✓ The Lake House

✓ Mary, Mary

✓ Roses Are Red

✓ Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports: A Maximum Ride Novel

✓ Violets Are Blue

✓ When the Wind Blows

Jodi Picoult

✓ Keeping Faith

✓ Mercy

✓ My Sister's Keeper

✓ Plain Truth

✓ Salem Falls

Vince Flynn

✓ Transfer of Power

Terry Pratchett

✓ Carpe Jugulum

✓ Guards! Guards! (Discworld Novels)

✓ The Last Continent

✓ Men At Arms

✓ Monstrous Regiment (Discworld)

✓ Pyramids

✓ Small Gods

✓ Sourcery

✓ The Wee Free Men

✓ Witches Abroad

R

J. K. Rowling

✓ Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows

✓ Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

✓ Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

✓ Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

J.K. Rowling

✓ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

✓ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

✓ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

S

Alice Sebold

✓ Lovely Bones

Nicholas Sparks

✓ Dear John

✓ A Walk to Remember

T

Eckhart Tolle

✓ A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Treanor, Marie

✓ Killing Joe

Vince Flynn

✓ Act of Treason

Michael Palmer

✓ Silent Treatment

U

Nicholas Sparks

✓ Message In A Bottle

Andre Agassi

✓ Open: An Autobiography

Nicholas Sparks

✓ The Wedding

Tami Hoag

✓ Ashes To Ashes

✓ Kill the Messenger

✓ Prior Bad Acts

✓ Taken by Storm

Symbols

✓ The 8th Confession · James Patterson; Maxine Paetro

✓ The 5th Horseman · James Patterson; Maxine Paetro; Carolyn McCormick (Reader)

✓ The 47th Samurai: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel · Stephen Hunter

A

✓ Act of Treason · Vince Flynn

✓ Along Came a Spider · James Patterson

✓ The Appeal · John Grisham

✓ Ashes To Ashes · Tami Hoag

✓ Assignment to Disaster · Edward S. Aarons

✓ The Associate · John Grisham

B

✓ The Beach House · James Patterson; Peter de Jonge

✓ A Bend in the Road · Nicholas Sparks

✓ The Big Bad Wolf · James Patterson

✓ The Black Echo · Michael Connelly

✓ The Black Ice · Michael Connelly

✓ Bloodstream · Tess Gerritsen

✓ The Bone Garden · Tess Gerritsen

✓ The Brass Verdict · Michael Connelly

✓ Breaking Dawn · Stephenie Meyer

✓ The Brethren · John Grisham

✓ The Broker · John Grisham

C

✓ Carpe Jugulum · Terry Pratchett

✓ Cat and Mouse · James Patterson

✓ Chasing the Dime · Michael Connelly

✓ City of Bones · Michael Connelly

✓ The Closers · Michael Connelly

✓ Club Dead: A True Blood Novel · Charlaine Harris

✓ Coma · Robin Cook

✓ The Concrete Blonde · Michael Connelly

✓ Confessor · Terry Goodkind

✓ Cry Wolf · Tami Hoag

✓ The Curious Case of Benjamin Button · Fitzgerald, Francis Scott

✓ The Curious Case of Benjamin Button · Fitzgerald, Francis Scott

D

✓ Dark Horse · Tami Hoag

✓ Dead to the World: A True Blood Novel · Charlaine Harris

✓ Dead Until Dark. TV Tie-In: A True Blood Novel · Charlaine Harris

✓ The Deadhouse · Linda Fairstein

✓ Dear John · Nicholas Sparks

✓ Debt of Bones · Terry Goodkind

✓ Deception Point · Dan Brown

✓ Double Cross (Alex Cross) · James Patterson; Peter J. Fernandez (Narrator); Michael Stuhlbarg (Narrator)

✓ Dust To Dust · Tami Hoag

E

✓ Echo Park · Michael Connelly

✓ Executive Power · Vince Flynn

F

✓ Falling Angel · William Hjortsberg

✓ Fatal Cure · Robin Cook; Barry Bostwick (Contributor)

✓ The Fifth Elephant · Terry Pratchett; Tony Robinson (Narrator)

✓ The Firm · John Grisham

✓ First Family · David Baldacci

✓ Flinx Transcendent · Alan Dean Foster

✓ From Dead to Worse: A True Blood Novel · Charlaine Harris

G

✓ Guards! Guards! (Discworld Novels) · Terry Pratchett

✓ Guilty As Sin · Tami Hoag

H

✓ Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows · J. K. Rowling

✓ Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets · J. K. Rowling

✓ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire · J.K. Rowling

✓ Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince · J. K. Rowling

✓ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix · J.K. Rowling

✓ Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban · J. K. Rowling

✓ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone · J.K. Rowling

✓ Harvest · Tess Gerritsen

✓ The Help · Kathryn Stockett

I

✓ I, Alex Cross · James Patterson

✓ I, Sniper: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel · Stephen Hunter

✓ The Innocent Man · John Grisham

✓ Invasion · Robin Cook

J

✓ Jack & Jill (Alex Cross) · James Patterson

K

✓ Keeping Faith · Jodi Picoult

✓ The Keepsake · Tess Gerritsen

✓ Kill the Messenger · Tami Hoag

✓ Killing Joe · Treanor, Marie

✓ The King of Torts · John Grisham

✓ The Kite Runner · Khaled Hosseini

L

✓ The Lake House · James Patterson

✓ The Last Continent · Terry Pratchett

✓ The Last Hero: A Discworld Fable (Discworld Novels) · Terry Pratchett; Paul Kidby (Illustrator)

✓ The Last Juror · John Grisham

✓ Life Support · Tess Gerritsen

✓ Lovely Bones · Alice Sebold

✓ Lucky's Lady · Tami Hoag

M

✓ Mary, Mary · James Patterson

✓ Men At Arms · Terry Pratchett

✓ Mercy · Jodi Picoult

✓ Message In A Bottle · Nicholas Sparks

✓ Monstrous Regiment (Discworld) · Terry Pratchett

✓ My Sister's Keeper · Jodi Picoult

N

✓ Naked Empire · Terry Goodkind

✓ The Narrows · Michael Connelly

✓ A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose · Eckhart Tolle

✓ New Moon · Stephenie Meyer

✓ Night and Day · Robert B. Parker

✓ Night Fall · Nelson DeMille

✓ Night Sins · Tami Hoag

✓ Nights in Rodanthe · Nicholas Sparks

✓ Nine Dragons · Michael Connelly

O

✓ Open: An Autobiography · Andre Agassi

✓ The Overlook · Michael Connelly

P

✓ A Painted House · John Grisham

✓ The Partner · John Grisham

✓ The Patient · Michael Palmer

✓ The Pelican Brief · John Grisham

✓ Phantom, Limited Edition · Terry Goodkind

✓ The Pillars of Creation · Terry Goodkind

✓ Plain Truth · Jodi Picoult

✓ Pride and Prejudice · JANE AUSTEN

✓ Prior Bad Acts · Tami Hoag

✓ Pursuit of Honor · Vince Flynn

✓ Pyramids · Terry Pratchett

Q

✓ The Quickie · James Patterson; Michael Ledwidge

R

✓ The Rainmaker · John Grisham

✓ The Road · Cormac McCarthy

✓ Roses Are Red · James Patterson

S

✓ Salem Falls · Jodi Picoult

✓ Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports: A Maximum Ride Novel · James Patterson

✓ Scarpetta · Patricia Cornwell

✓ The Scarpetta Factor · Patricia Cornwell

✓ Side Effects · Michael Palmer

✓ Silent Treatment · Michael Palmer

✓ Small Gods · Terry Pratchett

✓ Sourcery · Terry Pratchett

✓ The Stand · Stephen King

✓ Still Waters · Tami Hoag

✓ Stone of Tears · Terry Goodkind

✓ The Summons · John Grisham

T

✓ Taken by Storm · Tami Hoag

✓ Term Limits · Vince Flynn

✓ Testament · John Grisham

✓ A Thin Dark Line · Tami Hoag

✓ The Third Option · Vince Flynn

✓ A Thousand Splendid Suns · Khaled Hosseini

✓ Time to hunt: a novel · Stephen Hunter

✓ A Time to Kill · John Grisham

✓ Timeline · Michael Crichton

✓ Transfer of Power · Vince Flynn

✓ Transfer of Power · Vince Flynn

U

✓ Under the Dome · Stephen King

V

✓ Violets Are Blue · James Patterson

W

✓ A Walk to Remember · Nicholas Sparks

✓ Water for Elephants · Sara Gruen

✓ The Wedding · Nicholas Sparks

✓ The Wee Free Men · Terry Pratchett

✓ When the Wind Blows · James Patterson

✓ White Wolf · David Gemmell

✓ Witches Abroad · Terry Pratchett

✓ Wizard's First Rule · Terry Goodkind

February 2010

Michael Palmer

✓ Side Effects

Tess Gerritsen

✓ Bloodstream

✓ The Bone Garden

✓ Harvest

✓ Life Support

Terry Goodkind

✓ Confessor

✓ Debt of Bones

✓ Naked Empire

✓ Phantom, Limited Edition

✓ The Pillars of Creation

✓ Stone of Tears

✓ Wizard's First Rule

Stephen Hunter

✓ I, Sniper: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel

Michael Palmer

✓ The Patient

✓ Silent Treatment

January 2010

Charlaine Harris

✓ Club Dead: A True Blood Novel

✓ Dead Until Dark. TV Tie-In: A True Blood Novel

✓ Dead to the World: A True Blood Novel

Nelson DeMille

✓ Night Fall

Alan Dean Foster

✓ Flinx Transcendent

Charlaine Harris

✓ From Dead to Worse: A True Blood Novel

Tami Hoag

✓ Cry Wolf

✓ Dark Horse

✓ Dust To Dust

✓ Guilty As Sin

✓ Lucky's Lady

✓ Night Sins

✓ Still Waters

✓ A Thin Dark Line

Stephen Hunter

✓ The 47th Samurai: A Bob Lee Swagger Novel

✓ Time to hunt: a novel

Kathryn Stockett

✓ The Help

Stephen King

✓ Under the Dome

Nicholas Sparks

✓ A Bend in the Road

✓ Nights in Rodanthe

✓ Dear John

✓ A Walk to Remember

✓ Message In A Bottle

Andre Agassi

✓ Open: An Autobiography

Nicholas Sparks

✓ The Wedding

Tami Hoag

✓ Ashes To Ashes

✓ Kill the Messenger

✓ Prior Bad Acts

✓ Taken by Storm

December 2009

Vince Flynn

✓ Executive Power

✓ Pursuit of Honor

✓ Term Limits

✓ The Third Option

✓ Transfer of Power

Cormac McCarthy

✓ The Road

Vince Flynn

✓ Transfer of Power

✓ Act of Treason

November 2009

Robin Cook; Barry Bostwick (Contributor)

✓ Fatal Cure

Terry Pratchett; Paul Kidby (Illustrator)

✓ The Last Hero: A Discworld Fable (Discworld Novels)

James Patterson; Peter J. Fernandez (Narrator); Michael Stuhlbarg (Narrator)

✓ Double Cross (Alex Cross)

Terry Pratchett; Tony Robinson (Narrator)

✓ The Fifth Elephant

James Patterson; Maxine Paetro; Carolyn McCormick (Reader)

✓ The 5th Horseman

JANE AUSTEN

✓ Pride and Prejudice

Edward S. Aarons

✓ Assignment to Disaster

David Baldacci

✓ First Family

Dan Brown

✓ Deception Point

Michael Connelly

✓ The Black Echo

✓ The Black Ice

✓ The Brass Verdict

✓ Chasing the Dime

✓ City of Bones

✓ The Closers

✓ The Concrete Blonde

✓ Echo Park

✓ The Narrows

✓ Nine Dragons

✓ The Overlook

Robin Cook

✓ Coma

✓ Invasion

Patricia Cornwell

✓ Scarpetta

✓ The Scarpetta Factor

Michael Crichton

✓ Timeline

Linda Fairstein

✓ The Deadhouse

Fitzgerald, Francis Scott

✓ The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

✓ The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

David Gemmell

✓ White Wolf

Tess Gerritsen

✓ The Keepsake

John Grisham

✓ The Appeal

✓ The Associate

✓ The Brethren

✓ The Broker

✓ The Firm

✓ The Innocent Man

✓ The King of Torts

✓ The Last Juror

✓ A Painted House

✓ The Partner

✓ The Pelican Brief

✓ The Rainmaker

✓ The Summons

✓ Testament

✓ A Time to Kill

Sara Gruen

✓ Water for Elephants

William Hjortsberg

✓ Falling Angel

Khaled Hosseini

✓ The Kite Runner

✓ A Thousand Splendid Suns

James Patterson

✓ I, Alex Cross

James Patterson; Peter de Jonge

✓ The Beach House

Stephen King

✓ The Stand

James Patterson; Michael Ledwidge

✓ The Quickie

Stephenie Meyer

✓ Breaking Dawn

✓ New Moon

James Patterson; Maxine Paetro

✓ The 8th Confession

Robert B. Parker

✓ Night and Day

James Patterson

✓ Along Came a Spider

✓ The Big Bad Wolf

✓ Cat and Mouse

✓ Jack & Jill (Alex Cross)

✓ The Lake House

✓ Mary, Mary

✓ Roses Are Red

✓ Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports: A Maximum Ride Novel

✓ Violets Are Blue

✓ When the Wind Blows

Jodi Picoult

✓ Keeping Faith

✓ Mercy

✓ My Sister's Keeper

✓ Plain Truth

✓ Salem Falls

Terry Pratchett

✓ Carpe Jugulum

✓ Guards! Guards! (Discworld Novels)

✓ The Last Continent

✓ Men At Arms

✓ Monstrous Regiment (Discworld)

✓ Pyramids

✓ Small Gods

✓ Sourcery

✓ The Wee Free Men

✓ Witches Abroad

J. K. Rowling

✓ Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows

✓ Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

✓ Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

✓ Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

J.K. Rowling

✓ Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

✓ Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

✓ Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Alice Sebold

✓ Lovely Bones

Eckhart Tolle

✓ A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Treanor, Marie

✓ Killing Joe