January New Popular Books

The following new books have been added this month to the Popular Reading Collection located next to the circulation desk.   These books and any other titles currently checked out can be placed on hold.
See a staff member at the circulation desk for assistance.

 

Antony and Cleopatra, by Colleen McCullough
T is for Trespass, by Sue Grafton
The Darkest Evening of the Year, by Dean Koontz
A Whole New Light, by Sandra Brown
Confessor, by Terry Goodkind
Double Cross, by James Patterson
Rhett Butler's People, by Donald McCaig


This Month's Great Escapes
by Bill McCleary  



The Secret Servant, by Daniel Silva

Mr. Silva has a wonderful series going featuring Gabriel Allon, an Israeli secret agent who is also a gifted art restorer when he is not undertaking hazardous assignments.  In his latest outing, there will be precious little time for art!  Gabriel has been dispatched to Amsterdam to do a clean-up mission of sorts.  A Dutch terrorism expert, who secretly worked for Israeli intelligence, has been murdered and Gabriel has been assigned to look into the murdered agent’s papers and remove any references to his secret work for Israel.  While he is doing this, Gabriel gets wind of a terrorist plot that seems about to be put into motion in London.  He flies to the British capital and warns MI5, but Gabriel is just a little too late and Elizabeth Halton, the daughter of the American ambassador to Great Britain, is kidnapped by Muslim terrorists.  Although her recovery ought to be a combined CIA and MI5 operation, Gabriel wants to be involved, too, since he was the first to learn of the plot and she was snatched in front of his eyes.  Attempting to find and save Elizabeth will be one of Gabriel’s most difficult and dangerous cases—and one of the most exciting for the reader. 


Spare Change, by Robert B. Parker

Twenty years ago, there was a serial killer at large in Boston.  Known as ‘The Spare Change Killer’, the murderer would leave three coins next to each victim.  Heading the task force back then was Sunny Randall’s father, Phil Randall.  Sunny, of course, is the hot, thirtysomething divorced Boston private detective of a number of earlier Parker novels.  Phil never caught the killer and the murders eventually stopped.  Now, twenty years later, a murdered victim is found with three coins next to the body—and Phil gets a note from the murderer asking him if he has missed him.  Phil has since retired but he agrees to come out of retirement and work on the new case if Sunny will assist him—which she agrees to do.  Several more bodies turn up—and the killer seems to have latched on to Sunny as his new point of contact.  But, will she also be his next victim?  This is an easy, breezy, terrific series with a winning, very human, main character of Sunny Randall.  Lots of fun.


White Flag Down, by Joel N. Ross

This is a new author for me.  I missed reading Mr. Ross’s debut novel, Double Cross Blind, but it seems to have garnered good reviews.  The first novel was set during World War II and his latest novel is also set during the war.  The action begins in October of 1942 with American pilot Hans Grant and his navigator Racket McNeil shot down over enemy lines on a reconnaissance mission—but not before Racket has managed to shoot photos of what looks like a new, futuristic German plane.  Grant manages to crash land right across the border in Switzerland and he hides the camera with the intelligence photos.  Racket is hospitalized and Grant is put into protective custody.  Across the continent, Russia is fighting for its survival with Nazi forces attacking Stalingrad. And, in the thick of the fighting is Major Eduard Akimov.  Just as it looks like the German forces will take Stalingrad, there is a pause in the fighting and Akimov is sent to Switzerland to assist his diplomat father in secret peace negotiations with the Nazi government—an agreement both father and son are not sure they want.  Working to prevent any sort of peace agreement is Swiss journalist Anna Fay, who has been trying to gather evidence of Swiss companies laundering Nazi money through illegal business deals.  Through interlocking plot lines, Grant, Akimov, and Fay will eventually join forces as they try to achieve their individual goals—against very sinister forces.  I’ve always had a fondness for World War II novels and this was an exciting page turner.  Ross is a new novelist to watch. 


The Careful Use of Compliments, by Alexander McCall Smith

This is the fourth book in the series featuring Isabel Dalhousie, the editor of The Review of Applied Ethics.  To refresh your memory or if you are new to the series, Isabel is single, rich, just at the beginning of her 40s, and a resident of Edinburgh, Scotland.  Oh, and did I mention, she’s a new mother?  She’s just had a child with her boyfriend, Jamie, some years younger than her and a music instructor.  In this latest installment, Isabel is coping with motherhood, a marriage proposal from Jamie, imminent dismissal from her position at the journal, cool relations with her niece, Cat, who once also dated Jamie, and—always—ethics questions .  Clearly, Isabel has a lot on her plate in this outing.  But, she also finds time to delve into a mystery surrounding several paintings that have surfaced by a famous local artist, who died eight years ago.  Isabel just happens to own one of his paintings and she has some suspicions—about the paintings and the artist’s unusual death.  McCall Smith is more noted for his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency novels but I enjoy this interesting and thought-provoking series just as much. 







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Revised Dec. 29, 2007

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