September 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.

 

Long Time Gone, by J. A. Jance
The Assassin's Touch, by Laura Joh Rowland
1776, by David G. McCullough
The Patriot's Club, by Christopher Reich
Dancing in the Dark, by Mary Jane Clark
Sweetwater Creek, by Anne Rivers Siddons
Without Mercy, by Jack Higgins
Chill Factor, by Sandra Brown
The Last Days of Dogtown, by Anita Diamant
Polar Shift, by Clive Cussler
Straight into Darkness, by Faye Kellerman
Vanish, by Tess Gerritsen

This Month's Great Escapes
by Bill McCleary


All the Flowers Are Dying, by Lawrence Block

Not too long ago there was a front page article in the Washington Post which reported the rather disturbing news that juries are failing to convict criminals if there is a lack of ‘CSI’ type evidence presented at the trials.  So many viewers are watching the Crime Scene Investigation shows on tv and they are being influenced by what they see—expecting all crimes to have tons of forensic evidence.  The reverse, of course, is probably also true—juries convicting a person based solely on forensic evidence.   For poor Preston Applewhite of Virginia, that is the case.  He is on death row—convicted of the brutal murder of three boys--and scheduled to be executed in a week.  One can hardly fault the jury—the forensic evidence all pointed to him.  But, here’s the chilling part—all the forensic evidence was planted by a clever psychopath—who on a whim decided to frame Preston for murders he planned and committed when he happened to come into possession of a bloody handkerchief belonging to Preston.  The bloody cloth with Preston’s DNA, left at one of the crime scenes, was simply the first piece of evidence and it wasn’t hard for our psychopath to add just the right amount of other damning evidence.  And, presto, Preston is convicted—though he had steadfastly proclaimed his innocence.  Meanwhile, our psychopath has relocated to New York City and he has a new target—Matthew Scudder’s wife, Elaine.  As each day passes towards Preston’s execution, will Matthew make the connection?  This is one of Block’s best Scudder novels but, at the same time, difficult to read due to Preston’s predicament.


Marker, by Robin Cook

Dr. Laurie Montgomery and Dr. Jack Stapleton, New York City medical examiners, are back in this latest hospital suspense novel from Mr. Cook.  Laurie and Jack have been living together but Laurie, tired of waiting for Jack to make a commitment to marriage and hearing her biological clock ticking, has just decided to move back to her own apartment while she rethinks their relationship.  They still work together, though, and both become intrigued when several young, healthy patients mysteriously die at a Manhattan hospital while recovering from routine surgeries.  In each case, no cause of death can be found.  Laurie takes it upon herself to spearhead the investigation but she can’t make any headway with her boss or the head of the hospital—both refuse to believe there is a pattern to the deaths.  But, patients continue to die and Laurie soon has six cases on her hands.  The only common link Laurie and Jack can find is that all the victims were insured by AmeriCare, a huge HMO.  Meanwhile, Laurie, also an AmeriCare client, has started to not feel well, too, and she will end up in the same hospital under suspicion.  Could she be the next victim?  This is an entertaining novel.  Mr. Cook has taken cutting edge medical technology and fashioned it into a provocative thriller.   Stay healthy!


Broken Prey, by John Sandford

Lucas Davenport is home alone.  His wife, Weather, and their kids are in London for a couple of months while Weather is doing a rotation at a London hospital.  Lucas, a former Minneapolis detective now working for a state crime agency, would normally be bored and lonely with them gone but he’s got a really bad serial killer on the loose to keep him very busy.  With his new job, Lucas is called in on difficult or sensitive cases--and he has one here.  Someone is murdering victims in gruesome ways that are suggestive of the state’s three most notorious serial killers, deemed insane, now being held in a Minnesota mental hospital.  It looks like the three killers, known as The Big Three, have managed to brainwash a patient to act on their behalf once he is released.  Lucas thinks he knows the former patient’s identity—but he has disappeared.  He does resurface several times to call the media to gloat—which only puts more pressure on Lucas and his team to find him before he strikes again.  This is another winner in the ‘Prey’ series.


The Twelfth Card, by Jeffery Deaver

Deaver’s latest in the Lincoln Rhyme series finds quadriplegic police detective Lincoln and his lover, Amelia Sachs, investigating a current crime and one that happened in New York City way back in 1868.  Geneva Settle is a studious, ambitious high school student living in Harlem.  As a school assignment, she is writing a paper about one of her ancestors, Charles Singleton, a former slave.  After the Civil War, Charles owned a farm in New York that was left to him by his former master.  Charles was a man of some importance and he was involved with some of the most important black leaders of the time.  However, on a July night in 1868, he was accused of a crime.  Meanwhile, as Geneva is working in a library doing research on Charles, she narrowly avoids being attacked and killed.  The poor librarian is killed and a bystander is injured but Geneva was clearly the target.  However, who would want to kill a young, black high school student—in a library of all places?  When Lincoln and Amelia learn of the attempted murder—by what looks like a professional hitman—they decide to make the case their own.  With twists and turns and some shocking surprises, they will need to return to the New York City of 1868 if they are going to uncover the reason why someone wants Geneva dead.   Deaver is one of my favorite authors and this is excellent.


Back to the Library Home Page
Revised Aug. 30, 2005

Comments to Bill McCleary