March 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.

 

The Hunt Club, by John Lescroart
Changing Faces, by Kimberla Roby
Sea Change, by Robert Parker
Capitol Murder, by William Bernhardt
Cell, by Stephen King
Lovers and Players, by Jackie Collins
More Than Friends, by Barbara Delinsky
The 5th Horseman, by James Patterson



This Month's Great Escapes
by Bill McCleary


Predator, by Patricia Cornwell

After her brief and rather unhappy return to Richmond, Dr. Kay Scarpetta is back in Florida.  She is still working with her niece Lucy and ex-cop Pete Marino at the National Forensic Academy, where she does training and also looks into cases.  She has several puzzling cases on her hands.  A family of four has disappeared from their home, their car left in the driveway.  Could the case have something to do with the earlier disappearance of a mother and daughter from their gift shop?  As Scarpetta and Marino collect evidence at the home of the more recent disappearances, an elderly woman living nearby is murdered.  Did she know something?  Things are starting to get interesting.  Meanwhile, Scarpetta’s love interest, Benton Wesley, is in Boston interviewing serial killers for a psychiatric project he is working on.  One of his main subjects is a convicted Florida murderer—who might be able to lead Scarpetta and Wesley to the killer still on the loose.  Scarpetta is my favorite Cornwell creation by far; I don’t enjoy her other non-Scarpetta novels nearly as much.  This latest was a little bit disjointed plot-wise but Scarpetta is never anything but riveting and I found myself thinking the book was way too short and the time just flew by.


The Camel Club, by David Baldacci

The Camel Club consists of four Washington misfits living on the fringe who meet on a regular basis to discuss political events, exchange information, and occasionally intervene now and then on Washington happenings.  At one of their meetings, convened on Roosevelt Island, they happen to secretly witness two armed men murder a third man, staging the murder to look like a suicide.  The Camel Club members are spotted but they manage to get away.  Later they learn that the murdered man was working for one of the intelligence agencies—and it’s likely the two men they observed are looking for them to eliminate them as witnesses.  Being misfits, going to the police doesn’t seem to be a viable option.  So, maybe the Camel Club should track the killers themselves.  Luckily, they all bring specific and useful skills to the table—especially the leader of the group, who calls himself Oliver Stone.  Meanwhile, on another front, an intricate plot is being formulated to kidnap the President of the United States.  If you have fond memories of the book The Day of the Jackal I think you will love this book, too.  At times it was so exciting and suspenseful I almost forgot to breathe.  This is one of the author’s best books since his first, Absolute Power .


Slow Burn, by Julie Garwood

Single, sexy, Kate MacKenna, of Charleston, South Carolina, has the world on a string.  She has started a successful fragrance company that is doing well and it’s made her proud of her accomplishment.  Her youngest sister, Isabel, is getting ready to start college, and her oldest sister, Kiera will soon become a doctor.  Kate’s life is exciting and interesting.  Then, it gets a little too exciting and interesting.  While helping with the party preparations at a friend’s estate, Kate narrowly avoids being killed when a bomb explodes.  Then, she is dealt another blow when she finds out that her late mother, in financial difficulties, had signed away the rights to Kate’s company just before her death.  When Kate just escapes death in another bomb blast, her best friend, Jordan, decides that Kate needs the protection of her sexy, single policeman brother, Dylan.   Can there be romance amongst the bombs?   Meanwhile, in Savannah, an elderly, dying man with a vast fortune decides to change his will—leaving only token bequests to his unsavory, ungrateful, unlikable immediate kin, and the bulk of his fortune to one of the MacKenna sisters—with more explosions to follow.  This was an entertaining light read with a nice suspenseful finish.


Rendezvous at Kamakura Inn, by Marshall Browne

Are you ready for something different?  Tired of not another James Patterson book?  Well, here’s a refreshing change for you.  Meet Detective Inspector Hideo Aoki of the Tokyo police.  Aoki lives in a suburb of Tokyo with his wife and his widowed father.  He lives with them but his life is really his career.  For the past seventeen months, Aoki and his team of detectives have worked night and day to gather evidence against a powerful political figure with ties to Japan’s organized crime.  Aoki is just about to arrest the politician when he is called in to his superior’s office and told to drop the case.   Stunned, Aoki’s behavior becomes erratic in the following days and weeks and in short order he loses his wife and father.  His boss, feeling that Aoki needs a change of scenery, orders him to spend a week at the Kamakura Inn, a guesthouse in the remote mountains of northern Japan.   Aoki reluctantly travels to the guesthouse and the night he arrives a huge snowstorm cuts off the inn from the rest of the world.  The electricity goes out, the telephone lines are down, there’s no cell phone reception, and the road out is blocked.  For Aoki, there is nothing to do but get to know his fellow guests and employees at the inn.  And, it’s a very interesting group.  And, it gets more interesting when the murders start!  If you’ve enjoyed Martin Cruz Smith’s books featuring the Moscow police detective Arkady Renko, you are certain to like making the acquaintance of Hideo Aoki—he is Tokyo’s version and just as delightful a character.   I hope, hope, hope he will make another appearance soon.  






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Revised Feb. 28, 2006

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