The Laughter of Dead Kings
Laura A.B. Cifelli – Library Journal: In Vicky Bliss's final adventure, the art historian is reunited with her reformed art-thief boyfriend, John Tregarth, on a mission to Egypt to help her old friend Feisal out of a jam. Imagine the ramifications of the most iconic symbol of your homeland going missing on your watch. Feisal […]
Smoke Screen
Publishers Weekly At the start of this scorching if somewhat formulaic thriller from bestseller Brown (Play Dirty), Charleston, S.C., TV reporter Britt Shelley wakes up in bed next to the dead body of police detective Jay Burgess. While Jay had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, the authorities suspect foul play. Jay's former best friend, ex-fireman […]
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
The Washington Post – Wendy Smith: Though it deals with a dark period in history, this first novel is an essentially sunny work. It affirms the power of books to nourish people enduring hard times?not so surprising, since Mary Ann Shaffer, who died earlier this year, had a long career as a librarian, bookseller and […]
People of the Whale
Christine DeZelar-Tiedman – Library Journal: In her remarkable new novel, Hogan (a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Mean Spirit) explores themes of love and loss among the A'atsika people of Washington State. The story centers on Thomas Just, who was missing in action in Vietnam for many years, and Ruth, the wife he left behind, a […]
The Heretic's Daughter
Barbara Hoffert – Library Journal: History is more than facts and figures; it's something that happens to all of us. That's the thought that may strike readers of Kent's luminous first novel, set at the time of the Salem witch trials. In fact, Martha Carrier, Kent's grandmother back nine generations, was hanged as a witch […]
Moscow Rules
Library Journal Gabriel Allon-art restorer, master spy, and sanctioned assassin-returns in Silva's 11th thriller about terrorism in our violent world. After the murder of an informant in St. Peter's Basilica, Allon is sent to the newly wealthy but corrupt Moscow to stop arms dealer Ivan Kharkov from selling sophisticated weapons to al-Qaeda. Allon is caught […]
America America
Library Journal: Canin's new work about class, politics, money, and media in the Nixon era through the present day will resonate powerfully with readers in this presidential election year. Corey Sifter, a working-class boy from a small New York town, is hired by the Metareys, the wealthiest family in Saline, to be a man-of-all-trades. His […]
The Likeness
Kirkus Reviews: The discovery of her murdered doppelganger leads a Dublin detective to insert herself into the victim's life. Cassandra Maddox, the Irish cop introduced in French's In the Woods (2007), gets an urgent call from her homicide-detective boyfriend Sam O'Neill. She is to drop everything, disguise herself and hustle to a murder scene that […]
Damage Control
Publishers Weekly: Sheriff Joanna Brady and her staff face a host of challenges while her husband, Butch, tends their infant son in bestseller Jance's solid 13th novel to feature the Cochise County, Ariz., cop (after Dead Wrong). A woman shoots a home intruder, an elderly couple drive their car off a cliff and a mysterious […]
The Sugar Queen
Publishers Weekly: Allen's second bewitching offering (after Garden Spells) is a candy jar of magical characters and mystical adventures set in an ordinary North Carolina town. At 27, Josey Cirrini is "plain and just this side of plump" and trying to make up for her legendary childhood temper tantrums by caring for her aging, widowed […]