Here are a few examples of books you’ll find: Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder follows a pharmacologist who travels into the Amazon jungle in search of a rule-breaking doctor, who may have found a cure for infertility. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness may have inspired the plot of this riveting novel, but Patchett’s take on the clash between nature and civilization, and her fierce female scientists, are radiantly contemporary.
Martha’s Vineyard resident Geraldine Brooks’ Caleb’s Crossing is another popular choice. Once again, Brooks takes a remarkable shard of history and brings it to vivid life. In 1665, a young man from Martha’s Vineyard became the first Native American to graduate from Harvard College. Upon this slender factual scaffold, Brooks has created a luminous tale of love and faith, magic and adventure.
Nonfiction titles on many lists include The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt. According to the Washington Examiner, “Harvard professor Greenblatt won the National Book Award for this spellbinding cultural history and deserves it. In his hands, the story of how a 15th-century Italian discovered an ancient Roman poem that paved the way for the Enlightenment becomes as warm and accessible as a campfire yarn.”
Another Massachusetts author is also on many of the lists: Townie: A Memoir by Andre Dubus III. Abandoned by his father at the age of 12, Dubus hardened himself for a new life filled with poverty, drugs and fistfights. In this moving and gritty memoir, the author of “House of Sand and Fog” shows how writing fiction ultimately led him away from violence, and helped him forge a new relationship with his father.
Children’s lists are rich in picture books: Valorie Fisher’s Everything I Need to Know before I’m Five and Jon Klasser’s I Want My Hat Back are among them. The blog has lists devoted to every genre and age group and is great fun to explore for reading suggestions.

If you have an opinion of what is the best book published in 2011, email Leane Ellis at the library: ellis@noblenet.org and we will publish the list on our website in January 2012. Please include why you think this title qualifies for the Best of 2011.

We the Animals has been a popular small morsel at just 144 pages but packs quite a wallop. Told in the form of linked short stories, Torres’ first novel is an impressionistic examination of a family of mixed race and ethnicity.
The stories focus on the family’s three boys and are often accounts of fighting over blankets or flying trash-bag kites, but because the parents’ marriage is contentious, some are tinged with violence.
Torres novel is a pleasure to read from a gifted writer with a special talent for tone and characterization.

Here are a few firsts that are under the radar.

Meredith Mileti’s Aftertaste finds Mira Rinaldi, the co-owner of a chic New York City trattoria, battling to save her restaurant and pick up the pieces of her life after she catches her husband with another woman. Sprinkled with mouthwatering food descriptions and recipes, Mileti’s first novel examines the daily activities and self-reflections of a busy career woman who suddenly becomes single and directionless as Mira searches for the ingredients she needs to complete her own recipe for happiness. This succulent story will please readers of such similarly satisfying fare as Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate.

In Nancy Jensen’s The Sisters, growing up motherless and under the thumb of a cruel stepfather in 1920s Kentucky, Bertie Fisher and her older sister, Mabel, are torn apart by a painful misunderstanding that reverberates through the lives of their daughters and granddaughters. First-time novelist Jensen redeems her soap opera plot with an observant eye, adept characterization, and a keen grasp of social issues. There is plenty of drama, much of it illuminating the changing roles of women in society over a span of 70 years. Jensen nicely integrates history and themes such as the enduring ravages of war on the men who fight them.

Looking for a haunting romance? The Taker, Alma Katsu’s imaginative, wholly original debut is the story of Lanore McIlvrae, a young woman who is found in the Maine woods claiming she has killed a man. Luke, a young doctor, hears the story of how she was abandoned by a lover 200 years earlier and abducted by a centuries-old Hungarian count who granted her eternal life. Readers will not be able to tear their eyes away from Katsu’s mesmerizing tale. Alchemy and love prove a volatile mix in Katsu’s vivid novel, which toggles between the present and the past. Paranormal and hard-core romance readers might enjoy this debut.

This next gripping novel is not an easy read. Bonnie Nadzam’s Lamb gives Lolita a 21st-century spin. Unlike Humbert Humbert, David Lamb is not obsessed with underage girls but stumbles across one. David’s wife has left him, his father has died, and his work life is in shambles when outside a strip mall he meets a seventh-grade girl whom he entices into a pretend kidnap game “to scare” her friends. What he does once he gets her in his car is drive her home, but he also continues to meet her and give her rides to school. Their friendship intensifies, leading to a road trip, “Just a little secret trip in your secret life,” from Chicago to an abandoned family house of David’s in rural Colorado. There they hole up and eat junk food while Tommie’s mother has no idea where she is. What David promises the 11-year-old is a fantasy, and he comes across as a father figure, a friend, but at times something far more creepy. With Colorado neighbors snooping, the questions become, how far will this go and what will happen if anyone finds out? Nadzam has a crisp, fluid writing style, and her dialogue is reminiscent of Sam Shepard’s. The book suffers from the inevitable Nabokov comparison, but it’s a fine first effort: storytelling as accomplished as it is unsettling. This book is a compelling variation on a disturbing but all-too-familiar theme that will find an audience among serious readers.

For historical fiction lovers, there is Stella Tillyard’s Tides of War. A tale set in Regency England and Spain during the Peninsular War follows the interwoven stories of love and betrayal that shape the marriage of Harriet and James, who are separated when James joins the Duke of Wellington’s troops. The fictional newlyweds’ story is entwined with the historical duke and duchess of Wellington, along with other real and imaginary characters, to give a broad perspective on English society of the early 19th century. Readers share Harriet’s discovery of the waltz, Jane Austen, and ice cream, and witness cutting-edge battlefield surgeries under real-life Surgeon Gen. James McGrigor This sophisticated, unusual portrait of Regency society will appeal to all readers of historical fiction, especially admirers of Bernard Cornwell.

If you are looking for some thematic reading as you start planning for the fast approaching holidays, take a peek at our Thanksgiving Fictionbook list and for other reading suggestions peruse the library’s Booklists page. The newest books for the past six months are listed, as well as thematic mystery titles, readalikes, nonfiction, and award-winning lists.

M.L. Longworth’s Death at the Château Bremont is the first novel in a projected series set in Aix-en-Provence. Booklist compares Longworth’s voice to “ a rich concoction of sparkling Dorothy Sayers and grounded Donna Leon.” The novel introduces readers to Antoine Verlaque, the handsome and seductive chief magistrate of Aix, and his on-again, off-again love interest, law professor Marine Bonnet. When local nobleman Etienne de Bremont falls to his death from the family chateau, the town is abuzz with rumors. Verlaque suspects foul play and must turn to Marine for help when he discovers that she had been a close friend of the Bremonts. This is a lively whodunit steeped in the rich, enticing, and romantic atmosphere of southern France. The action proceeds through the classic device of interrogating suspects. The sexual tension and maneuverings that accompany the interviews are, at times, hilarious. Longworth has lived in Aix since 1997, and her knowledge of Provence is apparent on every page.

Killed at the Whim of a Hat by Colin Cotterill is a welcome spin to mysteries featuring a sleuthing medical examiner. Rather than rely upon a familiar Western setting, Cotterill transplants the genre to 1970s Asia, mixing mystery with politics, mysticism, and themes such as international relations, government bureaucracy and racism. Cotterill’s witty and fast paced narratives are not only filled with cultural insight, but also feature compelling characters, particularly his clever protagonist, Laotian National Coroner Siri Paiboun. Finding his charming characters and crisply plotted narratives in these mysteries with an educational undercurrent, readers will enjoy Cotterill’s other works. Start with: The Coroner’s Lunch.

If you have not been introduced to Meg Gardiner’s Jo Beckett series (The Dirty Secrets Club), then discovering her will be a treat. In her fourth outing, The Nightmare Thief, Beckett, a San Francisco forensic psychiatrist, teams up with Gardiner’s other series character, reporter Evan Delaney (China Lake). When Evan contacts Jo in San Francisco for help with a story on the suspicious death of attorney Phelps Wylie, whose body was found in a mine in the Sierras, Jo agrees to conduct a psychological autopsy on Wylie. Back in San Francisco, Autumn Reiniger embarks on an urban reality game run by Edge Adventures, a 21st birthday present from her father, the director of a hedge fund, Reiniger Capital, but is soon kidnapped, along with her friends, by a group impersonating the Edge crew, raising the stakes. In the Sierras, Jo and Gabe run into Autumn and her kidnappers, who are demanding millions for her safe return. Gardiner really gets the adrenaline pumping in this latest breathless tale.

Supper Sleuths Mystery Book Discussion Group

Upcoming New Fiction

Click on the titles below to search the catalog

Abbott, Jeff. Adrenaline. [SUSPENSE]
When his pregnant wife is kidnapped and he discovers that he has been set up as a traitor, brilliant CIA agent Sam Capra begins a desperate hunt for the unknown enemy who he believes has targeted the wrong man.

Abbott, Megan E. The end of everything. [MYSTERY]
Thirteen-year old Lizzie Hood thought that she and her best friend Evie Verver shared everything, but when Evie disappears from their suburban Midwestern community, Lizzie’s search uncovers secrets and lies that make her wonder if she knew her friend at all.

Ali, Monica. Untold story.
Alternate history of Diana, Princess of Wales

Alison, Rosie. The very thought of you. [HISTORICAL FICTION]
WWII

Black, Benjamin. A death in summer. [MYSTERY]
When newspaper magnate Richard Jewell is found dead at his country estate, clutching a shotgun in his lifeless hands, few see his demise as cause for sorrow. But before long Doctor Quirke and Inspector Hackett realize that, rather than the suspected suicide, “Diamond Dick” has in fact been murdered.

Block, Brett Ellen. The definition of wind.
Taking a lighthouse keeper job in North Carolina to escape painful memories of the husband and son she lost, lexicographer Abigail Harker is embraced by colorful locals in the course of a summer marked by a sunken ship, a possible romance, and a series of suspicious fires.

Block, Stefan Merrill. The storm at the door.
Relationships

Brashares, Ann. Sisterhood everlasting.
Four best friends — Carmen, Tibby, Bridget, and Lena– now in their late 20s, try to find their way in the world as young adults. Continues the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series.

Browne, Robert. The paradise prophecy. [SUSPENSE]

Bushnell, Candace. Summer and the city: a Carrie Diaries novel.
Brings surprising revelations as Carrie learns to navigate her way around Big Apple, going from being a country “sparrow” to the person she always wanted to be. Prequel to TV series.

Campbell, Bonnie Jo. Once upon a river.
“Bonnie Jo Campbell has created an unforgettable heroine in sixteen-year-old Margo Crane, a beauty whose unflinching gaze and uncanny ability with a rifle have not made her life any easier. After the violent death of her father, in which she is complicit, Margo takes to the Stark River in her boat, with only a few supplies and a biography of Annie Oakley, in search of her vanished mother. But the river, Margo’s childhood paradise, is a dangerous place for a young woman traveling alone, and she must be strong to survive, using her knowledge of the natural world and her ability to look unsparingly into the hearts of those around her. Her river odyssey through rural Michigan becomes a defining journey, one that leads her beyond self-preservation and to the decision of what price she is willing to pay for her choices.” inside cover.

Cantrell, Rebecca. A game of lies. [SUSPENSE]
1936 Olympics

Chamberlin, Holly. Summer friends. Returning to Ogunquit, Maine, for an extended visit, successful businesswoman Maggie Weldon reunites with her best friend growing up, native Mainer Delphine Crandall, and together they reflect on their choices and compromises, the girls they were and the women they’ve become.

Compton, Jodi. Thieves get rich, saints get shot. [MYSTERY]
Sequel to: Hailey’s war.

Coulter, Catherine. Split second. [SUSPENSE]
“A serial killer is on the loose, and it’s up to FBI agents Dillon Savich and Lacey Sherlock to bring him down. They soon discover that the killer has blood ties to the infamous and now long-dead monster Ted Bundy. Savich and Sherlock are joined by agents Lucy Carlyle and Cooper McKnight, and the chase is on…” — Jkt. flap.

Currimbhoy, Nayana. Miss Timmins’ School for Girls.
Young women in India

Davidson, MaryJanice. Undead and undermined. [FANTASY]
Vampire Queen Betsy Taylor thought she couldn’t die. So what’s she doing in the morgue? It could have something to do with a time-traveling trip she made, and a foe with a wicked agenda that could finally be the real death of Betsy—if she’s not careful.

De Witt, Abigail. Dogs.
Coming of age in Texas

Delinsky, Barbara. Escape.
Emily Aulenbach is thirty, a lawyer married to a lawyer, working in Manhattan. An idealist, she had once dreamed of representing victims of
corporate abuse, but she spends her days in a cubicle talking with victims of
tainted bottle water and she’s on the bottler’s side.

Dolan, Harry. Very bad men. [MYSTERY]
Mystery magazine editor David Loogan receives a sinister manuscript that begins with a murder confession and names individuals who are being stalked and killed for their involvement in a notorious robbery years earlier.

Duncan, Glen. The last werewolf. [FANTASY]
Jacob Marlowe has lost the will to live. For two hundred years he has wandered the world, enslaved by his lunatic appetites and tormented by the
memory of his first and most monstrous crime. Now, the last of his kind, he
contemplates suicide — until a violent murder and an extraordinary meeting
plunge him straight back into the desperate pursuit of life — and love.

Estleman, Loren D. Infernal angels. [MYSTERY]
Detroit private investigator Amos Walker is hired to recover HDTV converter boxes stolen from a retailer whose shop also does vintage resale business. Before long, the case turns old school: both a suspect and the man who
lost the boxes are murdered, and Walker ends up working with both the local
police and the feds.

Feldman, Ellen. Next to love. [HISTORICAL FICTION]
Follows the stories of three young couples whose lives are irrevocably changed in the years following World War II, a period during which they struggle with difficult losses and witness profound transformations in American culture.

Gardiner, Meg. The nightmare thief. [MYSTERY]
Jo Beckett series; 4

Gerritsen, Tess. The silent girl. [MYSTERY]
Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli is already at the crime scene when medical examiner Maura Isles arrives on the Chinatown rooftop. Rizzoli’s gut says they’re on the trail of a twisted predator and when a monkey hair is found on the body, other clues point Rizzoli and Isles in the direction of the fable of the Monkey King.

Gross, Andrew. Eyes wide open. [SUSPENSE]
When disaster strikes his older brother Charlie, who once fell under the sway of a deeply disturbed cult-like figure, Jay Erlich is drawn back into his brother’s past of secrets, terror, and lies.

Gross, Gwendolen. The orphan sister.
Clementine Lord is not an orphan. She just feels like one sometimes. One of triplets, a quirk of nature left her the odd one out. Odette and Olivia are
identical; Clementine is a singleton. Biologically speaking, she came from her own egg. Practically speaking, she never quite left it. Then Clementine’s father –a pediatric neurologist who is an expert on children’s brains, but clueless when it comes to his own daughters–disappears, and his choices, both past and present, force the family dynamics to change at last. As the three sisters struggle to make sense of it, their mother must emerge from the greenhouse and leave the flowers that have long been the focus of her warmth and nurturing. For Clementine, the next step means retracing the winding route that led her to this very moment: to understand her father’s betrayal, the tragedy of her first lost love, her family’s divisions, and her best friend Eli’s sudden romantic interest. Most of all, she may finally have found the voice with which to share the inside story of being the odd sister out. . . . –publisher.

Hadley, Tessa. The London train.
After the death of his mother, Paul abandons his family to live life on the edge with his daughter from a previous marriage who is pregnant and living
in a run-down council flat, while Cora rebels against her marriage and society.

Harbison, Elizabeth M. Always something there to remind me.
First love

Harper, Paul. Pacific Heights. [MYSTERY]
Pursuing seemingly uncomplicated affairs with the same man, Lore Cha and Elise Currin, the wives of two successful businessmen, begin fearing for their sanity and turn to the same therapist for help when the man acts out their most taboo sexual fantasies.

Hart, John. Iron house. [MYSTERY]
At the Iron Mountain Home for Boys, there was nothing but time. Time to burn and time to kill, time for two young orphans to learn that life isn’t won
without a fight. Julian survives only because his older brother, Michael,is
fearless and fiercely protective. When tensions boil over and a boy is brutally killed, there is only one sacrifice left for Michael to make: He flees the orphanage and takes the blame with him. For two decades, Michael has been an enforcer in New York’s world of organized crime, a prince of the streets so widely feared he rarely has to kill anymore. But the life he’s fought to build unravels when he meets Elena, a beautiful innocent who teaches him the meaning and power of love. He wants a fresh start with her, the chance to start a family like the one he and Julian never had. But someone else is holding the strings. And escape is not that easy… The mob boss who gave Michael his blessing to begin anew is dying, and his son is intent on making Michael pay for his betrayal. Determined to protect the ones he loves, Michael spirits Elena- who knows nothing of his past crimes, or the peril he’s laid at her door- back to North Carolina, to the place he was born and the brother he lost so long ago. There, he will encounter a whole new level of danger, a thicket of deceit and violence that leads inexorably to the one place he’s been running from his whole life: Iron House.–From book jacket.

Harvey, Michael T. We all fall down. [MYSTERY]
Bio-terrorism in Chicago

Henderson, Eleanor. Ten thousand saints.
When his best friend Teddy dies of an overdose on the last day of 1987, Jude Keffy-Horn finds his relationship with drugs and his parents devolving into the extreme when he gets caught up in an underground youth culture known as straight edge.

Hilderbrand, Elin. Silver girl.
Facing homelessness and a loss of social standing after her husband cheats rich investors out of billions of dollars, Meredith and her best friend,
Connie, who has troubles of her own, escape to Nantucket to heal.

Hurwitz, Gregg Andrew. You’re next. [SUSPENSE]
The Boss Man has an unexpected motive in destroying Mike Wingate, who’s worked his way up from the bottom to become a successful home contractor in Lost Hills, California. To protect his family and himself, Mike, who was raised in a foster home, summons his only friend from those days, the formidable Shep, who has grown up to be a career criminal of considerable skill.

Jance, Judith A. Betrayal of trust. [MYSTERY]
Seattle P.I. J. P. Beaumont uncovers a crime that has a devastating effect on two troubled teens and becomes even more of a firestorm when it reaches into the halls of state government.

Johansen, Iris. Quinn. [SUSPENSE]
As a former Navy seal turned cop, Joe Quinn has seen the face of evil and knows just how deadly it can be. When he first met Eve Duncan, he never expected to fall in love with a woman whose life would be defined by her dual desires to bring home her missing daughter and discover the truth behind her disappearance-no matter how devastating. With the help of CIA agent Catherine Ling, they make a shocking discovery that sheds new light on young Bonnie’s abduction and puts Quinn squarely in the cross hairs of danger. Eve’s first love, John Gallo, a soldier supposedly killed in the line of duty, is very much alive- and very much a threat. Emotionally charged, with one shock after another, Quinn reveals the electricity of Joe and Eve’s first connection, and how they fell in love in the midst of haunting tragedy. As their search takes them deeper and deeper into a web of murder and madness, Joe and Eve must confront their most primal fears…and test their resolve to uncover the ultimate bone-chilling truth.–Book jacket. Trilogy#2 follows Eve.

Kava, Alex. Hotwire. [SUSPENSE]
Special Agent Maggie O’Dell investigates the death of three teenagers, only to find herself in the middle of a conspiracy involving biological warfare.

Kelman, Stephen. Pigeon English.
Immigrant families in London

Kennedy, Douglas. The woman in the fifth.
Americans in France

Kenneth, Maxine. Paris to die for. [SUSPENSE]
Young Jacqueline Bouvier’s first CIA assignment was supposed to be simple: Meet with a high-ranking Russian while he’s in Paris and help him defect. But when the Comrade ends up dead, and Jackie barely escapes his killer, it’s time to get some assistance.

Kingsbury, Karen. Learning.
Bailey Flanigan and Cody Coleman are not only separated by physical distance, they are also faced with great emotional distance. Bailey grows closer to her dream to be an actress and dancer in New York, while Cody coaches a small high school football team, on and off the field. But neither feels complete without the chance to share their dreams with one other.

Kramer, Julie. Killing Kate. [MYSTERY]
Investigating a string of murders in which the killer is drawing chalk outlines of an angel around the victims, television reporter Riley Spartz is led by a local celebrity to an infamous cemetery monument in a case that creates conflicts with her boss and the authorities.

LaPlante, Alice. Turn of mind.
Implicated in the murder of her best friend, Jennifer White, a brilliant retired surgeon with dementia, struggles with fractured memories of their
complex relationship and wonders if she actually committed the crime.

Lavender, Will. Dominance. [MYSTERY]
Serial killer

Lawson, Michael. House divided: a Joe Demarco thriller.
When the NSA records the murder of two American civilians while conducting illegal wiretapping operations, political fixer Joe DeMarco finds himself rendered a pawn in a lethal game between a master spy and a four-star army general.

Leigh, Tamara. Restless in Carolina.
Southern discomfort series; 3. NC women

Leroy, Margaret. The soldier’s wife. [HISTORICAL FICTION]
WWII Guernsey

Lustbader, Eric. Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne dominion. [SUSPENSE]
Jason Bourne is searching for an elusive cadre of terrorists planning to destroy America’s most strategic natural resources and needs the help of his longtime pal General Boris Karpov, the newly appointed head of Russia’s most feared spy agency. But Karpov has made a deal with the devil: to prove his worth and value he must kill Bourne.

Marshall, Michael. Killer move. [SUSPENSE]
When Bill Moore’s five-year plan for success drags into its sixth year, he will do anything to get what he believes he deserves in life, until he receives a strange card that causes everything to unravel–and reveals that he is no longer in control of his future.

Martin, George R.R.  Dance with Dragons [FANTASY]
New threats emerge to endanger the future of the Seven Kingdoms, as Daenerys Targaryen, ruling in the East, fights off a multitude of enemies, while Jon Snow, Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, faces his foes both in the Watch and beyond the great Wall of ice and stone. Book#5 in the series A Song of Fire and Ice.

McCammon, Robert R. The five. [SUSPENSE]
A struggling rock band on the verge of breaking up is touring in the American Southwest when they are noticed by a damaged Iraq War veteran. This crossing of paths changes all their lives.

McGill, Bernie. The butterfly cabinet. [SUSPENSE]
A proud, uncompromising woman, Harriet’s great passion is collecting butterflies and pinning them under glass; motherhood comes no easier to her than her role as mistress of her remote Irish estate. When her daughter dies, her community is quick to judge her, and Harriet will not stoop to defend herself. But her journals reveal a more complex truth. Epistolary fiction.

McMullen, Beth. Original sin: a Sally Sin adventure.
A former U.S. spy turned stay-at-home mother of a toddler tries to find a most elusive work-life balance when the USAWMD (United States Agency for Weapons of Mass Destruction) decides it desperately requires her services again, and calls her back into the field.

Merullo, Roland. Talk-funny girl.
Raised by parents so intentionally isolated that they speak their own hybrid dialect, abused youth Marjorie witnesses her parents’ submission to a
sadistic cult leader before she is rescued by another abuse survivor who teaches her stoneworking skills.

Morrison, Boyd. The vault. [SUSPENSE]
Surviving a bomb threat that was set up as a test by a terrorist cell that has abducted his father, industrial engineer Tyler Locke is blackmailed
into tracking down a legendary treasure that will finance terrorist activities for decades.

Moyes, Jojo. The last letter from your lover.
More than forty years after a car accident causes Jennifer Stirling to lose her memory on the day she planned to leave her husband for a mysterious
lover, journalist Ellie becomes obsessed by the story and seeks the truth in the hopes of revitalizing her career.

Napolitano, Ann. A good hard look.
Years after poor health forces her to return to her family home, author Flannery O’Connor reluctantly attends the wedding of her cousin and
inadvertently draws the attention of the groom, a wealthy Manhattan resident who fears life is passing him by.

O’Shaughnessy, Perri. Dreams of the dead. [SUSPENSE]
Nina Reilly collaborates with a grave exhumation expert and triggers a cat-and-mouse game between her former investigator Paul van Wagoner and a brilliant killer.

Rickman, Philip. The bones of Avalon: being edited from the most private documents of Dr John Dee, astrologer and consultant to Queen Elizabeth. [HISTORICAL FICTION]
Summoned by William Cecil to address dangerous questions about Elizabeth I’s legitimacy, royal astrologer John Dee teams up with Robert Dudley to retrieve the bones of King Arthur, a mission that is complicated by magic, a first love, and a complex plot against the queen.

Riggle, Kristina. Things we didn’t say.
Some people lead lives full of problems, 26-year-old Casey has a mess of them. She’s engaged to Michael, a man 10-years her senior, who has three children with an ex-wife who is a non-recovering alcoholic with multiple mental disorders. Casey’s secrets come back to haunt her when Michael’s middle child, Dylan, disappears after being dropped off at school one day and his oldest child, Angel, finds Casey’s journal and reads it.

Ritter, Josh. Bright’s passage.
WWI/W.Virgina

Robards, Karen. Justice. [SUSPENSE]
Female Lawyer Washington, DC

Rotenberg, Robert. The guilty plea. [MYSTERY]
Instead of an open-and-shut case, the stabbing death of Terrance Wyler, the youngest son of Toronto’s Wyler Food dynasty, becomes a complex murder trial, full of spit and uncertainty despite his estranged wife showing up to her lawyer’s office with a towel wrapped bloody knife.

Sapphire. The kid.
This book is Sapphire’s latest, a sequel to Push coming 15 years after its publication and one year after Precious, the film based on Push, got Academy Award attention. It is the story of Precious’s son, Abdul, opening on the day of his mother’s funeral. This book brings us deep into the interior life of Abdul Jones, son of Sapphire’s unforgettable heroine, Precious. It is a story of survival and awakening, and of one young man’s remarkable strength. We meet Abdul at age nine, on the day of his mother’s funeral. Left alone to navigate in a world where love and hate sometimes hideously masquerade, forced to confront unspeakable violence, his history, and the dark corners of his own heart, Abdul claws his way toward adulthood and toward an identity he can stand behind. In a generational story that moves with the speed of thought from a Mississippi dirt farm to Harlem in its heyday; from a troubled Catholic orphanage to downtown artist’s lofts, this story tells of a twenty-first-century young man’s fight to find a way to the future. Intimate, terrifying, deeply alive in Abdul’s journey we are witness to an artist’s birth by fire. — From publisher’s web site.

Siddons, Anne Rivers. Burnt Mountain.
Every summer, Thayer Wentworth, the daughter of a wealthy Middletown, Georgia family, attended Camp Greyledge on Burnt Mountain. It was there were she learned the facets of love and heartbreak with a boy named Nick Abrams. Years later, she marries Aengus, an Irish professor, and moves a few miles away from her childhood camp, much to the disapproval of her family. However, when Aengus spends a lot of time at the camp, Thayer realizes her husband might not be the man she thought he was.

Silva, Daniel. Portrait of a spy. [SUSPENSE]
After failing to stop a suicide bomber attack in London, master art restorer and assassin Gabriel Allon is summoned by the CIA and is faced with an organization riddled with dissent–and ill-equipped to deal with the deadly new face of global jihadist terror.

Simon, Rachel. The story of beautiful girl.
“A novel about a woman who can’t speak, a man who is deaf, and a widow who finds herself suddenly caring for a newborn baby”–Provided by publisher.

Simons, Paullina. The summer garden. [HISTORICAL FICTION]
Cold war Russians

Spiotta, Dana. Stone Arabia.
Coming of age/brothers & sisters

Steel, Danielle. Happy birthday.
“Valerie Wyatt is at the top of her game–she has parlayed her talent for entertaining and home decorating into a multimedia empire, and her name is synonymous with class and exquisite taste. And yet, though she has achieved enviable professional success, her ambition and hard work have given her little room for a personal life. She is divorced, and though she has a strong relationship with her daughter, she finds herself alone as her 60th birthday approaches. Valerie’s daughter, April, is also a dynamo in her chosen field. A top-notch chef, she owns her own restaurant–a cozy place that dishes up both comfort food and rare delicacies. The restaurant is a smashing success, and April devotes herself to it body and soul. Like her mother, she values professional success more than romance, and she cannot find any room for a man in her life as her 30th birthday grows nearer. The closest she has come to a relationship in years is an ill-advised one night stand. Jack Adams is a famous former NFL player, who is now an immensely successful sportscaster. He is also an incorrigible womanizer, who makes a habit of bedding models who are half his age. Nearing age 50 he begins to wonder if his wild ways still suit him, or if it’s finally time to grow up. These three driven professionals share the same birthday. And this year, the day that they share will prove to be one that changes their lives forever. Their birthday will set into motion a dramatic series of events–danger, adventure, laughter, heartbreak, and joy…and, ultimately, the most fulfilling “birthday gift” of all”– Provided by publisher.

Stevens, Chevy. Never knowing. [SUSPENSE]
Struggling with a need for closure, Sara Gallagher attempts to reconnect with her birth parents only to learn that her biological father is an infamous serial killer, a discovery that causes her to fear she has inherited violent tendencies.

Strohmeyer, Sarah. Kindred spirits.
The Ladies’ Society for the Conservation of Martinis–once dissolved under life-shattering circumstances and now reunited again after the death of one its members–discovers a letter that reveals a shocking secret and a final wish that will send the women on a life-changing journey … proving that nothing is more powerful than the will of a true girlfriend and a good, strong martini.

Sullivan, J. Courtney. Maine.
Three generations of women converge on the family beach house in this wickedly funny, emotionally resonant story of love and dysfunction.

Sussman, Ellen. French lessons.
Americans in Paris

Tanner, Haley. Vaclav & Lena.
Vaclav and Lena seem destined for each other. They meet as children in an ESL class in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. Vaclav is precocious and verbal. Lena, struggling with English, takes comfort in the safety of his adoration, his noisy, loving home, and the care of Rasia, his big-hearted mother. Vaclav imagines their story unfolding like a fairy tale, or the perfect illusion from his treasured Magician’s Almanac, but among the many truths to be discovered is that happily ever after is never a foregone conclusion. One day, Lena does not show up for school. She has disappeared from Vaclav and his family’s lives as if by a cruel magic trick. For the next seven years, Vaclav says goodnight to Lena without fail, wondering if she is doing the same somewhere. On the eve of Lena’s seventeenth birthday he finds out.

Taylor, M. Glenn. The Marrowbone Marble Company.
Ledford is a lost man, disconnected from the present and haunted by his violent past, until he meets his cousins, the Bonecutter brothers. Their land, the mysterious, elemental Marrowbone Cut, calls to Ledford, and it is there, with help form an unlikely bunch, that the Marrowbone Marble Company is slowly forged. Over the next two decades, the factory town becomes a vanguard of the civil rights movement and the war on poverty, a home for those intent on change. Such a home inevitably invites trouble, and Ledford must fight for his family.

Thor, Brad. Full black: a thriller.
In the wake of a former U.S. President’s appointment to the United Nations, counterterrorism operative Scot Harvath is wrongly implicated for a string of national emergencies and assassinations, a situation that forces him to race against time to uncover the real culprit.

Towles, Amor. Rules of civility.
Relationships in NYC

Verdon, John. Shut your eyes tight. [MYSTERY]
Superstar detective Dave Gurney’s renewed efforts to retire are halted by the brutal murder of a young bride at her wedding reception, a crime subsequently linked to a brilliant criminal who targets Gurney’s family to further his agendas.

Ward, Amanda Eyre. Close your eyes.
Struggling for closure years after her mother is murdered by her father, Lauren Mahdian analyzes her carefully constructed memories only to realize the role of her own denial, a process that illuminates the impact of split-second choices.

Watson, S. J. Before I go to sleep.
An amnesiac attempts to reconstruct her past by keeping a journal and discovers the dangerous inconsistencies in the stories of her husband and her secret doctor.

Weiner, Jennifer. Then came you.
The plans of four women–including a college student egg donor, a working -class surrogate mother, a wealthy woman, and her stepdaughter–are thrown into turmoil when the wealthy woman’s husband suddenly dies and names the stepdaughter the unborn baby’s guardian.

Wilson, Daniel H. Robopocalypse. [SCIENCE FICTION]
Two decades into the future humans are battling for their very survival when a powerful AI computer goes rogue, and all the machines on earth rebel against their human controllers.

Wingate, Lisa. Dandelion summer.
J. Norman Alvord’s daughter hires teenager Epiphany Salerno to stay with him in the afternoons. Widowed and suffering from heart trouble, Norman wants to be left alone. But in Epie’s presence, Norman discovers a mystery–memories of another life and a woman who saved him.

Wingfield, Jenny. The homecoming of Samuel Lake.
Teenage boys in Arkansas

Young, Louisa. My dear I wanted to tell you. [HISTORICAL FICTION]
A story that intertwines the lives of two very different couples during World War I follows army soldier Riley as he fights for the love of Nadine despite a terrible injury, and Riley’s commanding officer Peter Locke, who returns home from the war a bitter and scarred man.

At Beebe Library on March 10, Banks will read from his work, talk about the movie and his writing, and engage in discussion with the audience.
(Beebe Library will offer a free public screening of the film Affliction at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, March 1 in the Lecture Hall.)
Through a dozen novels and short story collections that have won him Guggenheim and NEA grants and a St. Lawrence Prize for fiction, Banks has made a life’s work of charting the causes and effects of the terrible things “normal” men can and will do. He writes with an intensely focused empathy and a compassionate sense of humor that help to keep his readers, if not his characters, afloat through the misadventures and outright tragedies in his books.
In addition to Affliction and The Sweet Hereafter, Banks’s titles include Cloudsplitter, Rule of the Bone, Continental Drift, Trailerpark, Searching for Survivors, The Darling, Success Stories and The Book of Jamaica.

Among the numerous honors and awards Banks has received are the Ingram Merrill Award, the John Dos Passos Award and the Literature Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. “Continental Drift” and “Cloudsplitter” were Pulitzer Prize finalists. “Affliction” and “Cloudsplitter” were PEN/Faulkner finalists.

Russell Banks’ talk at Beebe Library on March 10 is free, but reservations are required. Reserve your seat at the Reference Desk, by phone at 781-246-6334, x2, or email@wakefieldlibrary.org.

This event is one of a number of local programs that will be offered during March as part of “Stories for a Safer Wakefield,” a cooperative project involving multiple organizations and coordinated by Beebe Library and the Wakefield Alliance Against Violence.

Kathleen Kent’s “The Wolves of Andover” is the prequel to “The Heretic’s Daughter.” After Thomas Carrier saves Martha Allen from a wolf attack, he discovers wild animals are not the only dangers lurking in the Massachusetts woods. The author combines harsh images of early Colonial life with a well-paced story and careful details. The result is a taut narrative that will satisfy historical fiction lovers.

Why would a runaway Virginia slave–having built a rewarding life in the East Indies as a silk merchant–risk everything by returning to America in 1840, eighteen years after taking her freedom? Peg Kingman’s “Original Sins” follows the author’s first novel, “Not Yet Drown’d“ about Catherine MacDonald, a young Scottish widow raising her stepdaughter, Grace. This novel is not fast-paced, but, it should appeal to readers who enjoy Civil War fiction, American historical fiction and richly crafted and detailed novels in general.

Although it opens with the discovery of a corpse, this newly translated stand-alone work, “Daniel,” by the author of the Kurt Wallander mystery series, Henning Mankell, is a mournful historical novel, not a detective story. In the late 1870s, amateur Swedish entomologist Hans Bengler journeys to the Kalahari Desert where he encounters an African boy whose family has been massacred. Bengler impetuously adopts the child, whom he calls Daniel, and the two sail to Sweden, where the book shifts primarily to Daniel’s perspective. According to “Publishers Weekly,” Mankell “fully understands Daniel’s radically different cultural perspective and indelibly captures the boy’s longing to return to his homeland and the tragic consequences of his forced exile.”

“The Man Who Never Returned” by Peter A. Quinn takes place in August 1930, New York State when Supreme Court Judge Joseph Crater left a Manhattan restaurant and was never seen again. Was Crater rubbed out by the Mob, or did he simply disappear to find happiness as an ordinary Joe? Twenty-five years later, a Rupert Murdoch–like newspaper publisher hires private investigator Fintan Dunne to do what the NYPD couldn’t do: solve the mystery of Crater’s disappearance. Quinn’s rich, insightful, evocative descriptions of New York, both in Crater’s time and in 1955, will certainly please fans of historical crime novels.

Looking for some other book suggestions? “NextReads,” a service of “EBSCO’s NoveList”, allows each subscriber to choose what interests them from twenty-three topics and genres, including nonfiction, and to receive engaging lists of annotated titles in as many of the topics as they want by email. “NextReads” is a subscription provided through NOBLE (North of Boston Library Exchange).

No library card is necessary—just an email address. Newsletters are sent on a monthly or every-other-month basis, and include up to 12 book recommendations each. Subscribers can link directly to the library catalog from books of interest on the newsletters, and place a hold or request a title immediately. Even those without email addresses can take advantage of the newsletters by viewing them online, either at the library or from any Internet access point.

Visit Beebe Library in person or online (wakefieldlibrary.org—look under “The Buzz” sidebar), to sign up for “NextReads” today!

Anne Fortier’s Juliet offers a beguiling mix of romance, intrigue, history, and Shakespeare. After she visits Italy per the instructions of her late aunt’s will, Juliet Jacobs is thrust into a centuries-old feud, uncovering the story of her ancestor, Giulietta, whose love for a man named Romeo proved ill-fated, and finding herself under threat after the past and present begin to resemble one another. While the publisher is comparing it to Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale and Sarah Dunant’s The Birth of Venus, Library Journal believes this entertaining historical thriller is more in line with Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code with its hunt for clues to a secret (and much better written!).

Thriller readers are always in need of a new author to feed their adrenaline addiction, especially those who thrive on espionage. Jon Stock’s Dead Spy Running has been touted as re-inventing the spy story for the 21st Century: John le Carre meets Jason Bourne! In the first in a projected trilogy, disgraced MI6 agent Daniel Marchant is running in the London Marathon with his girlfriend, Leila, also an MI6 agent, when he notices a South Asian man in the pack wearing a disguised suicide bomber’s belt. When Marchant realizes they are near the American ambassador, another marathon runner, Marchant with Leila’s aid does what he has to do to prevent the bombing. This act of bravery, unfortunately, leads to Marchant’s falling under suspicion of being a terrorist himself. Foreign terrorists, an MI6 mole, and thugs aplenty populate the pages, but it is the ongoing war between the British and American spy agencies that’s the inflammatory heart of what “Publishers Weekly” labels a “suspenseful, elegantly written novel.”

Here’s a new mystery author to watch (actually three authors writing as one). K.J. Larsen’s Liar Liar is the first in a new series. Masquerading as a client with a cheating husband, “Chicago Tribune” reporter Rita Polansky hires private investigator Cat DeLuca and her Pants on Fire Detective Agency to follow Chance Savino, a task which lands Cat in the hospital, the FBI claiming Savino died in an explosion, and her client dead with a knife in her chest. Packed with action and wonderfully funny characters, this series debut is a masterstroke of hilarity. Cat De Luca is smart and charming in a “scorned-woman-turned-to-avenging-all-cheated-upon-women way” and is sure to appeal to fans of Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum.

In the same vein of comic mysteries, Laura DiSilverio’s Swift Justice is full of zany humor and female bonding that soft-boiled and chick lit mystery fans will enjoy. Charlotte “Charlie” Swift, a former Air Force investigator turned private eye, likes her solitary existence. When her silent partner flees the country, leaving his socialite wife Gigi with a half interest in the business, Charlie must find a way to cope with her while also investigating the case of an abandoned baby. DiSilverio creates an engaging community of characters readers will want to revisit and leave you impatient for the next book in the series.

Another new Massachusetts author, Daphne Kalotay’s Russian Winter is about a former Bolshoi ballerina, Nina Revskaya, who auctions off her jewelry collection and becomes overwhelmed by memories of her homeland, the friends she left behind amidst Stalinist aggression, and the dark secret that brought her to a new life in Boston. Affecting and deftly plotted, this is perfect for readers who want an absorbing story combined with serious reflection.

Looking for some other book suggestions? NextReads, a service of EBSCO’s NoveList, allows each subscriber to choose what interests them from twenty-three topics and genres, including nonfiction, and to receive engaging lists of annotated titles in as many of the topics as they want by email. “NextReads” is a subscription provided through NOBLE (North of Boston Library Exchange).

No library card is necessary—just an email address—for library Web site visitors and patrons to subscribe to any of the twenty-three different newsletters, all of which provide great reading suggestions. Fiction and nonfiction newsletter topics include Biography and Memoir, Fantasy, Mystery, Nature and Science, as well as two children’s newsletters and one for young adults.

Newsletters are sent on a monthly or every-other-month basis, and include up to 12 book recommendations each. Subscribers can link directly to the library catalog from books of interest on the newsletters, and place a hold or request a title immediately. Librarians review newsletter titles before newsletters are sent to subscribers. Even those library patrons without email addresses can take advantage of the newsletters by viewing them online, either at the library or from any Internet access point.

Visit Beebe Library in person or online (http://www.wakefieldlibrary.org—look under “The Buzz” sidebar), to sign up for “NextReads” today!

Those interested in reading more novels set in Africa may want to check out the following titles: “The Bride Price,” “Half of a Yellow Sun,” and “Little Bee.” These are the titles of three Nigerian novels by three different authors and they all provide a different slice of time and culture within Nigeria.

Chronologically, the action in “The Bride Price,” by Buchi Emecheta, occurs earlier than the other two novels. The Odia family lives first in the port city of Lagos, but upon the father’s death they must move back to their remote, ancestral village. Aku-nna, the 13 year daughter of the family, must adjust to village life with its intrigue and politics. Her Uncle wants her to finish her schooling, but only so that he can get a higher bride price when he marries her off. Meanwhile Aku-nna and her teacher fall in love, but even though he makes a good living, she knows she will not be allowed to marry him as he is the descendant of slave and therefore not respected.

“The Bride Price” captures the clash between the emerging modern values that are swiftly changing African lives and the traditional ways Africans continue to cling to. It is also a round rebuke against those traditional values, especially where they concern women’s rights and autonomy.

“Half of a Yellow Sun,” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, occurs during Biafra’s struggle in the late 1960’s to become independent of Nigeria, a war that pitted the northern Hausan people against the eastern Igbo people of Biafra. Against this background, Adichie follows the lives of a well-to-do, well educated Igbo family as their world disintegrates. Told from three points of view: Olanna’s, the beautiful, educated and idealist wife and mother, Ogwu’s, the 13 year old houseboy, who they teach to read and write, and Richard, the shy studious British expat who falls in love with Olanna’s tough and sardonic twin sister, Kainene. All of these voices add depth and perspective to this evocative novel of promise, hope and disappointment.

“Little Bee,” by Chris Cleave, takes us into modern Nigeria. The struggle of the Hausan against the Igbos continues, although now oil has more clearly entered the equation. When oil is discovered beneath Little Bee’s village tragedy ensues. Little Bee and her sister run away. Sara and Richard O’Rourke, a vacationing British couple, stumble upon the girls and the soldiers who are hunting them. What ensues proves life changing for the O’Rourke’s and the sisters. Two years later Little Bee appears on the doorstep of Sara’s suburban London home. Told in the alternating views points of Little Bee and Sara, their stories are slowly and masterfully reveled as the friendship between the two women grows. This is a story of grief, globalization and salvation.

All three novels are beautifully written and vividly paint the landscape and atmosphere of Nigeria.