By Kathy Reichs
Scribner | 320pgs
Release Date: August 24, 2010

Summary:
An unusual death in Quebec drives Dr. Temperance Brennan to dig forty years into the past for answers in Spider Bones, Kathy Reichs’ 13th outing with the forensic anthropologist. Fingerprints identify the victim of drowning, with strange S&M overtones, as John Lowery. But, records show that John Lowery died in Vietnam in 1968, and was buried by his family in North Carolina. How could one man die twice? Brennan exhumes Lowery’s grave and takes the remains to the U.S. military’s Joint POW/ MIA Accounting Command, in Hawaii to find answers. Things are further complicated when yet another set of remains is discovered, this one entangled with Lowery’s dog tags, and Brennan is also asked to consult on the body of a possible shark attack victim. The good Doctor teams up with Detective Andrew Ryan, her on-again off-again lover, and Honolulu medical examiner Hadley Perry to unravel the twisted mysteries behind all these deaths. Read more…

First edition cover, 1941

In a column posted on the American Libraries Magazine website earlier this month, Jennifer Burek Pierce argues that children’s books, like the ever popular Curious George series, should garner more literary merit. “To represent the world for children involves skillful choices based on training, research, and lived experience.” Often times the simple words and captivating imagery of a 32-page picture book impart important life lessons or cultural themes. Such is the case with Curious George, the creation of husband and wife Margret and H. A. Rey. As German Jews, the couple was forced to flee France in 1940 as the Nazi army rolled toward Paris. They escaped on bicycles, and carried among their few belongings several manuscripts of children’s books, one of which featured a mischievous monkey named Fifi. Read more…

By Julia Stuart
Doubleday | 320pgs
Relase Date: August 10, 2010

Summary:
Julia Stuart creates a whimsical and amusing menagerie of humans and animals alike, in The Tower, The Zoo, and The Tortoise: A Novel. Modern day Beefeater Balthazar Jones and his wife Hebe live in the Tower of London, along with an unusual assortment of staff members that man the historical monument. Dealing all day with tourists, both curious and cranky, distracts him from greiving the loss of his 11-year-old son, Milo. The boy’s death lies heavily on the couple, and Hebe is desperate to talk about their loss and share her grief. But, Balthazar attempts to further avoid the subject by becoming engrossed in the odd hobby of collecting rainwater in Egyptian perfume bottles. When the Beefeater is unexpectedly assigned the job of creating a menagerie to house all the exotic animals gifted to the Queen, the population of the Tower grows even more strange and colorful. The folly and foibles of two-legged and four-legged creatures combine to tell an endearing love story.
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Author Naomi Hirahara based her crime-solving protagonist, Mas Arai, on an unassuming role model: her father, who started a landscaping and gardening business in the L.A. area after World War II. With no police or military background, a 72-year-old Japanese American gardener may seem an odd choice for an amateur detective, but from the start, the series has won acclaim from both readers and critics. “I’m basically making a character like my father a hero,” says Hirahara in an interview with NPR. “I think all the times I complained that my dad was a gardener and we couldn’t afford this trip or that trip, I’m trying to make up for it by creating this heroic, iconic figure that’s underestimated.” Read more…

By Carl Hiaasen
Knopf | 352 pages
Release Date: July 27, 2010

Summary:
The always entertaining and irreverent Carl Hiaasen offers up a great beach read in the form of his latest novel Star Island. The career of Cheryl Bunterman, known to the world as wayward pop-princes Cherry Pye, has hit a downward spiral owed mostly to her serious shortage of talent and voracious consumption of drugs, alcohol and men. Working furiously to stage the singer’s comeback tour is her oddball entourage, which includes a stage mother from hell, a lecherous music producer and (unknown to Cherry) “undercover stunt double”, Ann DeLusia, who makes public appearances whenever the real pop star is passed out and/or in rehab. When Ann is mistakenly kidnapped by sleazy paparazzo Bang Abbott, Cherry’s career edges ever closer to the brink of disaster, and the singer’s handlers rush furiously to find her double. The plot takes another bizarre twist when former Florida governor (now eco-guerrilla), Clinton “Skink” Tyree, who grew enamored with Ann after one brief meeting, also races to save her. Who will find Ann first? Will the press find out the double’s secret? Even worse, will Cherry herself?
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By Chevy Stevens
St. Martin’s Press | 352pgs
Release Date: July 6, 2010

Summary:
Annie O’Sullivan, a young realtor on Vancouver Island, deals with the aftermath of her brutal abduction in Still Missing, the debut novel by Chevy Stevens. On a warm day in August, Annie has a lot on her mind during a slow open house, but when a friendly man shows up at the end of the day, her hopes of a sale begin to rise. Instead of brokering a real estate deal, Annie is kidnapped, held captive for a year in a desolate cabin in the wilderness, and repeatedly raped by her captor. The plot interlaces details of her year in hell, told through Annie’s therapy sessions, with her fight to regain normalcy after the ordeal has ended. She may have physically escaped her horrific prison, but is still searching for a vital part of her being that is still missing.
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By Tess Gerritsen
Ballantine Books | 336pgs
Release Date: June 29, 2010

Summary:
Tess Gerritsen’s dynamic duo, detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles, return in Ice Cold the eighth installment of the bestselling Rizzoli & Isles series. The novel opens with Isles attending a medical conference in Wyoming, and embarking on an impromptu ski trip with friends. The leisurely outing takes a dangerous turn as their SUV breaks down in the midst of a snow storm, and the group enters the tiny village of Kingdom Come looking for shelter. Isles and friends come upon an unsettling scene; the remote community appears to be hastily abandoned, though there are chilling signs that someone remains, watching. In Boston, a few days later, Rizzoli is notified that Isles’ burned body has been found. This shocking news incites the detective to conduct her own investigation into Kingdom Come, uncovering the village’s malevolent secrets, and learning the truth about Isles’ death. Could this be the end of a beautiful friendship?
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By Bret Easton Ellis
Knopf | 192pgs
Release date: June 15, 2010

Summary:
Twenty-five years later, Bret Easton Ellis revisits the characters that put him on the literary map in Imperial Bedrooms, the sequel to his breakout debut novel Less Than Zero. The rich, drug-fueled, young hipsters may have grown into middle age, but older doesn’t necessarily mean wiser. When narrator Clay, now a well known screenwriter working in New York, returns to L.A. to cast his movie about teens in the 1980′s, he quickly falls in with his old crowd. On the surface the glitz and glamor of the City of Angels appears unchanged from Clay’s youth, but a current of quiet desperation flows underneath. His ex-girlfriend Blair is now married to the ever unfaithful Trent, Julian runs an escort service specializing in teenage girls and Rip is almost unrecognizable due to all the plastic surgery that has mangled his face. Things take a decidedly noir turn as Clay begins a destructive affair with a talentless starlet. Mysterious text messages and strange cars parked menacingly outside his apartment push him into a paranoid panic that forces him to look into the darkness of his own soul.
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Shortly after the attacks on September 11, 2001, author Barbara Kingsolver published a series of op-ed pieces in several major U.S. newspapers calling for a meaningful national dialog and asking leaders to consider dissenting opinions, and was shocked at the harsh criticism and hate mail she received. “A lot of people were frightened, and when people are frightened, they want to burn witches. They want to run somebody up the flagpole…,” she explains in an interview with The Guardian. “It was really one of the worst times of my life.” A few months later, Kingsolver decided to channel all that fear and anger into something positive and started research on a new project, which would grow to be The Lacuna. “I have to make something of this,” she thought at the time. “I have to take all this bile and hatred and make something beautiful.”
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By Stephen King
Scribner | 144pgs
Release Date: May 25, 2010

Just in time for the lazy days of summer and baseball season, comes the release of Blockade Billy, the latest novella from Stephen King. In sharp contrast to the mammoth 1,000+ page Under the Dome released last fall, Blockade Billy is a slim volume centered around Major League Baseball circa 1957. An elderly George “Granny” Grantham, former third-base coach of the New Jersey Titans, recounts the fateful season that an unknown Iowa farm league catcher was called up to help his pro team hobbled by injuries. William Blakely is an odd young man, but boy can he play baseball. He quickly becomes a fan favorite, blowing out rookie batting records and guarding home plate with a fierceness that earns him the nickname “Blockade Billy”. As to be expected in a Stephen King story, the plot takes a dark twist as Billy’s oddness turns sinister and players start to get hurt. His short stint with the Titans is effectively erased from the baseball record books, and only “Granny” can reveal the dangerous truth.
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