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 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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By Stieg Larsson
Knopf | 576pgs
Release Date: May 25, 2010
Rabid fans of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy rejoice! The final installment, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest arrives in stores tomorrow. The third novel, following The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played with Fire opens right where the second novel leaves off. “The Girl” in question, crazy-smart computer hacker Lisbeth Salander, lies in a hospital bed under police guard, suffering a gunshot wound to the head. The man who shot her, arch enemy and father, Alexander Zalachenko, is located a few doors down, convalescing from an ax wound in the head, the blow dealt by his daughter. Besides fighting for her life, Salander must also fight for her freedom as she stands accused of three murders, and will face a trial back in Stockholm, if she survives. She again teams up with journalist Mikael Blomkvist, to clear her name. Working with Salander, mainly through digital communications, and recruiting a group of hackers and journalists to aid in the fight, Blomkvist uncovers a long-term government conspiracy that has hurt many innocent people, chief among them, Lisbeth Salander herself.
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By Joe Hill
William Morrow | 384pgs
Release Date: February 16, 2010
After a night of hard partying, a hungover Ignatius Perrish wakes to find a pair of horns growing from his forehead in Horns, the new supernatural thriller by Joe Hill. The horns mark another bizarre and unwelcome experience for Ig, whose life has been a living hell for the past year. Born into a family of prestige and power, he had previously been living a charmed, happy life with his true love, Merrin Williams. But after Merrin is viciously raped and murdered, Ig’s life falls apart, as he becomes the prime suspect in her death. Though he is never prosecuted, due to lack of evidence, the court of public opinion has found him guilty and condemned him. The people of Gideon, New Hampshire believe that Ig’s freedom is not a testament to his innocence, but rather to his parents’ deep pockets. Ig is shocked to learn that curious powers accompany the grotesque horns; people blurt out their deepest, most private thoughts, at his touch. He’s soon hellbent on using his dark powers to bring Merrin’s true killer to justice and exacting a satisfying revenge.
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By Robert Crais
Putnam Adult | 320pgs
Release Date: January 12, 2010
In The First Rule, Robert Crais’ second novel to feature Joe Pike as the lead character, the private detective fights to clear an old friend’s name. Frank Meyer appears to be a successful business and family man, until the day his home is invaded and he and his family are brutally murdered. A shadow of doubt is soon cast over Meyer’s character when the LAPD discovers his link to Pike, and their history as professional mercenaries. Adamant that his friend was on the straight and narrow, Pike works to solve Meyer’s murder in his characteristic strong, aloof style. With the help of partner Elvis Cole, Pike descends into the underworld of Eastern European organized crime, to find the truth and prove Meyer’s innocence.
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By Tami Hoag
Dutton Adult | 432pgs
Release Date: December 29, 2009
Tami Hoag takes readers on an intense hunt for a serial killer in her latest thriller, Deeper Than the Dead. The story opens in 1984, when three children stumble upon a partially buried corpse in the woods. The female victim’s eyes and mouth have been glued shut, and Detective Tony Mendez quickly recognizes this as the work of a serial murderer. In this time, DNA matching and internet searches are still the stuff of science fiction. But, Mendez hopes to use the most cutting edge techniques available to catch the killer, and reaches out to the FBI’s newly formed criminal profiling unit for help. They soon zero in on a suspect, and enlist the assistance of school teacher Anne Navarro to learn more about the man and his young son. If their suspicions are true, and this pillar of the community really is a cold-blooded killer, the affluent town of Oak Knoll, CA will be rocked to its foundations.
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After 50 years of writing mystery novels, author P.D. James knows a thing or two about crafting a well-written plot. In her new non-fiction book, Talking About Detective Fiction, James discusses the history of the mystery genre and the construct of a good crime novel. “There must be a central mystery,” she explains, “and one that by the end of the book is solved satisfactorily and logically, not by good luck or intuition, but by intelligent deduction from clues honestly if deceptively presented.” James focuses primarily on British authors, and her opinions of some of the genre’s icons are surprising and amusing. Agatha Christie, she posits, “hasn’t in my view had a profound influence on the later development of the detective story.” Though James does offer this backhanded compliment to mystery legend: “Perhaps her greatest strength was that she never overstepped the limits of her talent.” James also prefers Dr. Watson over Sherlock Holmes, finding his character more genuine and relatable, though she does raise some questions about the coziness of their household.
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By Sue Grafton
Putnam Adult | 416pgs
ReleaseDate: December 1, 2009
Private Investigator Kinsey Millhone returns in U is for Undertow, the 21st installment of Sue Grafton’s beloved series. The book opens in April of 1988, when a man named Michael Sutton arrives at Kinsey’s office, claiming to have recovered memories related to an unsolved kidnapping of a young girl in 1972. Though Kinsey is skeptical about Sutton’s story, his offer to pay in cash induces her to take on the case, and an unmarked grave is soon discovered. As Kinsey begins to uncover decades-old secrets, new information comes to light about Sutton’s past and the validity of his memories is called into question. It is up to Kinsey to unravel the truth from a tangled web of falsehoods, and get justice for the young girl abducted decades ago.
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By Stephen King
Scribner | 1088pgs
Release Date: November 10, 2009
Stephen King’s latest opus hit stores on Tuesday, and rabid fans can finally discover what’s Under the Dome. The novel centers on the small town of Chester’s Mill, Maine, as its tranquility is shattered by an all-encompassing invisible dome. When the force field materializes, planes and cars explode on impact, and a few unsuspecting limbs are severed. No one can get in or out, and the cause of the dome is a complete mystery. Could it be little green men? A military experiment gone horribly wrong? An act of God? Hefting in at nearly 1,100 pages, Under the Dome approaches the epic scale of The Stand. And like The Stand, at the core of this story is a battle between the forces of good and evil. This time around the Baddie is town Selectman “Big Jim” Rennie, who sees the imprisoning dome as an opportunity to take control of Chester’s Mill and run the town as his own police state. Fighting against Rennie’s murderous corruption is a small group of townspeople led by Dale Barbara, local fry cook and guilt ridden Iraq War vet. The factions clash in a bloody battle, with heavy casualties on both sides. But do the good guys win? It is a Stephen King novel after all, so a happy ending is never guaranteed.
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By Patricia Cornwell
Putnam Adult | 512pgs
Release Date: October 20, 2009
A series of dark and dangerous events ensnare Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta in The Scarpetta Factor, Cornwell’s seventeenth novel in the series. Now working as CNN’s senior forensic analyst, she is grilled on air about Hannah Starr, a young woman missing and presumed dead. When previously undisclosed information comes to light, and a mysterious package arrives at Scarpetta’s home, she realizes this case reaches much farther than Starr’s disappearance. As the investigation becomes more sensationalized and Scarpetta’s viewership rises, her producer pushes her to launch her own show called The Scarpetta Factor. But she fears becoming a media cliché, and that her newfound fame will attract unwanted, or even deadly, attention.
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