Friday, March 30, 2012

Books ordered for April

The Lost YearsThe Lost Years 

  • Mary Higgins Clark





  • Synopsis


  • In her long career as America’s most beloved suspense writer, Mary Higgins Clark’s The Lost Years is her most astonishing and dramatic novel to date. At its center is a discovery that, if authenticated, may be the most revered document in human history—“the holiest of the holy”—and certainly the most coveted and valuable object in the world.
    Dr. Jonathan Lyons, a seventy-year-old biblical scholar, believes he has found the rarest of parchments—a letter that may have been written by Jesus Christ. Stolen from the Vatican library in the fifteenth century, it was assumed to be lost forever.
    Under the promise of secrecy, Jonathan attempts to confirm his findings with several other biblical experts. But on the eve before his own murder, he confides to Father Aiden O’Brien, a family friend, that one of those whom he trusted most is determined to keep it from being returned to the Vatican.
    The next evening Jonathan Lyons is found shot to death in his New Jersey home. His daughter, twenty-seven year old Mariah, finds her father’s body sprawled over his desk in his study, a fatal bullet wound in the back of his neck, and her mother, Kathleen, an Alzheimer’s victim, hiding in the study closet, incoherent and clutching the murder weapon. The police suspect that Kathleen, who in her lucid moments knows that Jonathan was involved with a much younger woman Lily Stewart, has committed the murder.
    But Mariah believes that the key to her father’s death is tied to another question: Where is the missing parchment? Whom, among his close circle of friends, might he have consulted? And did one of them kill to keep possession of the letter?
    What Mariah doesn’t know is that there was an eyewitness to the murder, someone whose unwise attempt to blackmail the killer begins a new circle of death, with Mariah as the ultimate target of one person’s obsession with a priceless historical treasure.
    With all the elements that have made her a worldwide bestseller, Mary Higgins Clark’s The Lost Years is at once a breathless murder mystery and a hunt for what may be the most precious religious and archeological treasure of all time.


    The InnocentThe Innocent 

  • David Baldacci





  • Synopsis


  • America has enemies--ruthless people that the police, the FBI, even the military can't stop. That's when the U.S. government calls on Will Robie, a stone cold hitman who never questions orders and always nails his target.
    But Will Robie may have just made the first--and last--mistake of his career . . .
    THE INNOCENT It begins with a hit gone wrong. Robie is dispatched to eliminate a target unusually close to home in Washington, D.C. But something about this mission doesn't seem right to Robie, and he does the unthinkable. He refuses to kill. Now, Robie becomes a target himself and must escape from his own people.
    Fleeing the scene, Robie crosses paths with a wayward teenage girl, a fourteen-year-old runaway from a foster home. But she isn't an ordinary runaway-her parents were murdered, and her own life is in danger. Against all of his professional habits, Robie rescues her and finds he can't walk away. He needs to help her.
    Even worse, the more Robie learns about the girl, the more he's convinced she is at the center of a vast cover-up, one that may explain her parents' deaths and stretch to unimaginable levels of power.
    Now, Robie may have to step out of the shadows in order to save this girl's life . . . and perhaps his own.








  • Driving Mr. Yogi: Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, and Baseball's Greatest Gift Driving Mr. Yogi: Yogi Berra, Ron Guidry, and Baseball's Greatest Gift 

  • Harvey Araton





  • Synopsis


  • Advance Praise for Driving Mr. Yogi:
    "Among the most thoughtful journalists of his time, Harvey Araton delivers one of baseball's greatest stories never told in this poetic tribute to the relationship shared by Yogi Berra and Ron Guidry. A must-read for anyone who cares about baseball, loyalty, and love."—Ian O'Connor, author of The Captain and Arnie & Jack
    "Harkens back to an era when ball players were teammates because of the uniform they wore, not the games they played. Driving Mr. Yogi is as sweet as the unlikely friendship between Berra and his designated chauffeur Ron ‘Gator’ Guidry who, along with author Harvey Araton, handles this precious baseball cargo with requisite TLC."— Jane Leavy, author of The Last Boy and Sandy Koufax
    “Hop in, sit back and enjoy the ride with Yogi and Gator. With grace and humor, Harvey Araton makes certain it will put a smile on your face."— Tom Verducci, author (with Joe Torre) of The Yankee Years
    "Spending time with Yogi Berra is a unique pleasure, as Ron Guidry a special guy himself, can attest. Now thanks to Harvey Araton's delightful book you, too, can get to know one of the world's great treasures as Louisiana Lightning does, through his eyes, and revel in a remarkable relationship."—Tim McCarver, sportscaster, Fox Sports
    “Baseball at its best is a game of relationships — fathers and sons, veterans and rookies. In Driving Mr. Yogi, one of America's finest sportswriters writes about a magical relationship. Any baseball fan would love to be at spring training, sun shining, smell of mowed grass in the air, and just listen to the stories of those two wonderful men. Harvey Araton lets us do just that."— Joe Posnanski, author of The Machine and The Soul of Baseball
    “Like Ron Guidry, one of the greatest gifts in my career was to become Yogi’s friend. He and Ron are unique Americans and in Driving Mr. Yogi readers everywhere will come to see just how special their friendship is."— Rudy Giuliani, former mayor of New York City


    The Beginner's GoodbyeThe Beginner's Goodbye 

  • Anne Tyler





  • Synopsis


  • Anne Tyler gives us a wise, haunting, and deeply moving new novel in which she explores how a middle-aged man, ripped apart by the death of his wife, is gradually restored by her frequent appearances—in their house, on the roadway, in the market.

    Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him. So when he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken, self-dependent young woman, she is like a breath of fresh air. Unhesitatingly he marries her, and they have a relatively happy, unremarkable marriage. But when a tree crashes into their house and Dorothy is killed, Aaron feels as though he has been erased forever. Only Dorothy’s unexpected appearances from the dead help him to live in the moment and to find some peace.

    Gradually he discovers, as he works in the family’s vanity-publishing business, turning out titles that presume to guide beginners through the trials of life, that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying goodbye.

    A beautiful, subtle exploration of loss and recovery, pierced throughout with Anne Tyler’s humor, wisdom, and always penetrating look at human foibles.








  • Calico Joe Calico Joe 

  • John Grisham





  • Synopsis


  • A surprising and moving novel of fathers and sons, forgiveness and redemption, set in the world of Major League Baseball…
     
    Whatever happened to Calico Joe?

    It began quietly enough with a pulled hamstring. The first baseman for the Cubs AAA affiliate in Wichita went down as he rounded third and headed for home. The next day, Jim Hickman, the first baseman for the Cubs, injured his back. The team suddenly needed someone to play first, so they reached down to their AA club in Midland, Texas, and called up a twenty-one-year-old named Joe Castle. He was the hottest player in AA and creating a buzz.

    In the summer of 1973 Joe Castle was the boy wonder of baseball, the greatest rookie anyone had ever seen.  The kid from Calico Rock, Arkansas dazzled Cub fans as he hit home run after home run, politely tipping his hat to the crowd as he shattered all rookie records.

    Calico Joe quickly became the idol of every baseball fan in America, including Paul Tracey, the young son of a hard-partying and hard-throwing Mets pitcher. On the day that Warren Tracey finally faced Calico Joe, Paul was in the stands, rooting for his idol but also for his Dad. Then Warren threw a fastball that would change their lives forever…

    In John Grisham’s new novel the baseball is thrilling, but it’s what happens off the field that makes CALICO JOE a classic.







  • The Shoemaker's Wife The Shoemaker's Wife 

  • Adriana Trigiani





  • Synopsis


  • Beloved New York Times bestselling author Adriana Trigiani returns with the most epic and ambitious novel of her career—a breathtaking multigenerational love story that spans two continents, two World Wars, and the quest of two star-crossed lovers to find each other again. The Shoemaker's Wife is replete with the all the page-turning adventure, sumptuous detail, and heart-stopping romance that has made Adriana Trigiani, “one of the reigning queens of women’s fiction” (USA Today). Fans of Trigiani’s sweeping family dramas like Big Stone Gap and Lucia, Lucia will love her latest masterpiece, a book Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help, calls “totally new and completely wonderful: a rich, sweeping epic which tells the story of the women and men who built America dream by dream.”
















  • Celebrity in Death (In Death Series #34)Celebrity in Death (In Death Series #34) 

  • J. D. Robb





  • Synopsis


  • Lieutenant Eve Dallas is no party girl, but she's managing to have a reasonably good time at the celebrity-packed bash celebrating The Icove Agenda, a film based on one of her famous cases. It's a little spooky seeing the actress playing her, who looks almost like her long-lost twin. Not as unsettling, though, as seeing the actress who plays Peabody drowned in the lap pool on the roof of the director's luxury building. Now she's at the center of a crime scene-and Eve is more than ready to get out of her high heels and strap on her holster and step into the role she was born to play: cop.





























  • Come Home Come Home 

  • Lisa Scottoline





  • Synopsis


  • Lisa Scottoline has delivered taut thrillers with a powerful emotional wallop in her New York Times bestsellers Save Me, Think Twice, and Look Again. Now, with her new novel, Come Home, she ratchets up the suspense with the riveting story of a mother who sacrifices her future for a child from her past.
    Jill Farrow is a typical suburban mom who has finally gotten her and her daughter's lives back on track after a divorce. She is about to remarry, her job as a pediatrician fulfills her—-though it is stressful—-and her daughter, Megan, is a happily over-scheduled thirteen-year-old juggling homework and the swim team.
    But Jill’s life is turned upside down when her ex-stepdaughter, Abby, shows up on her doorstep late one night and delivers shocking news: Jill’s ex-husband is dead. Abby insists that he was murdered and pleads with Jill to help find his killer. Jill reluctantly agrees to make a few inquiries and discovers that things don’t add up. As she digs deeper, her actions threaten to rip apart her new family, destroy their hard-earned happiness, and even endanger her own life. Yet Jill can’t turn her back on a child she loves and once called her own.
    Come Home reads with the breakneck pacing of a thriller while also exploring the definition of motherhood, asking the questions: Do you ever stop being a mother? Can you ever have an ex-child? What are the limits to love of family? 

    The Sins of the FatherThe Sins of the Father 

  • Jeffrey Archer





  • Synopsis


  • On the heels of the international bestseller Only Time Will Tell, Jeffrey Archer picks up the sweeping story of the Clifton Chronicles….
    Only days before Britain declares war on Germany, Harry Clifton, hoping to escape the consequences of long-buried family secrets, and forced to accept that his desire to marry Emma Barrington will never be fulfilled, has joined the Merchant Navy. But his ship is sunk in the Atlantic by a German U-boat, drowning almost the entire crew. An American cruise liner, the SS Kansas Star, rescues a handful of sailors, among them Harry and the third officer, an American named Tom Bradshaw. When Bradshaw dies in the night, Harry seizes on the chance to escape his tangled past and assumes his identity.
    On landing in America, however, Bradshaw quickly learns the mistake he has made, when he discovers what is awaiting him in New York. Without any way of proving his true identity, Harry Clifton is now chained to a past that could be far worse than the one he had hoped to escape.

    What Doesn't Kill YouWhat Doesn't Kill You 

  • Iris Johansen





  • Synopsis


  • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author comes an explosive new thriller featuring Catherine Ling from Chasing The Night.
     Catherine Ling was abandoned on the streets of Hong Kong at age four.  Schooled in the art of survival, she traded in the only commodity she had: information.  As a teenager, she came under the tutelage of a mysterious man known only as Hu Chang—a skilled assassin and master poisoner.  As a young woman, she was recruited by the CIA and now, she is known as one of their most effective operatives.  Having lived life in the shadows, Catherine is aware of the wobbly moral compass of her existence and even more aware of just how expendable she is to those she deals with. When her old friend Hu Chang creates something so deadly, and completely untraceable, the chase is on to be the first to get it.  With rogue operative John Gallo also on the hunt, Catherine finds herself pitted against a group so villainous and a man so evil that she may not survive the quest to protect those she cares about.  Iris Johansen is at her page-turning best in this novel that takes you from the corridors of Langley to the alleyways of Hong Kong, and the darkest places of the human soul.

    The Wind through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower NovelThe Wind through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel 

  • Stephen King





  • Synopsis


  • In The Wind Through the Keyhole, Stephen King returns to the rich landscape of Mid-World, the spectacular territory of the Dark Tower fantasy saga that stands as his most beguiling achievement.
    Roland Deschain and his ka-tetJake, Susannah, Eddie, and Oy, the billy-bumbler—encounter a ferocious storm just after crossing the River Whye on their way to the Outer Baronies. As they shelter from the howling gale, Roland tells his friends not just one strange story but two . . . and in so doing, casts new light on his own troubled past.
    In his early days as a gunslinger, in the guilt-ridden year following his mother’s death, Roland is sent by his father to investigate evidence of a murderous shape-shifter, a “skin-man” preying upon the population around Debaria. Roland takes charge of Bill Streeter, the brave but terrified boy who is the sole surviving witness to the beast’s most recent slaughter. Only a teenager himself, Roland calms the boy and prepares him for the following day’s trials by reciting a story from the Magic Tales of the Eld that his mother often read to him at bedtime. “A person’s never too old for stories,” Roland says to Bill. “Man and boy, girl and woman, never too old. We live for them.” And indeed, the tale that Roland unfolds, the legend of Tim Stoutheart, is a timeless treasure for all ages, a story that lives for us.
    King began the Dark Tower series in 1974; it gained momentum in the 1980s; and he brought it to a thrilling conclusion when the last three novels were published in 2003 and 2004. The Wind Through the Keyhole is sure to fascinate avid fans of the Dark Tower epic. But this novel also stands on its own for all readers, an enchanting and haunting journey to Roland’s world and testimony to the power of Stephen King’s storytelling magic.

    Capitol MurderCapitol Murder 

  • Phillip Margolin





  • Synopsis


  • Private investigator Dana Cutler and attorney Brad Miller have overcome more than a few daunting challenges and powerful enemies to see justice done. Now wicked threats old and new are about to bring them together once again. Convicted serial killer Clarence Little has escaped from death row in Oregon, and Brad receives threatening messages in D.C., where he is working for Senator Jack Carson, a high-ranking member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. A dead body, murdered according to Little's M.O., is found in the senator's Georgetown home, and Carson has disappeared. While Dana is in Oregon digging into Carson's shady background, a terrorist cell is poised to destroy a packed professional football stadium in one of the biggest attacks on American soil. As the senator's personal life begins to dovetail with the cell's evil plan, Brad and Dana will risk it all again to uncover the truth and save their country.








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  • The Expats The Expats 

  • Chris Pavone





  • Synopsis

  • The international thriller that Patricia Cornwell says is “bristling with suspense” about an American abroad who finds herself in complex web of intrigue.
     
    Can We Ever Escape Our Secrets?

    Kate Moore is a working mother, struggling to make ends meet, to raise children, to keep a spark in her marriage . . . and to maintain an increasingly unbearable life-defining secret. So when her husband is offered a lucrative job in Luxembourg, she jumps at the chance to leave behind her double-life, to start anew.
    She begins to reinvent herself as an expat, finding her way in a language she doesn’t speak, doing the housewifely things she’s never before done—playdates and coffee mornings, daily cooking and never-ending laundry. Meanwhile, her husband works incessantly, at a job Kate has never understood, for a banking client she’s not allowed to know. He’s becoming distant and evasive; she’s getting lonely and bored.
    Then another American couple arrives. Kate soon becomes suspicious that these people are not who they say they are, and she’s terrified that her own past is catching up to her. So Kate begins to dig, to peel back the layers of deception that surround her. She discovers fake offices and shell corporations and a hidden gun, a mysterious farmhouse and numbered accounts with bewildering sums of money, and finally unravels the mind-boggling long-play con that threatens her family, her marriage, and her life.
    Stylish and sophisticated, fiercely intelligent and expertly crafted, The Expats proves Chris Pavone to be a writer of tremendous talent.

    MarianaMariana 

  • Susanna Kearsley





  • Synopsis


  • "Dynamic and captivating...I couldn't put it down."—San Jose Examiner
    "Tread lightly, she is near."
    Julia Beckett believes in destiny, settling into her rustic new home, Julia encounters haunting remnants of a beautiful young woman who lived and loved there centuries ago.
    It's seems Mariana has been waiting for Julia.
    Praise for New York Times and USA Today bestseller The Winter Sea:
    "A deeply engaging romance and a compelling historical noveL. Susanna Kearsley has written a marvelous book." —Bernard Cornwell, bestselling author of The Burning Land
    "A creative tour de force. Sometimes an author catches lightning in a botde, and Susanna Kearsley has done just that." — New York Journal of Books
    "Richly rewarding ... A beautifully written book ... to be read carefully and savored. The contemporary and historical contexts are carefully delineated and rich with texture and detail." —Dear Author
    Praise for The Rose Garden:
    "A magical, not to be missed read." —RT Book Reviews Top Pick, 4 ½stars
    "MasterfuL.Kearsley beautifully evokes the wild landscapes and history of Cornwall." —Publishers Weekly
    Susanna Kearsley's writing has been compared to Mary Stewart, Daphne Du Maurier, and Diana Gabaldon. Her books have been translated into several languages, selected for the Mystery Guild, condensed for Reader's Digest, and optioned for film. She lives in Canada near the shores of Lake Ontario.
    The new owner of a 16th-century Wiltshire farmhouse, Julia finds herself transported back and forth in time to the life of a woman named Mariana. Enthralled with the long-ago world, in love with a man who lived centuries before, Julia must lay the past to rest if she is to find love in the present. Winner of the Catherine Cookson Fiction Prize. Previously published in paper by Corgi.

    The Road to GraceThe Road to Grace 

  • Richard Paul Evans





  • Synopsis


  • Join one of America’s beloved storytellers on a walk like no other: one man’s unrelenting search for hope.
    Reeling from the sudden loss of his wife, his home, and his business, Alan Christoffersen, a once-successful advertising executive, has left everything he knew behind and set off on an extraordinary cross-country journey. Carrying only a backpack, he is walking from Seattle to Key West, the farthest destination on his map.
    Now almost halfway through his trek, Alan sets out to walk the nearly 1,000 miles between South Dakota and St. Louis, but it’s the people he meets along the way who give the journey its true meaning: a mysterious woman who follows Alan’s walk for close to a hundred miles, the ghost hunter searching graveyards for his wife, and the elderly Polish man who gives Alan a ride and shares a story that Alan will never forget.
    Full of hard-won wisdom and truth, The Road to Grace is a compelling and inspiring novel about hope, healing, grace, and the meaning of life.

    Sidney Sheldon's Angel of the DarkSidney Sheldon's Angel of the Dark 


  • Sidney Sheldon,

  • Tilly Bagshawe





  • Synopsis


  • A thrilling tale of murder, lies, and lust, from master storyteller Sidney Sheldon
    When an elderly multimillionaire is found brutally murdered in his Hollywood home, his young wife raped and beaten, and his art and jewels stolen, the motive seems pretty clear. But when the investigation doesn't turn up a single lead, the case is closed and his stunning widow vanishes.
    Nearly a decade later, the victim's son, Matt Daley, makes a shocking discovery: three murders identical to his father's have taken place across the globe in recent years. In each case the widow, the sole beneficiary of the will, donates everything to children's charities.
    As the case is reopened and another murder discovered, Matt becomes besotted with the latest widow until she, too, disappears. It's only a matter of time before the killer strikes again.

    The DovekeepersThe Dovekeepers 

  • Alice Hoffman





  • Synopsis


  • The Dovekeepers is Alice Hoffman’s most ambitious and mesmerizing novel, a tour de force of research and imagination. Nearly two thousand years ago, nine hundred Jews held out for months against armies of Romans on Masada, a mountain in the Judean desert. According to the ancient historian Josephus, two women and five children survived. Based on this tragic and iconic event, Hoffman’s novel is a spellbinding tale of four extraordinarily bold, resourceful, and sensuous women, each of whom has come to Masada by a different path. Yael’s mother died in childbirth, and her father, an expert assassin, never forgave her for that death. Revka, a village baker’s wife, watched the murder of her daughter by Roman soldiers; she brings to Masada her young grandsons, rendered mute by what they have witnessed. Aziza is a warrior’s daughter, raised as a boy, a fearless rider and expert marksman who finds passion with a fellow soldier. Shirah, born in Alexandria, is wise in the ways of ancient magic and medicine, a woman with uncanny insight and power. The lives of these four complex and fiercely independent women intersect in the desperate days of the siege. All are dovekeepers, and all are also keeping secrets—about who they are, where they come from, who fathered them, and whom they love.





  • Gypped (Regan Reilly Series #15) Gypped (Regan Reilly Series #15) 

  • Carol Higgins Clark





  • Synopsis


  • Private Investigator Regan Reilly is back in another “fun, delightful, and entertaining mystery, enhanced by quirky endearing characters” (WashingtonTimes.com).
    PI Regan Reilly and her husband Jack, head of the NYPD Major Case Squad, are in Los Angeles where Jack is attending a business conference. After the meeting they plan to vacation in California so Regan can show Jack her old haunts and introduce him to friends who didn't make it to their wedding.
    One friend Regan gets in touch with is in distress. A health nut, recently turned vegan, and a “health coach” to boot, Zelda suspects she is being gypped by her business manager who had her invest in a new line of vitamins. Regan and Jack look into Zelda’s business deals. What they uncover is a scam extending up and down the coast of California, involving people whose only concern is the health of their pocketbooks!
    Carol Higgins Clark’s fans are sure to enjoy another “fast-paced mystery with unexpected plot twists and Clark’s trademark humor” (The Daily Beast).

    Night Sessions Night Sessions 

  • Ken MacLeod





  • Synopsis


  • Editorial Reviews

    Publishers Weekly
    MacLeod’s vision of a secular future and a world free from the influence of religion is just as powerful and timely as it was in 2008, when it won the British Science Fiction Association Award for Best Novel, and it will be relevant as long as people kill one another in the name of God. Set in a near future where humankind has largely turned its back on religion following the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the subsequent Faith Wars, the story revolves around Scottish detective Adam Ferguson and his investigation into the bombing murder of a Roman Catholic priest. Accompanied by a sentient robotic sidekick, Ferguson uncovers a global terrorist plot involving Christian fanatics that heralds the return of “the bad times.” MacLeod’s visionary fusion of science fiction and police procedural is replete with thought-provoking scientific and social speculation, particularly the exploration into the consciousness of robots and their significance in society. (Apr.)








    Loving (Bailey Flanigan Series #4)Loving (Bailey Flanigan Series #4) 

  • Karen Kingsbury





  • Synopsis


  • The answers Bailey Flanigan once longed and prayed for are finally becoming clear.
    In Loving, the fourth and final book in the Bailey Flanigan Series by New York Times bestselling author Karen Kingsbury, Bailey is planning a wedding and making decisions that will shape her future. Bailey enjoys the beginning of her new career and time spent with Brandon while Cody faithfully coaches his team on and off the field. Will she spend her life with Brandon Paul in Los Angeles, or will her heart draw her back to Bloomington, Indiana and Cody Coleman, her first love?
    Bailey has learned much and grown over the years, but the greatest challenges, the richest joys, and the deepest heartaches are still to come.
    Featuring members from Karen Kingsbury's popular Baxter family, Loving completes Bailey and Cody's story --- the finale thousands of fans have been waiting for.

    The Moon Over High StreetThe Moon Over High Street 

  • Natalie Babbitt (Young Adult)





  • Synopsis


  • The new novel by Natalie Babbitt, author of Tuck Everlasting
    Joe Casimir needed help with the choice he had to make. But how do you choose the person who will help you choose? Mr. Boulderwall, the millionaire, knew exactly what he wanted Joe to choose. And millionaires are experts at making choices. Well, aren't they? But Vinnie, the number-two man down at Sope Electric, didn't much approve of millionaires. He said to Joe, "Listen, kid, all of 'em act like they're the only ones with a ticket to the show!" But he didn't have any real advice to offer. Joe's Gran didn't either, as it turned out, and neither did Aunt Myra.
    The good advice was there, though. Right across the street. Just waiting right across the street. There are a lot of good things just waiting. You'll see.