~The Rocky River Public Library Reader's Advisory Newsletter~

Volume 20, Issue 3  May/June 2005

   Click here for older issues of Between The Covers

Coming Soon

 

Lee Child

One Shot

Jack Reacher is in for a surprise when he takes on a bad guy accused of five murders.

 

Harlan Coben

The Innocent

Out of jail after a conviction for manslaughter (he was just trying to stop a fight), Matt Hunter suddenly finds himself suspected of multiple murders.

 

Michael Connelly

The Closers

The new suspect in the long-ago murder of a teenaged girl is a white supremacist with ties to Harry Bosch's very own LAPD.

 

Robin Cook

Marker

In his 25th case, Cook brings back Dr. Laurie Montgomery and Dr. Jack Stapleton to figure out why so many healthy young people are dying in standard surgery.

 

Amy Ephron

One Saturday Morning

When four bridge-playing matrons spot pretty young Lizzie leaving a nearby hotel with a man who is not her husband, they are shocked.

 

Tim Green

Exact Revenge

A political candidate is framed for murder. But as he sits in his jail cell, he is plotting revenge.

 

 

Denise Hamilton

Savage Garden

The leading lady shows up dead at an opening attended by Los Angeles Times reporter Eve Diamond. Eve decides to investigate when her date gets accused of the murder.

 

Jilliane Hoffman

Last Witness

This hot new author of the legal thriller Retribution is back in Miami for more courtroom suspense.

 

Linda Howard

Killing Time

When a time capsule is opened early, its contributors begin to die.

 

Jonathan Kellerman

Rage

Rand Duchay is finally released from prison but misses out on his new freedom and an important appointment with lawyer Alex Delaware.

 

Dean Koontz

Velocity

Bill Wile's nightmare begins when he discovers a note on his windshield demanding that he choose between the murder of a young schoolteacher and a charitable old lady.

 

Nicole Krauss

The History of Love

Decades ago, in his little Polish village, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. Now a girl named for the book's protagonist wants to find him.

 

Lorna Landvik

Oh My Stars

At the dawn of the age of rock and roll, Violet Mathers, a down-and-out woman, falls for a budding musician.

 

William Lashner

Falls the Shadow

As he defends a husband accused of murder, attorney Victor Carl is getting a lot of social polishing from an obsessively friendly dentist he just met. Just a coincidence?

 

Adrienne Miller

The Coast of Akron

Meet the Haven family of Akron, Ohio—not your typical midwestern family, and Lowell Haven is a most unusual patriarch. He's a seducer, a wannabe aristocrat, and a liar. Jenny, his former wife, was a brilliant artist, but today is a broken woman with a secret.

 

Robert B. Parker

Appaloosa

Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch are itinerant lawmen, traveling the untamed West in the 1800s. When they arrive in the dusty small town of Appaloosa, they butt heads with a renegade rancher who has little regard for the law.

 

James Patterson

4th of July

Home in Half Moon Bay while facing a charge of police brutality, Lt. Lindsay Boxer joins up with her Women's Murder Club friends to investigate a spate of killings.

 

Chuck Palahniuk

Haunted
Twenty-three people answered a newspaper ad that read, "Artists' Retreat: Abandon Your Life for Three Months,” and now they're hungry, isolated, and telling more and more desperate stories.

 

Arturo Perez-Reverte

Captain Alatriste

International thriller author Perez-Reverte delivers a tale of Spain’s 16th-century hero Alatriste. This novel is the basis for a new film starring Viggo Mortensen.

 

Amanda Quick

Lie by Moonlight

Concordia Glade is hired to teach four orphans at Aldwick Castle but soon suspects that there's evil afoot and decides to spirit away her charges.

 

Kathy Reichs

Cross Bones

Forensic anthropologist Tempe Brennan's examination of a victim who had traded in black market antiquities leads her to Israel and what might be the crypt of the Holy family.

 

James Rollins

Map of Bones

When a reliquary containing the bones of the Magi vanishes with the burning of a German cathedral, SIGMA force is rushed in to save the day.

 

John Sandford

Broken Prey

Lucas Davenport is back for what will be his scariest adventure yet.

 

Adriana Trigiani

Rococo: A Novel

When a gorgeous hunk of a painter blows into town to restore Our Lady of Fatima church, “worship” takes on a whole new meaning.

 

 

 

  READING ROOM    READING ROOM    READING ROOM

 

Suspense/Thrillers

 

Alone

Lisa Gardner

After shooting a man who was holding his wife and son hostage in a police standoff, Trooper Bobby Dodge learns that the wife may not have been the victim she appeared to be.

 

Well-plotted, with strong characters and chilling, psychological suspense.

 

Entombed

Linda Fairstein

Assistant DA Alexandra Cooper and her partners, detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, investigate the murder of a young woman after her bones are found behind a brick wall in a house that used to belong to Edgar Allan Poe.

 

Highly recommended series. Fairstein again finds an interesting and informative subject for the basis of her plot. Blends the pacing of a thriller and the literary background of Poe's stories.

 

Cold Blood

Theresa Monsour

Homicide Detective Paris Murphy is uneasy about a guy she knew in high school as a creepy loner who now volunteers to help search for a missing woman and then becomes the local hero.

 

Crisply plotted and well-developed characters. Paris is portrayed as very human with several issues not related to her work in her life. Good feel for St. Paul area. Recommended.

 

 

 

Historical Fiction

 

Baker Towers

Jennifer Haigh

On the cusp of World War II, Polish immigrant Stanley Novak dies of a heart attack, leaving his Italian wife Rose and their five children to struggle without him in the mining town of Bakerton, PA. In the years that follow, each of the Novak children grows and evolves, and makes choices to go far from home or to stay in the coal company housing on Polish Hill.

 

An excellent and compelling family saga. Vivid and rich in descriptions of place and character. Highly recommend.

 

A Thread of Grace

Mary Doria Russell

Cultures mingle when Italian Jews, Italian Catholics, Jewish refugees and even Nazi deserters, work together during the last two years of WWII to resist the German Occupation, and risk their own lives in order to save Jews.

 

An intensely researched, achingly beautiful portrait of real-life events.
The characters and story will stay with you long after you've read the last page.
Highly recommend.

 

Women’s Fiction/Romance

 

The Village Bride of Beverly Hills

Kavita Daswani

After an arranged marriage in India, Priya moves to Los Angeles to live with her husband and his family in order to play the traditional daughter-in-law role and do all the housework and cooking. When she is told to find a job as well, she finds a glamorous Hollywood-reporter job that forces her to lead a secret double life and to question her loyalty to her new family and to the traditional Indian lifestyle she was raised to respect.

 

A very engaging novel. A quick, light read with a happy ending. Priya is a very likable heroine. Well-written chick-lit, India-style. Highly recommended reading.

 

Claire Voyant

Saralee Rosenberg

Straight-to-video actress Claire Greene flies to Miami seated next to an old man who dies in her lap. Imagine her surprise when she learns that she is adopted and that he was her real grandfather.

 

Classic chic-lit—a drama queen, humor, romance, and a quirky little family all wrapped up in a neat package. Highly recommend.

 

Mystery/Crime Fiction

 

Busted Flush

Brad Smith

In the hopes of simplifying his life, Dock Bass leaves his wife and the job he hates and travels to Gettysburg to claim an estate that was left to him. Once there, Dock begins to renovate his newly acquired old farmhouse and discovers invaluable memorabilia from the Civil War—items that draw a host of shady characters who will stop at nothing to try to swindle the loot out from under Dock's nose.

 

Fun and action-packed crime fiction with a twist for historical buffs. Biting satire, clever dialog and truly likeable characters make this another winner from Smith. Highly recommend.

 

Skeleton Man

Tony Hillerman

It's a race to the bottom of the Grand Canyon as Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn try to connect the current theft of a large diamond to a 1950s plane crash in which a passenger carried a suitcase full of specially cut stones.

 

Standard Hillerman fare--for fans of the series. Recommended.

 

Buried Stuff

Sharon Fiffer

Jane and her family are called home to help family friend Fuzzy Nielson when his farm is questioned as an archaeologically significant site. When Tim, Jane’s best friend, organizes the world’s largest garage sale it is an unexpected bonus for Jane.

 

The fourth in this series, "Buried Stuff", has a more serious sub-story. Wonderful returning characters, unique collectible information, and the promise of more to come make this series worth reading. Highly recommend.

 

Fiction

 

St. Dale

Sharyn McCrumb

Loosely modeled after the Canterbury Tales, St. Dale is the story of a group of stock car racing fans who embark on a bus tour of Southern race tracks (seven states in eight days) as a tribute to legendary NASCAR champion Dale Earnhardt.

 

Much different than McCrumb’s mysteries, but still shows off her talents as a storyteller. Interesting and enjoyable, even if you aren't a race fan. Highly recommend.