The Adversary

In Ulan Bataar, the head of Mongolia's largest and most powerful crime empire is finally about to get his comeuppance. But it seems that the wealthy Muunokhoi has friends in high places.  When Muunokhoi's trial begins to fall apart, Nergui, the former head of the Serious Crime team, and Doripalam, his replacement and onetime protégé, are forced to look internally to find out who in the justice system has submitted to the lure of the crime lord's power-only to realize that Muunokhoi's deadly influence is much stronger than either of them could have envisioned...-- from the publisher.


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The Virgin of Small Plains

Small Plains, Kansas, January 23, 1987: In the midst of a deadly blizzard, eighteen-year-old Rex Shellenberger scours his father’s pasture, looking for helpless newborn calves. Then he makes a shocking discovery: the naked, frozen body of a teenage girl, her skin as white as the snow around her. Even dead, she is the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. It is a moment that will forever change his life and the lives of everyone around him. The mysterious dead girl – the “Virgin of Small Plains”– inspires local reverence. In the two decades following her death, strange miracles visit those who faithfully tend to her grave; some even believe that her spirit can cure deadly illnesses. Slowly, word of the legend spreads.

But what really happened in that snow-covered field? Why did young Mitch Newquist disappear the day after the Virgin’s body was found, leaving behind his distraught girlfriend, Abby Reynolds? Why do the town’s three most powerful men – Dr. Quentin Reynolds, former sheriff Nathan Shellenberger, and Judge, Tom Newquist – all seem to be hiding the details of that night? 

Seventeen years later, when Mitch suddenly returns to Small Plains, simmering tensions come to a head, ghosts that had long slumbered whisper anew, and the secrets that some wish would stay buried rise again from the grave of the Virgin. Abby – never having resolved her feelings for Mitch – is now determined to uncover exactly what happened so many years ago to tear their lives apart.

Three families and three friends, their worlds inexorably altered in the course of one night, must confront the ever-unfolding consequences in award-winning author Nancy Pickard’s remarkable novel of suspense. Wonderfully written and utterly absorbing, The Virgin of Small Plains is about the loss of faith, trust, and innocence . . . and the possibility of redemption. -- from the publisher.

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Running in Heels

"To say that Babs has been my closest friend for sixteen years is rather like saying that Einstein was good at sums. We were blood sisters from the age of eleven (before my mother pried the razor out of Babs's hand)."

But now Babs, noisy and as fun as a day at the beach, is getting married. And Natalie Miller, twenty-seven, senior press officer for the London Ballet, panics. What happens when your best friend pledges everlasting love to someone else?

It doesn't help that Nat is dating a guy named Saul Bowcock. As the confetti flutters, her good-girl veneer cracks, and she falls into an alluringly unsuitable affair that spins her crazily out of control. Nat is on the rebound and allergic to the truth—about Babs's relationship, her boyfriend's ambition, her parents' divorce, and her golden-boy brother's little Australian secret. Her mother's lasagna and her roommate Andy's fuzzy slippers are also monstrous affronts. But what Nat really needs to face is the mirror—and herself . . . .

Wickedly witty and refreshingly honest, Running in Heels is a hilarious look at the lies we tell ourselves—and the unwanted truths that only our best friends can tell us.-- from the publisher

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The Cold Dish (Walt Longmire series #1)

The body of a young man is found in Absaroka County, Wyoming. It is possible that Cody Pritchard is the victim of a hunting accident, or is he? After all, he was one of the four boys who lured Melissa Real Bird, a Cheyenne girl with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, into a basement and raped her. Cody and his friends received what amounted to suspended sentences. Is someone seeking revenge? Will the specter of race relations and lingering retribution claim more lives? Or will the only thing that stands between them and a Sharps .45-70 buffalo rifle be Sheriff Walt Longmire?

On the autumnal side of twenty-four years as sheriff of Absaroka County, which is located at the base of the Big Horn Mountains and next to the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, Walt is looking for a quiet period to finish out his tenure but instead finds himself embroiled in the most volatile and challenging case of his career. With lifelong friend Henry Standing Bear, Deputy Victoria Morretti, and a cast of characters tragic and humorous enough to fill in the vast emptiness of the high plains, Walt Longmire attempts to see that revenge, a dish best served cold, is never served at all.-- from author's site.

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Burning Alive (The Sentinel Wars)

The gifted Butcher translates her knack for dark intrigue into the hot new supernatural Sentinel Wars series. Encompassing only a three-day period, the story is lightning fast, but the ramifications are immense. Rich secondary characters should provide future adventures.

Helen Day is tormented by a vision of her own fiery death. What's especially disturbing is the presence of a handsome man who merely watches her destruction.

Theronai warrior Drake is stunned to realize that the woman who believes he will let her die may be his salvation. As one of the Sentinel races who fight in the ongoing war against the evil Synestryn, Theronai males run the risk of losing their souls over time. The only remedy is a female Theronai soul mate who can bleed off the toxic energy. Too few females exist, which means Helen could be Drake's salvation, but only if she can learn to tap her powers and survive her vision of death. -- Jill M. Smith, RT Book Reviews


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In the Woods

As dusk approaches a small Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984, mothers begin to call their children home. But on this warm evening, three children do not return from the dark and silent woods. When the police arrive, they find only one of the children, gripping a tree trunk in terror, wearing blood-filled shoes, and unable to recall a single detail of the previous hours.

Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a twelve-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox – his partner and closest friend – find themselves investigating a case with chilling links to that long-ago disappearance. Now, with only snippets of buried memories to guide him, Rob has the chance to unravel both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.-- publisher description.

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War for the Oaks

Guitarist Eddi McCandry has just dumped her boyfriend and their band when she finds herself running through the Minneapolis night, pursued by a sinister man and a huge, terrifying dog.  As she soon discovers, the two creatures are one and the same: a phouka, a faerie being who has chosen Eddi to be the mortal pawn in the age-old war between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. 

Eddi isn't interested--but she doesn't have a choice.  For more than her own survival is at stake. To save the city--and the man--that she loves, Eddi must face off against the Dark Queen of the Unseelie Court in the ultimate duel of music and magic.  -- from the cover

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My Men Are My Heroes: The Brad Kasal Story (Iowa connection)

Experience the deadly din of modern warfare and the inspiring leadership and courage of legendary First Sergeant Brad Kasal in this riveting new book. It's a page-turning, first-hand account of Kasal's courageous mission to rescue fallen comrades under intense enemy fire during the Battle of Fallujah-actions that earned him the distinguished Navy Cross, America's second highest military award. This stunning, unforgettable account shows an American hero rising to the challenge of world events with leadership, valor, and loyalty. -- from the publisher

You may find similar titles on our From the Frontlines booklist.

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Brotherhood

There could not be a greater contrast than between the cold engineering that leveled the twin towers and the response of the 343 New York firefighters who rushed in to their deaths. Those men are honored in this collection of evocatively understated photographs showing all 70 of the city's affected firehouses, from Red Hook's company of "Happy Hookers" to Harlem's "Fire Factory."

The pictures by 50 noted photographers show the firehouses in all attitudes of mourning and recovery, crowded with donated flowers, candles, homemade signs, and children's drawings (some from as far as Mississippi) that have helped buoy up the survivors in the months since the attack. These displays are evidence of a popular rediscovery of firefighters, writes McCourt in his pitch-perfect foreword to the book. All of September 11's FDNY dead are listed delicately across the bottom of the pages of portraits of the lost men's firehouse beds, wall-posters, empty lockers, boots, and heat-darkened helmets, as well as their squad mates struggling on. -- Nathan Ward, "Library Journal" (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

More items may be found on our Remember 9/11 booklist.

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The Looming Tower

Wright, a talented New Yorker staff writer with a diverse portfolio and a long-standing personal interest in the Middle East, was on the al-Qaeda beat within hours of the 9/11 attacks. The product of his efforts is more deeply researched and engagingly narrated than nearly all of the looming stack of books on Osama bin Laden and his cohorts published in the past five years.

The events are familiar: this account begins with theorist Sayid Qutb, covers the trajectories of bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, and culminates with Mohammed Atta and the collapsing Trade Center. But Wright's interview--fueled, character-driven approach captures both the complexity of individual actors--Qutb's alienation, for example, and bin Laden's struggle for legitimacy--as well as the fluid internal dynamics of the often covert terrorist organization.

The tragic centerpiece of the book, familiar to New Yorker readers, is Wright's sensitive portrayal of John O'Neill, the deeply flawed working-class FBI gumshoe from New Jersey who may have been the only American to fully understand the al-Qaeda threat before 9/11. Wright seems to have found his calling: a perceptive and intense page-turner, this selection and Peter Bergen's The Osama bin Laden I Know (2006) should be considered the definitive works on the topic. --Brendan Driscoll Copyright 2006 Booklist

For more titles see our booklist, Remember 9/11.

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Do Not Be Sad: A Chronicle of Healing

At 8:47 am on September 11th, 2001, the first alarm sounded and twenty-four firemen from Engine 24 Ladder 5 left the station. Eleven never returned. The weight of the tragedy seemed unfathomable. And yet it was being experienced at firehouses all over New York City.  Within hours, Mayor Giuliani set up a makeshift headquarters at Engine 24 Ladder 5, just blocks from where the tragedy began. The station was quickly becoming a pivotal symbol for what the entire city was going through.

In the days, weeks and months that followed, hundreds of letters from children across the country poured into Engine 24 Ladder 5. They expressed their love, appreciation and support. They reflect what many of us are feeling; A shared loss, a shared grief, a shared resilience and pride in New York and in our country. It is a sentiment so strong that these children felt the need to reach out to people they had never met.

The children of America sent the letters here to Engine 24 Ladder 5 - but they were meant for all New York City firefighters. In the midst of grief, pain and confusion, their innocence, love and hope supply much-needed inspiration and offer tribute to a group of true American heroes.-- from the publisher.

You may find more titles on our Remember 9/11, 10th anniversary reading selections.

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The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind

William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a country where magic ruled and modern science was mystery. It was also a land withered by drought and hunger, and a place where hope and opportunity were hard to find. But William had read about windmills in a book called Using Energy, and he dreamed of building one that would bring electricity and water to his village and change his life and the lives of those around him. His neighbors may have mocked him and called him misala--crazy--but William was determined to show them what a little grit and ingenuity could do.

Here is the remarkable story about human inventiveness and its power to overcome crippling adversity. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind will inspire anyone who doubts the power of one individual's ability to change his community and better the lives of those around him.-- from the hardcover edition

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Candy Apple Red (Jane Kelley series #1)

Jane Kelly is through with following men anywhere. Last time she did, she left Southern California for the dubious charms of Lake Chinook, Oregon, where she's traded in bartending for the much more glamorous trade of process serving. (Well, she can tell herself it's glamorous, anyway.) And the boyfriend, of course, is long gone. She's not making any lifetime commitments, but when Portland divorce attorney Marta Cornell calls with a P.I. job, the money involved sounds like the answer to her dwindling bank account - until she learns Tess Bradbury wants her to investigate the disappearance of Bobby Reynolds. Four years ago, without warning, Bobby murdered his young family and promptly vanished. No one disputed that he'd slaughtered his own flesh and blood except Tim Murphy, his best friend - and Jane's ex, the one guy she's never quite gotten over. The murders had driven a wedge between him and Jane, and finally drove him right out of town. Now he's on his way back, to attend a Lake Chinook Historical Society benefit that Cotton Reynolds, Bobby's father, is hosting. It looks like Jane's going to be following men around again - this time with a tape recorder and a camera.-- from the publisher


You may also like these Janet Evonavich readalikes.

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Coal Run

In a town haunted by a deadly mine explosion that took the lives of almost half the male population thirty years earlier, the reverberations are still being felt in the current generation of survivors, among them the narrator Ivan Zoschenko, the local deputy and fallen football legend, "the Great Ivan Z," whose father died that day. His pro career sidelined by an injury, Ivan now spends his days dispensing his own unique form of occasionally wise, usually comic, almost always dangerous justice and his nights drowning his regrets and guilt in a bottle. 

His story takes place during a week's time while Ivan is seemingly preparing for an old teammate's imminent release from prison. In doing so, he introduces a rich cast of characters – his fiercely independent single-mom sister, the long-absent Vietnam vet he idolized as a child, the town's no-nonsense pediatrician who brandishes vaccinations on the doorsteps of neglectful parents like a Wild West sheriff, and the old friend and onetime mirror image of himself who now lives the kind of simple life Ivan both admires and pities. During the events of this week, Ivan confronts his demons and reveals himself to be a man whose conscience is burdened by a long-held and shocking secret involving the ruined life of a young girl that must be finally reckoned with. -- from the publisher.


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