New Fiction @ the Library June 2008 Quick Links > Library Website > Find Books Online > Become a Fan > Contact Us Head Wounds by Chris Knopf Publisher: Random House Date: May 27 2008 ISBN-10: 0307356582 ISBN-13: 978-0307356581 Mystery Check Availability Ex-boxer and former corporate exec Sam Acquillo, now a hard-drinking carpenter living in a run-down cottage on the shores of the Little Peconic Bay in Southampton, N.Y., becomes the prime suspect in the murder of local builder Robbie Milhouser. With the evidence against him almost overwhelming, Acquillo enlists a misfit group of supporters to help him uncover the real killer's identity. As he digs into the dead man's troubled past, Acquillo discovers a disturbing link between Milhouser and Acquillo's current girlfriend, Amanda Battiston. How can you go wrong with a philosophizing hero who drinks Absolut, reads Kant, drives a '67 Grand Prix and has a dog named Eddie Van Halen? Extreme Danger  by Shannon McKenna Publisher: Kensington Pub Date: Jan 21 2008 ISBN-10: 0758211872 ISBN-13: 978-0758211873 Romantic Suspense Check Availability Nobody's home at the millionaire's estate on remote Frakes Island. And nobody seems to be watching. Becca Cattrell dives in for an illicit midnight swim--and gets hauled out by a towering, hard-muscled guy with burning dark eyes. Nick Ward can't tell her that he's spying on a vicious Russian crime boss. Becca could be his worst eneby: an assassin sent to kill him, a call girl sent to distract him, or the worst scenario of all--a clueless innocent. After River by Donna Milner Publisher: Harper Collins Pub Date: Mar 31 2008 ISBN-10: 1554681669 ISBN-13: 978-1554681662 Literary Fiction Check Availability Before the wise and gentle River came, 15-year-old Natalie Ward believed her world was perfect: her family would always be together, living and working on their small dairy farm carved out in a mountain valley deep in the Cascades of British Columbia. Natalie would always be "my girl" to Boyer, her gifted older brother, and the pride of Nettie, her beautiful, charismatic mother. After River, things were changed, which Nattie blamed on the encroaching world: the new highway that would connect the town to the Trans-Canada, the closeness of an America engulfed in Vietnam and violence. But it was River, the young American draft dodger who became Ward's hired hand, who changed everything one summer. Thirty-five years later, the family is still shattered in ways that no one could ever have foretold. And now, as her mother lies dying, Natalie must return to the home she has spent most of her life running from, as the family's dark secrets and betrayals threaten to scar a new generation. Devil May Care: the New James Bond Novel by Sebastian Faulks Publisher: Doubleday Canada Pub Date: May 28 2008 ISBN-10: 0385665520 ISBN-13: 978-0385665520 Spy/Thriller Check Availability Bond is back with a license to thrill. Forty-three years ago, Ian Fleming wrote his last great 007 adventure. Now, in Devil May Care, the world's most iconic spy returns in a Cold War story spanning the world's exotic locations. By invitation of the Fleming estate to mark the centenary of his birth, acclaimed novelist Sebastian Faulks picks up where Fleming left off, writing a tour de force that will electrify every James Bond fan. A fitting tribute to the Bond tradition, Devil May Care stands on its own as a triumph of witty prose and plenty of double-0 action. The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway Publisher: Knopf Canada Pub Date: April 8 2008 ISBN-10: 0307397033 ISBN-13: 978-0307397034 Literary Fiction Check Availability After a mortar attack kills 22 people waiting in line to buy bread, an unnamed cellist vows to play at the point of impact for 22 days. Meanwhile, Arrow, a young woman sniper, picks off soldiers; Kenan makes a dangerous trek to get water for his family; and Dragan, who sent his wife and son out of the city at the start of the war, works at a bakery and trades bread in exchange for shelter. Arrow's assigned to protect the cellist, but when she's eventually ordered to commit a different kind of killing, she must decide who she is and why she kills. Dragan believes he can protect himself through isolation, but that changes when he runs into a friend of his wife's attempting to cross a street targeted by snipers. Kenan is repeatedly challenged by his fear and a cantankerous neighbor. All the while, the cellist continues to play. The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich Publisher: Harper Collins Canada Pub Date: April 22 2008 ISBN-10: 0060515120 ISBN-13: 978-0060515126 Literary Fiction Check Availability The unsolved murder of a farm family haunts the small, white, off-reservation town of Pluto, North Dakota. The vengeance exacted for this crime and the subsequent distortions of truth transform the lives of Ojibwe living on the nearby reservation and shape the passions of both communities for the next generation. The descendants of Ojibwe and white intermarry, their lives intertwine; only the youngest generation, of mixed blood, remains unaware of the role the past continues to play in their lives. Evelina Harp is a witty, ambitious young girl, part Ojibwe, part white, who is prone to falling hopelessly in love. Mooshum, Evelina's grandfather, is a seductive storyteller, a repository of family and tribal history with an all-too-intimate knowledge of the violent past. Nobody understands the weight of historical injustice better than Judge Antone Bazil Coutts, a thoughtful mixed blood who witnesses the lives of those who appear before him, and whose own love life reflects the entire history of the territory. In distinct and winning voices, Erdrich's narrators unravel the stories of different generations and families in this corner of North Dakota. Bound by love, torn by history, the two communities' collective stories finally come together in a wrenching truth revealed in the novel's final pages.  The Crystal Skull by Manda Scott Publisher: Bantam Press Pub Date: May 6 2008 ISBN-10: 0593055713 ISBN-13: 978-0593055717 Suspense/Thriller Check Availability   Ancient wisdom predicts the end of the world with uncanny precision. But it also provides the key to staving off apocalypse - a flawless sapphire of incomparable beauty carved into the perfect likeness of a human skull.  Stella Cody has discovered a crystal skull of exquisite beauty. It has been hidden for four centuries. She also inherits its legacy of dark secrets, intrigue, and murder. Facing an increasingly implacable enemy, Stella and her lover, Kit, struggle to crack the code that hides the skull's intended resting place. Their search takes them from the intellectual rigour of Cambridge University to the untamed wildness of England's prehistoric stone circles. But time is against them, and they have only hours left to uncover the secret that may yet save the world. Enlightenment by Maureen Freely Publisher: Overlook Press Pub Date: April 29 2008 ISBN-10: 1590200748 ISBN-13: 978-1590200742 Mystery/Thriller Check Availability A journalist known only as Miss M returns to Istanbul in 2005 after a long absence at the request of Jeannie Wakefield, whose father, William, was an American spy. Jeannie hopes that Miss M will write an article to help her husband, once Miss M's lover, who's been detained in the United States and sent to Guantánamo. A few months later, Jeannie disappears, leaving behind a long letter detailing events from the 1960s. The main narrative threads-extracts from Jeannie's letter; Miss M's memories of Istanbul from that same period and her present-day account of investigating Jeannie's long-ago indoctrination into a Communist cell, which was at one point charged with the infamous but possibly apocryphal Trunk Murder-interweave toward a quietly stunning conclusion.