Fiction @ Wellington City Libraries

This selection of new Science Fiction and Fantasy novels includes the third volume in Greg Bear’s Forerunner saga, titled Halo: Silentium.Also the latest novel from the very popular David Wingrove titled, Daylight on Iron Mountain.

Lady of devices : a steampunk adventure novel / Shelley Adina.
“London, 1889. Victoria is Queen. Charles Darwin’s son is Prime Minister. And steam is the power that runs the world. Claire Trevelyan, daughter of Viscount St. Ives, finds herself down and out on the mean streets of London when her father gambles the estate on the combustion engine and loses. But being a young woman of resources and intellect, she turns fortune on its head. It’s not long before a new leader of the underworld rises, known only as the Lady of Devices. When she meets Andrew Malvern, a member of the Royal Society of Engineers, she realizes her talents may encompass more than the invention of explosive devices. They may help her realize her dreams and his, if they can both stay alive long enough to see that sometimes the closest friendships can trigger the greatest betrayals.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Fuse / Julianna Baggott.
“In a post-apocalyptic world where those who dwell within the Dome are safe, and those who live outside struggle to survive, Pressia decodes secrets from the past in an effort to set the Wretches free of their fusings forever.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The six-gun tarot / R. S. Belcher.
“When young Jim Negrey and his long-suffering horse find sanctuary in the cattle town of Galgotha, NV, Jim notices that the sheriff bears the marks of a noose round his neck; his deputy calls the coyotes his kin, and a nameless evil inhabits the nearby silver mine. This debut novel is an astonishing blend of first-rate steampunk fantasy and Western adventure.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Hellhole : awakening / Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.
“General Adolphus knows the Monarchy crackdown is coming. Now he needs to pull together all the resources of the Hellhole colony, the ever-expanding shadow-Xayan settlement, and his connections with the other Deep Zone worlds. On Sonjeera, Diadem Michella Duchenet has collected a huge fleet, led by firebrand Commissar Escobar Hallholme, son of the man who originally defeated Adolphus. Uniting themselves and pooling their minds, the shadow-Xayans send a power surge along the original stringline path that links Hellhole with the Monarchy’s hub on Sonjeera. All of the Diadem’s battleships are currently approaching on that route, and when the mental blast wipes out all the substations, the battleships are effectively stranded. But worse threats are to follow.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Born of silence / Sherrilyn Kenyon.
“Vowing to destroy his father’s killer while outmaneuvering alter ego Kere, Darling Cruel, a dictator member of an elite ruling family, is shattered when Resistance leader Zarya, his most trusted ally, turns a specially designed weapon against Darling’s family in her effort to rekindle his humanity.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Ice forged / Gail Z. Martin.
“Condemned for killing the man who dishonored his sister, Blaine “Mick” McFadden has spent the last six years in Velant, a penal colony in the frigid northern wastelands. Harsh discipline and oppressive magic keep a fragile peace as colonists struggle against a hostile environment. But the supply ships from Dondareth have stopped coming, boding ill for the kingdom that banished the colonists. Now, as the world’s magic runs wild, McFadden and the people of Velant must fight to survive and decide their fate”(adapted from Syndetics summary)

The Kassa gambit / M.C. Planck.
“Capt. Prudence Falling, looking to unload harvesters on the one colony world with open-air agriculture, finds instead a planet devastated by an unknown enemy. When she stops to help, her ship is commandeered by Lt. Kyle Daspar, police detective and officer of the hated League. Finding evidence of alien contact puts Prudence and Kyle at risk from forces within the League. Separately and together, from capital world Altair to a perpetually dark planet of masked monks, they uncover the reason for the attack and their feelings for each other.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Red planet blues / Robert J. Sawyer.
“Alex Lomax is the one and only private eye working the mean streets of New Klondike, the Martian frontier town that sprang up forty years ago after Simon Weingarten and Denny O’Reilly discovered fossils on the Red Planet. Back on Earth, where anything can be synthesized, the remains of alien life are the most valuable of all collectibles, so shiploads of desperate treasure hunters stampeded to Mars in the Great Martian Fossil Rush. Lomax tracks down killers and kidnappers among the failed prospectors, corrupt cops, and a growing population of transfers, unlucky stiffs who, after striking paleontological gold, upload their minds into immortal android bodies. But when he uncovers clues to solving the decades-old murders of Weingarten and O’Reilly, along with a journal that may lead to their legendary mother lode of Martian fossils, his life will never be the same.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Daylight on Iron Mountain / David Wingrove.
“The generals of the Middle Kingdom await the decision of the emperor. The campaign to secure the border from China to Iraq has reached a strange impasse. Two blood enemies – Arabs and Jews – have united against their common cause. But with the lives of thousands at his whim, the exalted Tsao Ch’un, the Son of Heaven, cannot decide. Destroy the Middle East in one blinding flash? Or take another path? In the court of Tsao Ch’un, men of power have become smiling lackeys, whose graces conceal their fear, or their ambition. A man that can be trusted absolutely is a rare thing. And so, with his family held hostage by the empire, General Jiang Lei finds himself appointed to a special task: the orchestration of the last great war against the West, the total dominion of America.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

This month’s selection of new Contemporary fiction varies in theme from modern day family life to suspenseful thrillers, from historical to horror. Highly recommended is the new novel from prize winning author J. M Coetzee, titled, The Childhood of Jesus. A glimpse of the ‘modern life’ some have to endure.

The childhood of Jesus / J. M. Coetzee.
“After crossing oceans, a man and a boy arrive in a new land. Here they are each assigned a name and an age, and held in a camp in the desert while they learn Spanish, the language of their new country. As Simón and David they make their way to the relocation centre in the city of Novilla, where officialdom treats them politely but not necessarily helpfully. Simón finds a job in a grain wharf. He must set about his task of locating the boy’s mother. Though like everyone else who arrives in this new country he seems to be washed clean of all traces of memory, he is convinced he will know her when he sees her. And indeed, while walking with the boy in the countryside Simón catches sight of a woman he is certain is the mother, and persuades her to assume the role.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

The striker / Clive Cussler and Justin Scott.
“It is 1902, and Bell is a raw young detective, his keen intellect and jump-in-with-both-feet attitude un-tempered by experience. When he manages to convince his boss to let him prove that a run of sabotage in coal mines is more than the actions of some union activists, Bell soon finds himself with some very powerful and determined enemies.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

The round house / Louise Erdrich.
“One Sunday in 1988, thirteen-year-old Joe Coutts learns that his mother has been the victim of a brutal attack by a man on their North Dakota reservation. Joe’s mother is traumatized and afraid. She takes to her bed, and refuses to talk to anyone, including the police; meanwhile his father, a tribal judge, endeavours to wrest justice from a situation that defies his keenest efforts. Frustrated, confused and nursing a complicated fury, Joe sets out with his best friends Cappy, Zack and Angus in search of answers that might put his mother’s attacker behind bars and set his family’s world straight again.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Villa Triste / Lucretia Grindle.
“When two sisters are forced to make impossible decisions while living under the brutal Nazi occupation of Italy, their actions set off a chain of events that ultimately impact a murder investigation sixty years later.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The obituary writer / Ann Hood.
“Vivien Lowe is an obituary writer in San Francisco obsessed with finding her lover, lost in the 1906 earthquake. She imagines him merely missing or suffering from amnesia because she cannot accept he might be dead; she knows that time does not heal, that grief never goes away. Meanwhile, decades into the future, privileged housewife Claire is bored with her marriage to Peter, a good provider but a demanding perfectionist, and launches an affair that Peter soon discovers. As this is 1961, she must stay in the marriage or risk losing their daughter. Claire attends the 80th birthday party of her formidable mother-in-law, Birdie. Birdie’s illness at the party unites the lives of Vivien and Claire, and their astonishing connection is revealed.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Fever / Mary Beth Keane.
“In the early 20th century in bustling and grimy New York City, Mary Mallon (1869-1938) became a medical first when she was identified as a healthy carrier of typhoid fever. Unknowingly, the house cook was passing the disease to families around the city. Eventually, typhoid outbreaks were traced to Mary, and she was placed in isolation. She was released three years later on the condition she would never cook again, but that promise proved hard for her to keep.This is the tragic tale of “Typhoid Mary” and the dangerous decisions she made while following her passion for cooking.“ (adapted from Synetics summary)

A tale for the time being / Ruth Ozeki.
“In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who’s lived more than a century. A diary is Nao’s only solace and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine.
Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox, possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao’s drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future.” (adapted from Amazon.com)

Light shining in the forest / Paul Torday.
“Norman Stokoe has just been appointed Children’s Czar by the new government. He sells his flat and moves up north to take up the position. However before his first salary cheque has even hit his bank account, new priorities are set for the government department for which he works. The Children’s Czar Network is put on hold but it is too late to reverse the decision to employ Norman. So he is given a P.A. and a spacious office in a new business park on the banks of the Tyne. He settles down in his new leather chair behind his new desk, to wait for the green light to begin his mission. The green light never comes. What does happen is that two children go missing. As Children’s Czar he is now faced with a campaigning journalist and a distraught mother, he is forced to become involved. The search will take him to dark places and will make him ask questions about the system he is supposed to uphold.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

I remember you / Yrsa Sigurdardóttir ; translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton.
“In an isolated village in the Icelandic Westfjords, three friends set to work renovating a derelict house. But soon they realize they are not alone there, something wants them to leave, and it is making its presence felt.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The judges for the 2013 Women’s Prize for Fiction (previously known as the Orange prize), have announced this year’s short listed finalists. The six authors chosen include Hilary Mantel for her Man Booker Prize winning novel Bring up the Bodies.
Also included is Zadie Smith for her novel NW that has recently been awarded the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize, for a book of any genre that brings to mind, the sense and spirit of a place. Zadie Smith was also named as one of Granta Magazine’s 20 most promising British novelists. The only two American writers included on the short list are A. M. Homes and Barbara Kingsolver. The winner will be announced on 5th June 2013.

Here is another great selection of new Graphic Novels for this month, very mixed, with titles from most genres. Highly recommend is the Gonzalo Navarro’s, brilliantly drawn Aotearoa whispers 1, the awakening. This is a world class publication with more volumes to look forward to.

I, Vampire. Volume 1, Tainted love / Joshua Hale Fialkov, writer ; Andrea Sorrentino, artist.
“Self-loathing vampire Andrew Bennett has for centuries kept mankind safe from the supernatural world thanks to a truce he made with his ex-lover Mary, the Queen of Blood. But Mary has gathered an army of undead and is wreaking havoc across the world, breaking the truce. Andrew must stop Mary and her forces from going on a killing spree, and make the world safe once more.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Not my bag / written and illustrated by Sina Grace.
“What do you get when you put an artist in a department store selling nice clothes, all the while wondering why being so clearly in retail hell doesn’t stop him from having a modicum of ambition to move up the fashion food chain? Sina Grace (The L’il Depressed Boy) draws upon his experience in retail to craft a graphic novel that gives us a window into the life of an artist who is forced to take a job he doesn’t really want in order to pay the bills.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The Manhattan Projects. 1 / Jonathan Hickman, writer ; Nick Pitarra, artist.
“Imagining that the Manhattan Project was really just a front for Oppenheimer, Einstein, Feynman, et al., to get into the really out-there stuff in Los Alamos. With Japanese teleportation machines (Zen-powered by Death Buddhists), concurrent universes accessed by an enigmatic portal-stone, and shady bargains with warring alien races, and a historical cast of characters at the dawn of the atomic age. Oppenheimer, in particular, gets a disturbingly twisted portrayal, and Max Headroom treatment is given to post life Franklin D.Roostevelt” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Hell yeah. Volume one, Last day on Earth / written by Joe Keatinge ; pencilled by Andre Szymanowicz ; inked by Andre Szymanowicz & Fabio Redivo.
“This collection tells the story of Benjamin Day, part of a generation of young people who are the first to be raised in a world where superheroes exist. Day would like nothing more than to forget his past, but his repeated scrapes with the locals are a way to express his frustration that he can’t forget his past. However, Day doesn’t just exist in the here and now. He exists here, there, and everywhere simultaneously, in a host of different dimensions. This wouldn’t normally be a problem except that now a bunch of his other selves are being systematically eliminated. If Day wants to figure things out, he’s going to have to involve himself in the world of superheroes he has thus far wanted nothing to do with.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Rebel blood / scripter, Alex Link ; art, Riley Rossmo ; plot, Alex Link and Riley Rossmo. “A virus has created a wilderness of blood-thirsty creatures standing between you and your family. You don’t know if you can save them in time, or if you’ve even got the strength to try. But you’re about to find out. In a world of ravenous creatures it doesn’t matter who you used to be. Today you’re lunch!” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Aotearoa whispers. 1, The awakening / Gonzalo Navarro ; Charisma Rangipunga, translation. “The brilliant art work by Gonzalo Navarro brings his wonderful interpretation of Maori culture and New Zealand history alive. Fiction based very much on reality.” (adapted from Book cover)

Memorial / written by Chris Roberson ; art by Rich Ellis.
“An amnesic finds herself wandering the streets of a modern city; labeled Miss Em, she has no idea she has a tie to the Everlands, a land of myths and stories ruled over by a powerful and ambitious queen, nor even that the Everlands exists. A chance encounter with the proprietor of a mysterious vanishing shop returns a valuable icon to her; this in turn makes her the subject of a hunt that will take her across worlds and end in a confrontation with her lost past.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Sailor Twain : or, the mermaid in the Hudson / Mark Siegel.
“Captain Twain recounts an episode aboard the Lorelei, a luxury steamboat on the mighty Hudson River in 1887. Life on board has Twain suspended between tending the ship and its needy passengers and barely tolerating the French cad who owns the liner and uses it as grazing ground for his sexual exploits until the night he finds a harpoon-pierced mermaid clawing her way aboard. As he secretly nurses her back to health in his cabin, Twain falls under a many-layered siren song of physical desire, creative inspiration, and emotional severance from his life on land and ailing wife at home.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Saga. [Volume one] / Brian K. Vaughan, wrter ; Fiona Staples, artist.
“Brian K. Vaughan’s new series is part bits of sciece fiction space opera and classic fantasy meshed to tell the personal story of two lovers, cleverly narrated by their newborn daughter. Both are recently soldiers from opposite sides of a massive intergalactic war, moth-winged Alana and ram-horned Marko simply want peace and anonymity to raise their daughter (an abomination to the powers that be) away from conflict and hatred.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The Carter Family : don’t forget this song : [a graphic novel] / [by Frank Young and David Lasky].
“The story of the first family of American country music. The Carters preserved an enormous body of traditional Appalachian song that affected the repertoire, attitudes, harmonies, and rhythms of country music, up to and including rock ‘n’ roll. Included is an 18-minute CD of their music.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

The shortlist for the €100,000 International I. M. P. A. C. Dublin award has been announced. Selected by the judging panel, that includes the novelists, Patrick McCabe and Shamsie Kamila, from nominations chosen by over 170 libraries from around the world; this year’s shortlist of ten novels includes five in translation. Heading the short list is Haruki Murakami’s epic novel 1Q84. Also included is Irish writer Kevin Barry’s debut novel City of Bohane.
The winner will be announced on 6th June 2013 in Dublin and if it is a translated novel the translator will receive €25,000 from the total prize money.

This year marks the bicentenary of the publication of Jane Austen’s second novel Pride and Prejudice. In her short life she produced six novels — two published posthumously — and her work has become a cornerstone of English literature. Her novels were realistic, with romantic storylines, dashing heroes, strong willed women, some social commentary and much humour. Jane Austen’s novels have influenced and inspired many great writers, including George Eliot, Mrs Gaskell, Henry James, William Makepeace Thackeray and Anthony Trollope. After 200 years, thousands of words have been written in analysis, criticism, interpretation and praise, and these novels still influence modern writers, continue to comfort repeat readers and delight new.

The past twenty years have seen many sequels written to the Austen novels, these include Emma Tennant’s Pemberley: a sequel to Pride and Prejudice was published in 1995 and The Third sister: a sequel to Sense and Sensibility by Julia Barrett was published in 1996.

There has also been a new trend using Jane Austen’s characters in murder mysteries. The most recent by the much acclaimed author P.D. James with Death Comes to Pemberley, published in 2011.

Perhaps the most amazing example of Jane Austen’s influence is shown in Helen Fielding’s novel Bridget Jones’s Diary, published in 1996. Based on several Austen novels it was the start of a new genre in popular fiction, becoming known as Chick Lit.

So after 200 years Jane Austen’s novels are still revered, provide an inspiration to and an influence on modern fiction writers. I am sure this will last another 200 years. You have come a long way baby.

Featured here are the most recent Jane Austen influenced novels received by Wellington City Libraries. Her influence has even reached speculative fiction.

The marriage plot / Jeffrey Eugenides.
“Brown University, 1982. Madeleine Hanna, dutiful English student and incurable romantic, is writing her thesis on Jane Austen and George Eliot, authors of the great marriage plots. As Madeleine studies the age-old motivations of the human heart, real life, in the form of two very different men, intervenes.” (adapted from Amazon.co.uk)

Jane vows vengeance : a novel / Michael Thomas Ford.
“Author-turned-vampire Jane Austen wants to marry Walter, but fending off her soon-to-be mother-in-law and fear of revealing her Big Secret are not making it any fun. Walter’s invitation to join colleagues on an architectural tour of Europe leads him to suggest a wedding-slash-honeymoon. The wedding party, including their friends Lucy and Ben and Walter’s mom, Miriam, and her dog, arrive in London anticipating the happy event, but it’s not to be. This is the final book in the trilogy following, Jane Bites Back and Jane Goes Batty.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

Pride and prejudice and zombies : dreadfully ever after / by Steve Hockensmith ; illustrations by Patrick Arrasmith.
“Four years after Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy marry, Fitzwilliam is infected with a zombie bite, and Elizabeth must find a rumoured antidote soon, or face beheading her beloved. This is the final novel in the trilogy following Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: a classic Regency romance and Dawn of the Dreadfuls.” (adapted from Book cover)

The Jane Austen marriage manual / Kim Izzo.
“Kate Shaw lost half of her money to a philandering ex and the rest to the economic downturn. When her work as a freelance beauty editor dries up, she decides to do what any smart, worldly woman of 40 would do, find a rich husband. Despite the protestations of her friends and family (except for her beloved grandmother) and armed with her favorite Jane Austen books for guidance, Kate fashions herself as Lady Kate of Loch Broom and travels to Palm Springs, St. Moritz, and London on the trail of a Mr Darcy.” (adapted from Syndetics summary)

My Jane Austen summer : a season in Mansfield Park / Cindy Jones.
“Caught in a cycle of loss, Jane Austen fan Lily jumps at the opportunity to travel to England to re-enact Mansfield Park. While there Lily thinks she may finally realize her dream of living in a novel. But even in England, where she is immersed in a literary festival so rich it seems Jane Austen is present, her problems find her.” (adapted from Book cover)

Mary Bennet / Jennifer Paynter.
“Mary Bennet has been long overshadowed by the beauty and charm of her older sisters, Jane and Elizabeth, and by the forwardness and cheek of her younger sisters, Kitty and Lydia. From her post in the wings of the Bennet family, Mary now watches as Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy, and Mr Wickham, glide into her sisters’ lives. While she can view these three gentlemen quite dispassionately (and, as it turns out, accurately), can she be equally clear-sighted when she finally falls in love herself?” (adapted from Book cover)

The well known fiction and screenplay writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala has died in New York aged 85 years. Born in Cologne to Polish Jewish parents, the family moved to Britain in 1939, where she received her education. In 1951 she married an Indian Parsi architect, and spent the next 64 years living in Delhi. Her first novel, To Whom She Will was published in 1955. Eleven more novels and eight collections of short stories would follow, all much acclaimed and most set in India. Her novel titled Heat and Dust, published in 1975, was the Booker Prize winner for that year. The same year she moved to New York, and began working with film makers Merchant and Ivory, as a screen writer, producing 23 screenplays, winning two Oscars for A Room with a View in 1985 and Howards End in 1992. Her last published fiction was My Nine Lives in 2004, although she completed two screenplays after with the last in 2008.

Welcome to the March Fiction newsletter. There is a great selection of new fiction novels this month covering all genres from contemporary fiction to graphic novels. Historical fiction is the feature of The ‘other genre’ novels. We are sure you will be tempted many new titles that will give many hours of exciting, enjoyable reading.

Library News

• Overdrive eBooks have a new look!
• WCL Mini – our new library app

New mysteries for March include more Scandinavian crime from Ake Edwardson & Yrsa Sigurdardóttir; the new Joe Pickett novel from C.J Box; Thomas Perry’s acclaimed new thriller; the latest in J.D Robb’s Eve Dallas series; & some cosy crime with M.C Beaton & Laura Childs….

Room no. 10 / Ake Edwardson ; translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles.
“Meticulous observation and persistent psychological analysis can find solutions that not even modern forensics can provide, as shown in Edwardson’s intricate seventh novel featuring Chief Insp. Erik Winter (after 2012’s Sail of Stone). When the body of 29-year-old Paula Ney is discovered hanging in Room 10 of Gothenburg’s sleazy Hotel Revy, an obvious murder victim, despite a mystifying suicide note, Winter recalls that 29-year-old Ellen Borge disappeared in a case involving the Hotel Revy 18 years earlier and never seen again. Painstaking police work, including endless interviews with Ney’s oddly unemotional parents, alternate with Winter’s recollections of the earlier case and the beginnings of his working relationship with Det. Insp. Fredrik Halders. The old and new investigations intertwine and merge in a fascinating fashion…” (Adapted from Syndetics summary)

The day is dark / Yrsa Sigurdardottir ; translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton.
“Yrsa Sigurdardóttir is widely regarded around the world as one of the best Nordic crime writers working today. Yrsa’s previous book in the series, Ashes to Dust, also featured lawyer and sometime sleuth Thóra Gudmundsdóttir and received rave reviews internationally. In The Day is Dark, when all contact is lost with two Icelanders working in a harsh and sparsely populated area on the coast of Greenland, Thóra is hired to uncover the fates of the missing people. When she arrives in Greenland, she discovers that these aren’t the first two to go missing. The local townspeople believe that the area is cursed, and no one wants to get involved in the case. Soon, Thora finds herself stranded in the middle of a wilderness, and the case is as frightening and hostile as the landscape itself. Chilling, unsettling, and compulsively readable, The Day is Dark is a must read for readers who are looking for the next big thing in crime fiction coming in from the cold…” (Description from Amazon.com)

Breaking point / C.J. Box.
“Bureaucracy run amok drives Wyoming construction company owner Butch Roberson to the breaking point in Box’s excellent 13th Joe Pickett novel (after 2012’s Force of Nature). When game warden Pickett investigates a cut fence between private land and public land, he comes across Roberson, who says he entered the public land to scout elk. Before leaving, Pickett delivers a friendly warning to Roberson, who resents the laws restricting his access to public land, to repair the fence. Later, Pickett learns that Roberson is the prime suspect in the killing of two armed EPA agents. Vindictive EPA regional director Juan Julio Batista, who quickly arrives on the scene, calls in a lot of manpower, while Pickett leads a team on horseback into the mountains after Roberson….Thrilling wilderness chases, chilling stories of the abuse of power, and Pickett’s indomitable frontier spirit power this explosive novel…” (Adapted from Syndetics review)

The boyfriend / Thomas Perry.
“*Starred Review* Perry is a master at multiple narrators. Here he juggles the narrative reins between PI Jack Till and hitman Joey Moreland. Till takes a case that the LAPD has given up on: the murder of a high-end prostitute whose killer seems to be targeting women of the same physical type lissome strawberry blondes working as female escorts in cities across the country. The parents of the latest victim want to find their daughter’s killer even if the police don’t, and hire Till to help. He quickly determines that the killer is more than just a john; able to ingratiate himself with the various women, he becomes their live-in boyfriend before killing them. But is there more to it than that? Is the killer using the women’s homes as a convenient hiding place while he tends to other business and then, with business concluded, murdering the women to cover his tracks?… The suspense is more intense because the characters, heroes and villains, have worked their way so far under our skin. It’s nothing new to call Perry a master of the genre, but it’s no less true for being widely acknowledged…” (Adapted from Syndetics summary)

Calculated in death / by J.D. Robb.
“In bestseller Robb’s engaging 37th Eve Dallas thriller (after 2012’s Delusion in Death), Dallas and her partner, Delia Peabody, look into the death of Marta Dickenson. Found with a broken neck at the bottom of a stairway in an Upper East Side Manhattan building, which is under renovation by a financial consultant group, Dickenson was employed as an accountant by a firm nearby. And her briefcase, containing files she had been auditing, was stolen. Confident it’s a case of murder, Dallas and her smoothly running team conduct an ever-widening probe of accountants, financial advisers, their spouses, and their lovers. Her husband, Roarke, a former hacker and now owner of his own electronics company, lends his special skills. Robb (the pen name of Nora Roberts) supplies her usual winning blend of keen investigative work, striking characterizations, and enthusiastic sex, all leavened with a fine sense of humor…” (Adapted from syndetics summary)

Death of yesterday : a Hamish Macbeth murder mystery / M.C. Beaton.
“Near the start of Beaton’s delightful 29th Hamish Macbeth mystery (after 2012’s Death of a Kingfisher), art student Morag Merrilea complains to the Scottish police sergeant about the theft of her sketchbook in a pub where she was drinking heavily one night. When Morag disappears and later turns up dead, Macbeth attempts to solve the crime, but blustery Detective Chief Superintendent Blair keeps ordering him to do the most menial tasks. Meanwhile, Macbeth’s love life has more snags than an old wool sweater, as shown by his strained relationships with Priscilla Halburton-Smythe and Elspeth Grant, not to mention his infatuation with Hannah Fleming, the sister of suspect Geordie Fleming. A second victim found by Macbeth ups the pressure and media interest…Cozy fans are in for a treat…” (Adapted from Syndetics summary)

Sweet tea revenge / Laura Childs.
“While helping her friend Delaine get ready for her wedding, Theodosia, owner of the Indigo Tea Shop, finds the dead body of the would-be groom, Douglas. In between running the shop, she asks questions and chases clues at Delaine’s request. The illegal Cuban cigars sold under the table at Douglas’ cigar shop catch the attention of local police, but Theo is focused on Douglas’ ex-wife, Simone, who is angry and impetuous. Matters are complicated by a team of television ghost hunters who bring Theo and Delaine to the site of Douglas’ death, hoping to connect with his spirit. Childs flavors an intelligent and layered mystery with colorful characters and tea history, along with recipes and resources…” (Adapted from Syndetics summary)

The boy in the snow / M. J. McGrath.
“The two-week 1,150-mile Iditarod dog sled race from near Wasilla to Nome, Alaska, forms the backdrop for McGrath’s outstanding second mystery featuring half-Caucasian, half-Inuit Edie Kiglatuk (after 2011’s White Heat). A native of Ellesmere Island, Edie comes to Alaska to help her ex-husband, Sammy Inukpuk, who’s trying to regain his self-respect by racing. In the forest outside Wasilla, Edie encounters a mysterious bear that leads her to the frozen body of a baby boy lying in the saddle of a snowmobile. Edie, a homesick, guilt-ridden “outsider in her own world,” seeks to untangle the disturbing truth behind the infant’s death, aided by her policeman friend, Derek Palliser, who’s also assisting Sammy in the race…This affecting novel should melt even the most frozen human hearts…” (Adapted from Syndetics summary)

Murder below Montparnasse / Cara Black.
“A tantalizing clue to the whereabouts of Paris PI Aimee Leduc’s mysterious mother puts a personal spin on Black’s intricate 13th mystery set in contemporary Paris (after 2012’s Murder at the Lantern Rouge). Yuri Volodya, an elderly Russian who wants to hire Aimee to protect a valuable painting, possibly a Modigliani, tells Aimee he knew her mother, Sydney, whom she hasn’t seen since Sydney abandoned her at age eight. When the painting is stolen and Yuri is later tortured and killed, the police investigate. Meanwhile, a bizarre accident sidelines Aimee’s part-time hacker helper, “cash-poor aristocrat” Saj de Rosnay. Leduc must also cope amid threats of violence without trusted computer expert Rene Friant, lured to America by a Silicon Valley firm in a lengthy, well-developed subplot…” (Adapted from Syndetics summary)

Chinua Achebe has died aged 82 in Boston. Born in 1930 in Nigeria he studied literature and medicine. After graduating he worked for the Nigeria Broadcasting Company, eventually becoming the Director. His first novel titled, Things Fall Apart was published in 1958 and has since sold 8 million copies and has been translated in 50 different languages. He went to America in 1966 and taught at the University of Massachusetts and the University of Connecticut, ending his teaching career as Professor of Africana Studies at Brown University. From his first novel he went on to have 4 other novels published, 8 collections of short stories, 6 collections of poetry, 8 works of non-fiction that include essays and political commentary, and 4 books for children. In 2007 he was awarded The Man Booker International Prize.