Preview Shelf by Janice Clauser

Library News and Notable New Books

Librarians Process New Fiction Requests - Jean Auel's "The Land of Painted Caves" brings her ice-age epic Earth's Children series to a conclusion when people are learning to work and live together in a daily life challenged by the hunt for food, surviving long journeys, and developing healing skills. Ben Kane's "The Road to Rome" recreates the Forgotten Legion of 48 B.C; you'll meet Romulus' twin sister Fabviola and read about important events happening on the Ides of March. "Nightshade" by P.C. Doherty visits 1304 A.D. in January when a very dangerous mission features an ornate cross stolen from the Templars during the Crusades. "The Law of Angels" by Cassandra Clark brings medieval Europe alive during year 1385 in York, England. Large print versions of these three stories are also available.

"Though Not Dead" by Dana Stabenow is a Kate Shugak novel (for those who might have read her other 17 in the series). The map of Alaska's largest National Park will help readers follow Kate as she hunts for a murdered man's father, a hunt that helps explain major historical events in Alaska's history. "Mystery" by Jonathan Kellerman is an Alex Delaware piece; this time we're in Los Angeles where Alex finds himself drawn into a twisting, shadowy whodunit as a hotel in Beverly Hills is closing, and it’s "last" gathering includes a "striking young woman" who, we find, dies two days later.

Michael Connelly's "The Fifth Witness" is a new story in his Lincoln Lawyer series; a criminal defense lawyer accepts a client accused of killing the banker she blames for trying to take away her home, so suspense builds immediately. We also have a new Rita Mae Brown/ Sneaky Pie (cat) Brown mystery called "Hiss of Death" in which pet accomplices aid in the solution of the 19th murder, this time in a hospital.

But we're not done with mysteries. Erin Brockovich offers a debut thriller "Rock Bottom" in a new series featuring environmental plots (surprise!) this time mountaintop removal mining.

"The Silver Boat" by Luanne Rice is about three sisters meeting to say good-bye to the family beach home on Martha's Vineyard. "I'll Walk Alone" is Mary Higgins Clark's look at identity theft in Manhattan. A quilted frontispiece decorates Susan Wiggs' "The Goodbye Quilt" story, which tells how mother/daughter closeness needs not cease when the daughter is grown.

Danielle Steel's "44 Charles Street" shows a magical transformation in a turn-of-the-century house in Manhattan's West Village where strangers become roommates, roommates become friends, and friends become a family. "The Sixth Man" by David Baldacci features defense attorneys challenged when it looks like their subject killed a lawyer helping his case. The highest levels of government are involved in "A Heartbeat Away". Michael Palmer's plot involves a virus inserted in the Capitol Building on the night of the President's State of the Union address. "On Borrowed Time", David Rosenfelt's story of an ordinary man trapped in a nightmare after his fiancée disappears. "Quicksilver" is book two in the Looking Glass Trilogy by Amanda Quick in which a Victorian "glass-reader" and a psychic investigator play a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as a killer plots to trap them.
Carol Edgarian's "Three Stages of Amazement" studies two divergent couples in San Francisco, one at the top of the hill as Silicon Valley titans the other, "below", estranged from these relatives and struggling.