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Week of March 28, 2022

New in Paperback

Week of March 28, 2022

Paperback releases for the week of March 29th include BLIND TIGER by Sandra Brown, a rousing and suspenseful novel set in the year 1920, when Prohibition is the new law of the land --- but murder, mayhem, lust and greed are already institutions in the Moonshine Capital of Texas; GOOD COMPANY, Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney's warm and incisive novel about the enduring bonds of marriage and friendship; THE FINAL TWIST, Jeffery Deaver’s third thriller starring Colter Shaw, which finds the expert tracker taking on his most personal case to date --- a mission that his father began years ago; EVERYTHING BEAUTIFUL IN ITS TIME, in which Jenna Bush Hager shares moving, funny stories about her beloved grandparents and the wisdom they passed on that has shaped her life; and TOM STOPPARD, Hermione Lee's absorbing biography of one of our greatest living playwrights, which draws on a wealth of new materials and many conversations with him.

Beeswing: Losing My Way and Finding My Voice 1967-1975 by Richard Thompson with Scott Timberg - Memoir

March 29, 2022

Known for his brilliant songwriting, his extraordinary guitar playing and his haunting voice, Richard Thompson is considered one of the top 20 guitarists of all time, in the songwriting pantheon alongside Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Randy Newman. Now, in his long-awaited memoir, the British folk musician takes us back to the late 1960s, a period of great change and creativity --- both for him and for the world at large.

Black Ice by Brad Thor - Political Thriller

March 29, 2022

Scot Harvath is having his best summer ever. With a cottage on the fjord, a boat and his beautiful girlfriend Sølvi, he has everything he could possibly want. But out of vacation days and long overdue back home, America’s top spy has a decision to make --- return, or submit his resignation. When his deadly past comes calling, though, he’ll be left with no choice at all. Leaving his favorite Oslo café, Harvath watches as a ghost climbs out of a taxi --- a man he killed years ago, halfway around the world. How is he still alive? And what is he doing in Norway? In a race against time that will take him high above the Arctic Circle, Harvath will be tested in ways he has never imagined and pushed to a limit few human beings could ever endure.

Blind Tiger by Sandra Brown - Historical Thriller

March 29, 2022

On the day that Thatcher Hutton, a war-weary soldier, arrives in Foley, Texas, a local woman goes missing. Thatcher, the only stranger in town, is suspected of her abduction, and worse. Standing between him and exoneration are a corrupt mayor, a crooked sheriff, a notorious cathouse madam, a sly bootlegger, feuding moonshiners…and a young widow whose soft features conceal an iron will. What was supposed to be a fresh start for Laurel Plummer turns to tragedy. Left destitute but determined to dictate her own future, Laurel plunges into the lucrative regional industry, much to the dislike of the good ol’ boys, who have ruled supreme. Her success quickly makes her a target for cutthroat competitors, whose only code of law is reprisal.

Cheated: The Inside Story of the Astros Scandal and a Colorful History of Sign Stealing by Andy Martino - Sports

March 29, 2022

By the fall of 2019, most teams in Major League Baseball suspected that the Houston Astros, winners of the 2017 World Series, had been stealing signs for several years. Deconstructing exactly what happened in this explosive story, award-winning sports reporter and analyst Andy Martino reveals how otherwise good people like Astros manager A. J. Hinch, bench coach Alex Cora and veteran leader Carlos Beltrán found themselves on the wrong side of clear ethical lines. Along the way, Martino explores the colorful history of cheating in baseball, from notorious episodes like the 1919 “Black Sox” fiasco all the way to the modern steroid era. But as Martino deftly shows, the Astros scandal became one of the most significant that the game has ever seen.

The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo - Historical Fantasy

March 29, 2022

Jordan Baker grows up in the most rarefied circles of 1920s American society. She has money, education, a killer golf handicap, and invitations to some of the most exclusive parties of the Jazz Age. She’s also queer and Asian, a Vietnamese adoptee treated as an exotic attraction by her peers, while the most important doors remain closed to her. But the world is full of wonders: infernal pacts and dazzling illusions, lost ghosts and elemental mysteries. In all paper is fire, and Jordan can burn the cut paper heart out of a man. She just has to learn how.

Comes the War by Ed Ruggero - Historical Thriller

March 29, 2022

April 1944, the 55th month of the war in Europe. The entire island of Britain fairly buzzes with the coiled energy of a million men poised to leap the Channel to France, the first, riskiest step in the Allies’ long slog to the heart of Germany and the end of the war. Lieutenant Eddie Harkins is tasked to investigate the murder of Helen Batcheller, an OSS analyst. Harkins is assigned a British driver, Private Pamela Lowell, to aid in his investigation. Soon a suspect is arrested, and Harkins is ordered to stop digging. Suspicious, he continues his investigation only to find himself trapped in a web of Soviet secrets. As bombs fall, Harkins must solve the murder and reveal the spies before it is too late.

The Committed by Viet Thanh Nguyen - Literary Thriller

March 29, 2022

THE COMMITTED follows the man of two minds as he arrives in Paris in the early 1980s with his blood brother, Bon. The pair try to overcome their pasts and ensure their futures by engaging in capitalism in one of its purest forms: drug dealing. Traumatized by his reeducation at the hands of his former best friend, Man, and struggling to assimilate into French culture, the Sympathizer finds Paris both seductive and disturbing. As he falls in with a group of left-wing intellectuals whom he meets at dinner parties given by his French Vietnamese “aunt,” he finds stimulation for his mind but also customers for his narcotic merchandise. But the new life he is making has perils he has not foreseen, and he will need all his wits, resourcefulness and moral flexibility if he is to prevail.

Everything Beautiful in Its Time: Seasons of Love and Loss by Jenna Bush Hager - Memoir/Essays

March 29, 2022

To the world, George and Barbara Bush were America’s powerful president and influential first lady. To Jenna Bush Hager, they were her beloved Gampy and Ganny, who taught her about respect, humility, kindness, and living a life of passion and meaning. Now the mother of three young children, Jenna pays homage to her grandparents in this collection of heartwarming, intimate personal essays. She reflects on the single year in which she and her family lost Barbara and George H. W. Bush, and her maternal grandmother, Jenna Welch. At the same time, she reveals how they navigated this difficult period with grace, faith and nostalgic humor, uplifted by their grandparents’ sage advice and incomparable spirits.

The Family Plot by Megan Collins - Psychological Thriller

March 29, 2022

Raised in a secluded island mansion deep in the woods and kept isolated by her true crime-obsessed parents, Dahlia Lighthouse is unable to move beyond the disappearance of her twin brother, Andy, when they were 16. After several years away and following her father’s death, Dahlia returns to the house, where the family makes a gruesome discovery: buried in their father’s plot is another body --- Andy’s, his skull split open with an ax. Dahlia is quick to blame Andy’s murder on the serial killer who terrorized the island for decades, while the rest of her family reacts to the revelation in unsettling ways. As Dahlia grapples with her own grief and horror, she realizes that her eccentric family, and the mansion itself, may hold the answers to what happened to her twin.

The Final Twist: A Colter Shaw Novel by Jeffery Deaver - Thriller

March 29, 2022

Colter Shaw finds himself in San Francisco, where he has taken on the mission his father began years ago: finding a missing courier bag containing evidence that will bring down a corporate espionage firm responsible for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of deaths. Following the enigmatic clues his father left behind, Shaw plays cat and mouse with the company's sadistic enforcers, as he speeds from one gritty neighborhood in the City by the Bay to another. Suddenly, the job takes on a frightening urgency: Only by finding the courier bag can he expose the company and stop the murder of an entire family, slated to die in 48 hours. With the help of an unexpected figure from his past, Shaw narrows in on the truth --- and learns that the bag contains a secret that could only be described as catastrophic.

Four Aunties and a Wedding by Jesse Q. Sutanto - Fiction/Humor

March 29, 2022

Meddy Chan can't wait to marry her college sweetheart, Nathan. Instead of having Ma and the aunts cater to her wedding, she wants them to enjoy the day as guests. As a compromise, they find the perfect wedding vendors: a Chinese-Indonesian family-run company just like theirs. Meddy is hesitant at first, but she hits it off right away with the wedding photographer, Staphanie, who reminds Meddy of herself, down to the unfortunately misspelled name. But Meddy realizes that is where their similarities end when she overhears Staphanie talking about taking out a target. Horrified, Meddy can’t believe Staphanie and her family are the actual mafia, and they're using Meddy's wedding as a chance to conduct shady business.

Good Company by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney - Fiction

March 29, 2022

Flora Mancini has been happily married for more than 20 years. But everything she thought she knew about herself, her marriage and her relationship with her best friend, Margot, is upended when she stumbles upon an envelope containing her husband’s wedding ring --- the one he claimed he lost one summer when their daughter, Ruby, was five. Flora and Julian struggled for years, scraping together just enough acting work to raise Ruby in Manhattan and keep Julian’s small theater company --- Good Company --- afloat. A move to Los Angeles brought their first real career successes and a reunion with Margot, now a bona fide television star. But has their new life been built on lies? What happened that summer all those years ago? And what happens now?

The House of Always by Jenn Lyons - Fantasy

March 29, 2022

In the aftermath of the Ritual of Night, everything has changed. The Eight Immortals have catastrophically failed to stop Kihrin's enemies, who are moving forward with their plans to free Vol Karoth, the King of Demons. Kihrin has his own ideas about how to fight back, but even if he's willing to sacrifice everything for victory, the cost may prove too high for his allies. Now they face a choice: Can they save the world while saving Kihrin, too? Or will they be forced to watch as he becomes the very evil they have all sworn to destroy.

Ice and Stone: A Sharon McCone Mystery by Marcia Muller - Mystery

March 29, 2022

When the bodies of two Indigenous women are found in the wilderness of northern California, it is only the latest horrific development in a string of similar crimes in the area. Despite all evidence to the contrary, officials rule the deaths isolated incidents, which soon join the ranks of countless other unsolved cases quickly dismissed by law enforcement. In a town where too many injustices are tolerated or brushed under the rug, only a few people remain who refuse to let a killer walk free. But Private Investigator Sharon McCone is one of those few. She is hired by an organization called Crimes Against Indigenous Sisters to go undercover in Meruk County --- a community rife with secrets, lies and corruption --- to expose the truth.

Inferno: A Memoir of Motherhood and Madness by Catherine Cho - Memoir

March 29, 2022

When Catherine Cho and her husband set off from London to introduce their newborn son to family scattered across the United States, she could not have imagined what lay in store. Before the trip’s end, she develops psychosis, a complete break from reality, which causes her to lose all sense of time and place, including what is real and not real. In desperation, her husband James admits her to a nearby psychiatric hospital, where she begins the hard work of rebuilding her identity. In INFERNO, Catherine reconstructs her sense of self, starting with her childhood as the daughter of Korean immigrants, moving through a traumatic past relationship, and on to the early years of her courtship with and marriage to James.

Island of Thieves by Glen Erik Hamilton - Thriller

March 29, 2022

Van Shaw is hired to evaluate the safeguards for the art collection of eccentric business magnate Sebastien Rohner. Then Rohner reveals to Van the real reason he’s been recruited: to prevent another professional burglar from stealing the art. While questioning the bizarre nature of the job, Van accepts the lucrative offer and arrives at the island estate during an international summit that Rohner is hosting. Shortly after beginning his surveillance of Rohner’s highly secure gallery wing, he stumbles across the murdered body of one of the honored guests. Van knows that the homicide detectives on the case think he’s the prime suspect. To clear his name, he will have to uncover the hidden motive of corporate espionage at a global level, even with a band of killers on his tail.

The Kobalt Dossier: An Evan Ryder Novel by Eric Van Lustbader - Thriller/Adventure

March 29, 2022

After thwarting the violent, international, fascist syndicate known as Nemesis, Evan Ryder returns to Washington, D.C., to find her secret division of the DOD shut down and her deceased sister’s children missing. Now the target of a cabal of American billionaires who were among Nemesis’s supporters, Evan and her former boss, Ben Butler, must learn to work together as partners --- and navigate their intricate past. Their search will take them from Istanbul to Odessa to an ancient church deep within the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. And all along the way, an unimaginable enemy stalks in the shadows, an adversary whose secretive past will upend Evan’s entire world and everything she holds dear.

A Man at Arms by Steven Pressfield - Historical Fiction

March 29, 2022

Jerusalem and the Sinai desert, first century AD. In the turbulent aftermath of the crucifixion of Jesus, officers of the Roman Empire acquire intelligence of a pilgrim bearing an incendiary letter from a religious fanatic to insurrectionists in Corinth. The content of this letter could bring down the empire. The Romans hire a former legionary, the solitary man-at-arms, Telamon of Arcadia, to intercept the letter and capture its courier. Telamon operates by a dark code all his own, with no room for noble causes or lofty beliefs. But once he overtakes the courier, something happens that neither he nor the empire could have predicted.

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones - Supernatural Thriller/Horror

March 29, 2022

Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies…especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.

Nine Lives by Danielle Steel - Fiction

March 29, 2022

After a carefree childhood, Mary Margaret Kelly came of age in the shadow of grief. Her father, a dashing daredevil Air Force pilot, died when she was nine, and she saw her mother struggle to put their lives back together. Maggie married a dependable, kind man who was a reliable husband and successful accountant. Together they had a son and found happiness in a conventional suburban life. Until tragedy struck. Now on her own, Maggie decides to face her fears, setting off on a whirlwind trip. But when her travels reconnect her with the very same irresistible, thrill-seeking man she has spent 30 years trying to forget, Maggie becomes terrified that rushing into love and sharing his life may very well end in disaster.

Robert B. Parker's Payback: A Sunny Randall Novel by Mike Lupica - Mystery

March 29, 2022

PI Sunny Randall has often relied on the help of her best friend, Spike, in times of need. When Spike's restaurant is taken over under a predatory loan agreement, Sunny has a chance to return the favor. She begins digging into the life of the hedge fund manager who screwed Spike over, and soon finds this new enemy may have the backing of even badder criminals. At the same time, Sunny's cop contact Lee Farrell asks her to intervene with his niece, a college student who reported being the victim of a crime but seems to know more than she's telling police. What appear to be two disparate cases are united by a common factor, and the picture becomes even more muddled.

Sea Storm by Andrew Mayne - Thriller/Adventure

March 29, 2022

A distress call draws rescuers Sloan McPherson and the Underwater Investigation Unit to a cruise ship off the coast of Fort Lauderdale that’s sinking from a mysterious explosion. When it appears to be the work of an ecoterrorist and other ships are threatened, it becomes a race against time. More clues are discovered, and evidence is in danger of being washed away by a coming tropical storm. Sloan grows concerned that key details are being ignored, and a strange lack of urgency by authorities sets off alarms. As the troubling questions compound, Sloan is determined to chase down every lead she has. Her persistence is getting her closer to the truth: that there’s something far more troubling at play than the official explanation. It’s also putting Sloan on a collision course with an enemy more powerful than she realizes.

Tell No Lies by Allison Brennan - Mystery/Thriller

March 29, 2022

Something mysterious is killing the wildlife in the mountains just south of Tucson. When a college intern turned activist sets out to collect her own evidence, she, too, ends up dead. Local law enforcement is slow to get involved. That’s when the mobile FBI unit goes undercover to infiltrate the town and its copper refinery in search of possible leads. Detective Kara Quinn and FBI agent Matt Costa find themselves scouring the desolate landscape, which keeps revealing clues to something much darker. As the body count adds up, it’s clear they have stumbled onto much more than they bargained for. Now they must figure out who is at the heart of this mayhem and stop them before more innocent lives are lost.

Tom Clancy Target Acquired: A Jack Ryan Jr. Novel by Don Bentley - Thriller/Adventure

March 29, 2022

Jack Ryan, Jr. would do anything for Ding Chavez. That's why he is currently sitting in an open-air market in Israel, helping a CIA team with a simple job. The man running the mission, Peter Beltz, is an old friend from Ding's Army days. Ding hadn't seen his friend since Peter's transfer to the CIA 18 months prior, and intended to use the assignment to reconnect. Unfortunately, Ding had to cancel at the last minute and asked Jack to take his place. It's a cushy assignment --- a trip to Israel in exchange for a couple hours of easy work --- but Jack could use the downtime after his last operation. Jack is here merely as an observer, but when he hastens to help a woman and her young son, he finds himself the target of trained killers.

Tom Stoppard: A Life by Hermione Lee - Biography

March 29, 2022

Tom Stoppard is a towering and beloved literary figure. Known for his dizzying narrative inventiveness and intense attention to language, he deftly deploys art, science, history, politics and philosophy in works that span a remarkable spectrum of literary genres: theater, radio, film, TV, journalism and fiction. His most acclaimed creations --- "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead," "The Real Thing," "Arcadia," "The Coast of Utopia," "Shakespeare in Love" --- remain as fresh and moving as when they entranced their first audiences. Hermione Lee's absorbing biography seamlessly weaves Stoppard's life and work together into a vivid, insightful and always riveting portrait of a remarkable man.

Welcome to the School by the Sea: The First School by the Sea Novel by Jenny Colgan - Fiction

March 29, 2022

Maggie, the newest teacher at Downey House, is determined to make her mark. She’s delighted by her new teaching job, but will it come at the expense of her relationship with her safe, dependable boyfriend, Stan? Simone is excited and nervous: she has won a scholarship to the prestigious boarding school and wants to make her parents proud. Forced to share a room with the glossy, posh girls of Downey House, she needs to find a friend, fast. Fliss is furious. She has never wanted to go to boarding school and hates being sent away from her home. As Simone tries desperately to fit in, Fliss tries desperately to get out. Over the course of one year, friendships will bloom and lives will be changed forever.

Whereabouts by Jhumpa Lahiri - Fiction

March 29, 2022

Jhumpa Lahiri’s narrator, a woman questioning her place in the world, wavers between stasis and movement, between the need to belong and the refusal to form lasting ties. The city she calls home acts as a companion and interlocutor. We follow her to the pool she frequents, and to the train station that leads to her mother, who is mired in her own solitude after her husband’s untimely death. Among those who appear on this woman’s path are colleagues with whom she feels ill at ease, casual acquaintances, and “him,” a shadow who both consoles and unsettles her. Until one day at the sea, both overwhelmed and replenished by the sun’s vital heat, her perspective will abruptly change.