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Week of May 11, 2020

New in Paperback

Week of May 11, 2020

Paperback releases for the week of May 11th include James Patterson's CRISS CROSS, in which a mysterious serial killer known as "M" launches a deranged "investigation," forcing Alex Cross and his partner, John Sampson, to unearth long-forgotten secrets to survive --- or risk getting buried themselves; THE TURN OF THE KEY, a thrilling novel from Ruth Ware that explores the dark side of technology; SOMEONE WE KNOW by Shari Lapena, a domestic work of suspense that has two intriguing taglines: Maybe you don't know your neighbors as well as you thought you did and You never really know what people are capable of; THE FRIENDS WE KEEP, a heartwarming novel from Jane Green that traces a long friendship among three individuals who grow apart and then surprisingly find one another again; and DAD'S MAYBE BOOK, in which Tim O’Brien shares wisdom from a life in letters, lessons learned in wartime, and the challenges, humor and rewards of raising two sons.

A Bend in the Stars by Rachel Barenbaum - Historical Fiction

May 12, 2020

In Russia, in the summer of 1914, as war with Germany looms and the Czar's army tightens its grip on the local Jewish community, Miri Abramov and her brilliant physicist brother, Vanya, are facing an impossible decision. With fierce, headstrong Miri on the verge of becoming one of Russia's only female surgeons, and Vanya hoping to solve the final puzzles of Einstein's elusive theory of relativity, can they bear to leave the homeland that has given them so much? Before they have time to make their choice, war is declared and Vanya goes missing, along with Miri's fiancé. Miri braves the firing squad to go looking for them both. Not only the safety of Miri's own family but the future of science itself hangs in the balance.

Criss Cross by James Patterson - Psychological Thriller

May 12, 2020

In a Virginia penitentiary, Alex Cross and his partner, John Sampson, witness the execution of a killer they helped convict. Hours later, they are called to the scene of a copycat crime. A note signed "M" rests on the corpse. "You messed up big time, Dr. Cross." Was an innocent man just put to death? Alex soon realizes he may have much to answer for, as "M" lures the detective out of the capital to the sites of multiple homicides, all marked with distressingly familiar details --- details that conjure up decades-old cases. Details that conjure up Cross family secrets. Details that make clear that M is after a prize so dear that --- were the killer to attain it --- Alex's heart would no longer have reason to beat.

Dad's Maybe Book by Tim O’Brien - Memoir

May 12, 2020

In 2003, already an older father, Tim O’Brien resolved to give his young sons what he wished his own father had given to him --- a few scraps of paper signed “Love, Dad.” Maybe a word of advice. Maybe some scattered glimpses of their rapidly aging father, a man they might never really know. For the next 15 years, the author talked to his sons on paper, as if they were adults, imagining what they might want to hear from a father who was no longer among the living. O’Brien traverses the great variety of human experience and emotion, moving from soccer games to warfare to risqué lullabies, from alcoholism to magic shows to history lessons to bittersweet bedtime stories, but always returning to a father’s soul-saving love for his sons.

The Farmer's Son: Calving Season on a Family Farm by John Connell - Memoir

May 12, 2020

Farming has been in John Connell's family for generations, but he never intended to follow in his father's footsteps. Until, one winter, after more than a decade away, he finds himself back on the farm. Connell records the hypnotic rhythm of the farming day --- cleaning the barns, caring for the herd, tending to sickly lambs, helping the cows give birth. Alongside the routine events, there are the unforeseen moments when things go wrong: when a calf fails to thrive, when a sheep goes missing, when illness breaks out, when an argument between father and son erupts and things are said that cannot be unsaid.

The Friends We Keep by Jane Green - Fiction

May 12, 2020

Evvie, Maggie and Topher have known one another since college. Now years have passed, the friends have drifted apart, and they never found the lives they wanted. Evvie starved herself to become a supermodel but derailed her career by sleeping with a married man. Maggie married Ben, the boy she fell in love with in college, never imagining the heartbreak his drinking would cause. Topher became a successful actor, but the shame of a childhood secret shut him off from real intimacy. By their 30th reunion, these old friends have lost touch with one another and with the people they dreamed of becoming. Together again, they have a second chance at happiness...until a dark secret is revealed that changes everything.

Glorious Boy by Aimee Liu - Historical Fiction

May 12, 2020

It’s 1942. The Japanese have invaded Burma and are closing in on India. After five years in the remote Andaman Islands, aspiring anthropologist Claire Durant and her husband Shep, a civil surgeon, must evacuate with their beloved but mysteriously mute four-year-old, Ty. However, they cannot take Naila, the local girl whose ability to communicate with Ty has made them dangerously dependent on her. The morning of the evacuation, both children disappear. With time running out, Shep forces Claire onto the ship while he stays behind to find their son. But just days after landing in Calcutta, Claire learns that the Japanese have taken the Andamans --- and cut off all access to her missing family. In the desperate odyssey that follows, Claire, Shep and Naila will take unimaginable risks while drawing deeply from their knowledge of these unique islands to save their beloved “glorious boy.”

How to Bury Your Brother by Lindsey Rogers Cook - Mystery

May 12, 2020

Alice always thought she'd see her brother again. Rob ran away when he was 15, with so many years left to find his way home. But his funeral happened first. Now that she has to clear out her childhood home in Georgia, the memories come flooding in, bringing with them an autopsy report showing her family's lies --- and sealed, addressed letters from Rob. In a search for answers to questions she's always been afraid to ask, Alice delivers the letters. Each dares her to open her eyes to her family's dark past --- and her own role in it. But it's the last letter, addressed to her brother's final home in New Orleans, that will force her to choose if she'll let the secrets break her or finally bring her home.

Killer's Choice by Louis Begley - Thriller

May 12, 2020

With the death of his nemesis, corrupt business mogul Abner Brown, retired Marine infantry officer Jack Dana can finally return to his peaceful career as a novelist. And after falling hard for Heidi Krohn, the glamorous high-powered lawyer who helped avenge his best friend’s death, Jack dreams of starting a family of his own. But dark forces intervene to upend Jack’s comfortable new life when two of his uncle Harry’s closest friends are brutally murdered in their own home. Quickly it becomes clear that these murders are a message, sent by a shadowy criminal Jack comes to call “the Monster.” His warning to Jack: a fate even more cruel awaits you. Indeed, despite the best-laid precautions, there seems to be no escape when Heidi and her nephew are kidnapped.

My Kind of People by Lisa Duffy - Fiction

May 12, 2020

On Ichabod Island, a jagged strip of land 13 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, 10-year-old Sky becomes an orphan for the second time after a tragic accident claims the lives of her adoptive parents. Grieving the death of his best friends, Leo’s life is turned upside down when he finds himself the guardian of young Sky. Back on the island and struggling to balance his new responsibilities and his marriage to his husband, Leo is supported by a powerful community of neighbors, many of them harboring secrets of their own.

Once More We Saw Stars: A Memoir of Life and Love After Unimaginable Loss by Jayson Greene - Memoir

May 12, 2020

Two-year-old Greta Greene is sitting with her grandmother on a park bench on the Upper West Side of Manhattan when a brick crumbles from a windowsill overhead, falls and strikes her unconscious. She is immediately rushed to the hospital. Jayson Greene’s memoir begins with this event and with the anguish he and his wife, Stacy, confront in the wake of their daughter’s trauma and the hours leading up to her death. But ONCE MORE WE SAW STARS quickly becomes a narrative that is as much about hope and healing as it is about grief and loss. Jayson recognizes, even in the midst of his ordeal, that there will be a life for him beyond it --- that if only he can continue moving forward, from one moment to the next, he will survive what seems unsurvivable.

The Porpoise by Mark Haddon - Fiction

May 12, 2020

In THE PORPOISE, Mark Haddon calls upon narratives ancient and modern to tell the story of Angelica, a young woman trapped in an abusive relationship with her father. When a young man named Darius discovers their secret, he is forced to escape on a boat bound for the Mediterranean. To his surprise, he finds himself traveling backwards over 2,000 years to a world of pirates and shipwrecks, of plagues and miracles and angry gods. Moving seamlessly between the past and the present, Haddon conjures the worlds of Angelica and her would-be savior in thrilling fashion.

Someone We Know by Shari Lapena - Psychological Thriller

May 12, 2020

In a quiet, leafy suburb in upstate New York, a teenager has been sneaking into houses --- and into the owners' computers as well --- learning their secrets, and maybe sharing some of them, too. Who is he, and what might he have uncovered? After two anonymous letters are received, whispers start to circulate, and suspicion mounts. And when a woman down the street is found murdered, the tension reaches the breaking point. Who killed her? Who knows more than they're telling? And how far will all these very nice people go to protect their own secrets? In this neighborhood, it's not just the husbands and wives who play games. Here, everyone in the family has something to hide.

The Summer Set by Aimee Agresti - Fiction

May 12, 2020

Charlie Savoy was once Hollywood’s hottest A-lister. Now, 10 years later, she’s pushing 40, exiled from the film world, and back at the summer Shakespeare theater in the Berkshires that launched her career --- and where her old flame, Nick, is the artistic director. It’s not exactly her first choice. But as parts are cast and rehearsals begin, Charlie is surprised to find herself getting her groove back, bonding with celebrity actors, forging unexpected new friendships, and even reigniting her spark with Nick, who still seems to bring out the best in her despite their complicated history. Until Charlie’s old rival, Hollywood’s current It Girl, is brought on set, threatening to undo everything she’s built.

The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow - Historical Fantasy/Magical Realism

May 12, 2020

In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored and utterly out of place. Then she finds a strange book --- a book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world, and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.

This Is How I Lied by Heather Gudenkauf - Psychological Thriller

May 12, 2020

Twenty-five years ago, the body of 16-year-old Eve Knox was found in the caves near her home in small-town Grotto, Iowa --- discovered by her best friend, Maggie, and her sister, Nola. There were a handful of suspects, including her boyfriend, Nick, but without sufficient evidence the case ultimately went cold. For decades Maggie was haunted by Eve’s death and that horrible night. Now a detective in Grotto, and seven months pregnant, she is thrust back into the past when a new piece of evidence surfaces and the case is reopened. As Maggie investigates and reexamines the clues, secrets about what really happened begin to emerge. But someone in town knows more than they’re letting on, and they’ll stop at nothing to keep the truth buried deep.

Those People by Louise Candlish - Psychological Thriller

May 12, 2020

Lowland Way is the suburban dream. The houses are beautiful, the neighbors get along, and the kids play together on weekends. But when Darren and Jodie move into the house on the corner, they donʼt follow the rules. They blast music at all hours, begin an unsightly renovation, and run a used-car business from their yard. It doesn’t take long for an all-out war to start brewing. Then, early one Saturday, a horrific death shocks the street. As police search for witnesses, accusations start flying --- and everyone has something to hide.

The Turn of the Key by Ruth Ware - Psychological Thriller

May 12, 2020

When she stumbles across the ad, she’s looking for something else completely. But it seems like too good an opportunity to miss --- a live-in nannying post, with a staggeringly generous salary. And when Rowan Caine arrives at Heatherbrae House, she is smitten --- by the luxurious “smart” home fitted out with all modern conveniences, by the beautiful Scottish Highlands, and by this picture-perfect family. What she doesn’t know is that she’s stepping into a nightmare --- one that will end with a child dead and herself in prison awaiting trial for murder. Writing to her lawyer from prison, she struggles to explain the unraveling events that led to her incarceration.

War and Peace: FDR's Final Odyssey: D-Day to Yalta, 1943-1945 by Nigel Hamilton - History

May 12, 2020

Nigel Hamilton's celebrated trilogy culminates with a story of triumph and tragedy. Just as FDR was proven right by the D-Day landings he had championed, so was he found to be mortally ill in the spring of 1944. He was the architect of a victorious peace that he would not live to witness. Using hitherto unpublished documents and interviews, Hamilton rewrites the famous account of World War II strategy given by Winston Churchill in his memoirs. Seventy-five years after the D-Day landings, we finally get to see, close-up and in dramatic detail, who was responsible for rescuing, and insisting upon, the great American-led invasion of France in June 1944, and why the invasion was led by Eisenhower.

What Lies Between Us by John Marrs - Psychological Thriller

May 15, 2020

They say every house has its secrets, and the house that Maggie and Nina have shared for so long is no different. Except that these secrets are not buried in the past. Every other night, Maggie and Nina have dinner together. When they are finished, Nina helps Maggie back to her room in the attic, and into the heavy chain that keeps her there. Because Maggie has done things to Nina that can’t ever be forgiven, and now she is paying the price. But there are many things about the past that Nina doesn’t know, and Maggie is going to keep it that way --- even if it kills her. Because in this house, the truth is more dangerous than lies.