Adult

A dismembered corpse is discovered in the vault of a silver shop. The police initially believe it to be that of a convicted armed robber --- but not everyone agrees with that theory. One of them is Decima Mullins, who calls on the help of private detective Cormoran Strike as she's certain the body in the silver vault was that of her boyfriend --- the father of her newborn baby --- who suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. The more Strike and his business partner, Robin Ellacott, delve into the case, the more labyrinthine it gets. The silver shop is no ordinary one: it's located beside Freemasons' Hall and specializes in Masonic silverware. And in addition to the armed robber and Decima's boyfriend, it becomes clear that there are other missing men who could fit the profile of the body in the vault.

In the early 2000s in Chicago, six young men start high school. Though they’ve been friends since boyhood, their high school years set them on new paths: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan begin, along with the protests against them; Ryan falls in love but struggles to hold onto it; and he and the others learn to lose themselves in alcohol. With each passing year --- as they enter college or the military, then the world beyond; form new relationships with partners and children; and navigate shifting loyalties to a changing country --- the narrator feels the group breaking further apart and finds himself asking: What does it mean to move forward, both with and without one another?

The Civil War might be over, but formerly enslaved Coleman and June have yet to find the freedom they’ve been promised. Two years ago, the siblings were separated when their old master, Mr. Harper, took June away to Mexico. Coleman stayed behind in Louisiana, clinging to the hope that one day June would return. When an unexpected letter from Mr. Harper arrives, summoning Coleman to Mexico, Coleman thinks that finally his prayers have been answered. What Coleman cannot know is the tangled truth of June’s tribulations under Mr. Harper out on the frontier. And when disaster strikes Coleman’s journey, he is forced on the run with Mr. Harper's daughter, Florence. Together, they venture into the Mexican desert to find June, all the while evading two crooked brothers who will stop at nothing to capture Coleman and Florence and collect the money they're owed. 

Kamran Esfahani, a dentist living in Stockholm, agrees to spy for the Mossad after he’s recruited by the chief of a unit tasked with running assassinations inside Iran. At Glitzman’s direction, Kam returns Tehran and opens a dental practice there, using it as a cover for the Israeli intelligence agency. But when Kam tries to recruit an Iranian widow seeking to avenge the death of her husband at the hands of the Mossad, the operation goes terribly wrong, landing him in prison under a sadistic officer called “General.” After enduring three years of torture in captivity, Kamran Esfahani sits in an interrogation room across from the General, preparing to write his final confession. Kam knows it is too late to save himself. But he has managed to keep one secret, and he just might be able to save that. 

Five members of a billionaire’s family. In different locations. All kidnapped at the same moment. Two children taken from a private-school bus. A film producer and a movie star grabbed at a hideaway resort. A beautiful wife whisked off the streets of Beverly Hills. A patriarch wants his family back. The cash, gold, jewels and crypto are all ready. There’s only one problem: a brilliant, very stubborn FBI agent. Special Agent Nicky Gordon doesn’t want to pay the kidnappers. Not a dime.

Published on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding --- the anniversary, too, of the first state constitutions --- WE THE PEOPLE offers a wholly new history of the Constitution. Although nearly 12,000 amendments have been introduced in Congress since 1789, and thousands more have been proposed outside its doors, only 27 have ever been ratified. More troubling, the Constitution has not been meaningfully amended since 1971. Without recourse to amendment, she argues, the risk of political violence rises. So does the risk of constitutional change by presidential or judicial fiat. Challenging both the Supreme Court’s monopoly on constitutional interpretation and the flawed theory of “originalism,” Lepore contends that the philosophy of amendment is foundational to American constitutionalism.

The body is the most complex machine in the world, and the only one for which you cannot get a replacement part from the manufacturer. For centuries, medicine has reached for what’s available --- sculpting noses from brass, borrowing skin from frogs and hearts from pigs, crafting eye parts from jet canopies and breasts from petroleum by-products. Today we’re attempting to grow body parts from scratch using stem cells and 3D printers. Mary Roach explores the remarkable advances and difficult questions prompted by the human body’s failings.

After making his debut in 1997’s THE KILLING FLOOR, Jack Reacher has quickly become one of the most popular --- and most enduring --- fictional heroes to emerge in the past half century. Now, his creator tells the stories behind the stories. These are the origin tales of all of the Reacher novels written solely by Lee Child, chock full of colorful anecdotes and intriguing inspirations. One by one, they expand upon each novel and place it in the context not only of the author’s life, but of the world outside the books. And taken together, they chart the rise of an action icon, from 1999’s THE KILLING FLOOR to 2019’s BLUE MOON. An afterword by crime fiction expert and bookseller Otto Penzler considers the importance of the character and novels in the canon of contemporary crime fiction.

In repressive Elizabethan England, artists are frightened into conventionality. Into this world of government censorship, comes a writer with an uncanny ear for Latin poetry, Christopher Marlowe. What Marlowe seizes in his opportunity for an education, and what he does with it, brings about a explosion of English literature. His success will nourish the talent of a collaborator and rival, William Shakespeare. DARK RENAISSANCE illuminates Marlowe’s times and significance of his work. Introducing us to Marlowe’s genius, Stephen Greenblatt brings understanding of the literary work to reveal the inner world of the author, bringing to life a homosexual atheist who was tormented, who refused to toe the party line, and who was murdered when he had found love.

Lulu Mayfield has spent the last five years molding herself into the perfect 1950s housewife. Despite the tragic memories that haunt her, she keeps her husband happy, her household running. But after she gives birth to her second child, Lulu's carefully crafted life begins to unravel. When a new neighbor, Bitsy, moves in, Lulu suspects that something darker lurks behind the woman's constant smile. As her fixation on Bitsy deepens, Lulu is drawn into a web of unsettling truths that threaten to expose the cracks in her own life. The more she uncovers about Bitsy, the more she questions everything she thought she knew --- and soon, others begin questioning her sanity. But is Lulu truly losing her mind? Or is she on the verge of discovering a reality too terrifying to accept?