Adult

When the most advanced aircraft ever designed vanishes over the South Pacific, Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala are drawn into a deadly contest to locate the fallen machine. But they know what others don’t --- that the X-37 is carrying a dangerous secret, a payload of exotic matter, extracted from the upper reaches of the atmosphere and stored at a temperature near absolute zero. As long as it remains frozen, the cargo is inert, but if it thaws, it will unleash a catastrophe of nearly unthinkable proportions. The entire NUMA team will risk everything in an effort to avert disaster…but they may be caught in a race that no one can win.

Arriving at his fifth school in as many years, diplomat’s son Osei Kokote knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day --- so he’s lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student can’t stand to witness this budding relationship: Ian decides to destroy the friendship between the black boy and the golden girl. By the end of the day, the school and its key players --- teachers and pupils alike --- will never be the same again. The tragedy of Othello is transposed to a 1970s suburban Washington schoolyard, where kids fall in and out of love with each other before lunchtime, and practice a casual racism picked up from their parents and teachers.

Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are lovesick doctors, students, ex-boyfriends, actors, bartenders and even Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, brought together to tell stories that speak to us all. In MEN WITHOUT WOMEN, Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic, marked by the same wry humor and pathos that have defined his entire body of work.

On January 2, 1942, Japanese troops marched into Manila unopposed by U.S. forces. Manila was a strategic port, a romantic American outpost and a jewel of a city. Tokyo saw its conquest of the Philippines as the key in its plan to control all of Asia, including Australia. Thousands of soldiers surrendered and were sent on the notorious 80-mile Bataan Death March. But thousands of other Filipinos and Americans refused to surrender and hid in the Luzon hills above Bataan and Manila. MacARTHUR’S SPIES is the story of three of them, and how they successfully foiled the Japanese for more than two years, sabotaging Japanese efforts and preparing the way for MacArthur’s return.

The clamorous barking of beagles signals the annual rabbit chase through the central Virginia hills. But the last thing the local beaglers and their hounds expect to flush out is a dead body. Disturbingly, it’s the second corpse to turn up, after that of a missing truck driver too disfigured to identify. The deaths seem unrelated --- until Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen picks up a trail of clues dating back to the state’s post-Revolutionary past. The echoes of the Shot Heard Round the World pale in comparison to the dangerous shootout Harry narrowly escapes unscathed. Next time, it may be the killer who gets lucky. But not if Harry’s furry friends Mrs. Murphy, Pewter and Tucker can help it.

Bob Lee Swagger has finally decided to sell the family homestead, but when the developers begin to tear down the house, they uncover a strongbox hidden in the foundation. Enclosed is an array of memorabilia dating back to 1934 --- a much-corroded federal lawman’s badge, a .45 automatic, a mysterious gun part, and a cryptic diagram --- all belonging to Charles Swagger, a World War I hero and sheriff of Polk County, Arkansas. Fascinated and puzzled by these newly discovered artifacts, Bob is determined to find out what happened to his grandfather. But he soon learns that someone is following him and shares his obsession with finding out what Charles Swagger really left behind.

Katarina “Kate” Hollister is a second-generation Foreign Service officer, recently assigned to Kyrgyzstan. U.S. authorities have been negotiating with the Kyrgyz president on the lease of a massive airbase that would significantly expand the American footprint in Central Asia. The negotiations are controversial in the U.S. because of the Kyrgyz regime’s abysmal human-rights record. Amid these events, Kate’s uncle assigns her to infiltrate an underground democracy movement that has been sabotaging Kyrgyz security services and regime supporters. But it soon becomes clear that nothing about Kate’s mission is as it seems --- and that she might need to lay her life on the line for what she knows is right.

Eleanor Oliphant struggles with appropriate social skills and tends to say exactly what she’s thinking. Nothing is missing in her carefully timetabled life of avoiding social interactions, where weekends are punctuated by frozen pizza, vodka and phone chats with Mummy. But everything changes when Eleanor meets Raymond, the bumbling and deeply unhygienic IT guy from her office. When she and Raymond save Sammy, an elderly gentleman who has fallen on the sidewalk, the three become the kinds of friends who rescue one another from the lives of isolation they have each been living. And it is Raymond’s big heart that will ultimately help Eleanor find the way to repair her own profoundly damaged one.

Julia Alden has fallen deeply and unexpectedly in love. American obstetrician James is everything she didn't know she wanted --- if only her teenage daughter, Gwen, didn't hate him so much. Uniting two households is never easy, but when Gwen turns for comfort to James' 17-year-old son, Nathan, the consequences will test her mother's loyalty and threaten all their fragile new happiness.

FitzChivalry Farseer’s young daughter, Bee, has been kidnapped by the Servants, a secret society whose members not only dream of possible futures but use their prophecies to add to their wealth and influence. As Bee is dragged by her sadistic captors across half the world, Fitz and the Fool, believing her dead, embark on a mission of revenge that will take them to the distant island where the Servants reside --- a place the Fool once called home and later called prison. It was a hell the Fool escaped, maimed and blinded, swearing never to return. For all his injuries, however, the Fool is not as helpless as he seems. And though Fitz is no longer the peerless assassin of his youth, he remains a man to be reckoned with.