Adult

A young American woman, Alexandra Boyd, has traveled to Sofia, Bulgaria, hoping that life abroad will salve the wounds left by the loss of her beloved brother. Soon after arriving in this elegant East European city, however, she helps an elderly couple into a taxi --- and realizes too late that she has accidentally kept one of their bags. Inside she finds an ornately carved wooden box engraved with a name: Stoyan Lazarov. Raising the hinged lid, she discovers that she is holding an urn filled with human ashes. As Alexandra sets out to locate the family and return this precious item, she will first have to uncover the secrets of a talented musician who was shattered by political oppression --- and she will find out all too quickly that this knowledge is fraught with its own danger.

In PRUSSIAN BLUE, Philip Kerr brings our compromised former Berlin bull and unwilling SS officer Bernie Gunther --- now hiding out on the French Riviera --- face to face with an old and dangerous enemy. Cornered and with his cover blown, Gunther finds himself back in a cat-and-mouse game that, even a decade after Germany’s defeat, continues to shadow his life. Forced to make a run for it before the French sûreté arrest him for murder or the GDR’s Stasi succeed in killing him, Gunther heads for Berlin, hoping there are still a few old friends left who can help.

Sally Bedell Smith returns once again to the British royal family to give us a new look at Prince Charles, the oldest heir to the throne in more than 300 years. This biography --- the product of four years of research and hundreds of interviews with palace officials, former girlfriends, spiritual gurus and more, some speaking on the record for the first time --- is the first authoritative treatment of Charles’ life that sheds light on the death of Diana, his marriage to Camilla, and his preparations to take the throne one day. PRINCE CHARLES brings to life the real man, with all of his ambitions, insecurities and convictions.

Paul Stuart, a renowned food writer, finds himself at loose ends after his longtime girlfriend leaves him for her personal trainer. To cheer him up, Paul’s editor, Gloria, encourages him to finish his latest cookbook on-site in Tuscany, hoping that a change of scenery will offer a cure for both heartache and writer’s block. But upon Paul’s arrival, things don’t go quite as planned. A mishap with his rental-car reservation leaves him stranded, until a newfound friend leads him to an intriguing alternative: a bulldozer. With little choice in the matter, Paul accepts the offer, and as he journeys into the idyllic hillside town of Montalcino, he discovers that the bulldozer may be the least of the surprises that await him.

The Chicago Cubs' 2016 World Series win marked the end of a 108-year drought in the team's history, and Game 7 will forever be remembered as one of the most thrilling, monumental moments in sports history. For Scott Simon, host of NPR's “Weekend Edition Saturday” and a lifelong Cubs fan, it was a moment he never thought he'd live to see. MY CUBS chronicles Simon's adolescence in Chicago as a die-hard fan to tell the story of the relationship between the team and the neighborhood and city, and how the condition of Cubness has both charmed and haunted the lives of so many fans.

In 1980, six college students sneak into the dilapidated ruins of Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary, looking for a thrill. But it’s not long before they realize they are locked in --- and not alone. When the friends get lost and separated, the terrifying night ends in tragedy, and the unexpected, far-reaching consequences reverberate through the survivors’ lives. Decades later, the dogged detective investigating the cold case charges one of them --- celebrity chef Jon Casey --- with murder. Only Casey’s old friend, Judith Carrigan, can testify to his innocence. But Judith is protecting long-held secrets of her own --- secrets that, if brought to light, could destroy her career as a travel writer and tear her away from her fireman husband and teenage son.

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, they rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe. Then, one by one, the Osage began to be killed off. The family of an Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, became a prime target. Her relatives were shot and poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more and more members of the tribe began to die under mysterious circumstances. In KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON, David Grann revisits these shocking crimes, as each step in the investigation reveals a series of sinister secrets and reversals.

HOURGLASS is an inquiry into how marriage is transformed by time --- abraded, strengthened, shaped in miraculous and sometimes terrifying ways by accident and experience. With courage and relentless honesty, Dani Shapiro opens the door to her house, her marriage and her heart, and invites us to witness her own marital reckoning --- a reckoning in which she confronts both the life she dreamed of and the life she made, and struggles to reconcile the girl she was with the woman she has become.

In HALLELUJAH ANYWAY: Rediscovering Mercy Lamott ventures to explore where to find meaning in life. We should begin, she suggests, by "facing a great big mess, especially the great big mess of ourselves." It's up to each of us to recognize the presence and importance of mercy everywhere --- "within us and outside us, all around us" --- and to use it to forge a deeper understanding of ourselves and more honest connections with each other. While that can be difficult to do, Lamott argues that it's crucial, as "kindness towards others, beginning with myself, buys us a shot at a warm and generous heart, the greatest prize of all." 

A Biloxi, Mississippi, drug-cartel counting house gets robbed, and suitcases full of cash disappear, leaving behind five bodies, including that of a six-year-old girl. Lucas Davenport --- who now works for the U.S. Marshals Service --- takes the case, which quickly spirals out of control, as cartel assassins, including a torturer known as the “Queen of home-improvement tools,” compete with Davenport to find the Dixie Hicks shooters who knocked over the counting house. Things get ugly really fast, and neither the cartel killers nor the holdup men give a damn about whose lives Davenport might have saved; to them, he’s just another large target.