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Adult

Big Maria
by Johnny Shaw - Mystery, Thriller

There’s gold in them thar hills --- or more precisely, in Arizona’s Chocolate Mountains, where one hundred years ago a miner stashed a king’s ransom of the stuff. But times have changed. The world has changed. And now the Chocolate Mountains are the home of the largest military artillery range in the world.

Containment
by Christian Cantrell - Christianity, Science Fiction

A brilliant young scientist and one of the first humans born on Venus, Arik works tirelessly to perfect the science of artificial photosynthesis, a project crucial to the future of his home, V1. Arik’s research becomes critical when he awakens from an unexplained, near-fatal accident and learns that his wife is three months pregnant. Unless Arik’s research uncovers a groundbreaking discovery, V1’s oxygen supply will not be able to support the increase in population that his baby represents.

Reunion at Red Paint Bay
by George Harrar - Mystery, Thriller
Red Paint calls itself "the friendliest town in Maine," a place where everyone knows one another and nothing too disturbing ever happens. Native son Simon Howe is a sturdy family man --- a good father and husband --- and owner-editor of the town's newspaper. Because there's rarely any real news, he runs stories about Virgin Mary sightings, high school reunions, and petty criminals.

One day Simon's predictable and peaceful life is disrupted by the arrival of an anonymous postcard, the first in a series of increasingly menacing messages. He tries to ignore them, but the implied danger becomes more real, threatening to engulf his wife and son as well. The Howe family becomes engaged in a full-scale psychological battle with their unidentified stalker --- without even knowing it. Secrets from Simon's past are uncovered, escalating toward a tense and unexpected climax.

More than a conventional mystery or thriller, REUNION AT RED PAINT BAY is an exploration of the consequences of guilt, denial, and moral absolutism. Harrar weaves a dramatic and suspenseful tale sure to spur readers into examining the limits of responsibility for one's actions.
Godchild
by Vincent Zandri - Mystery, Thriller

Jack “Keeper” Marconi is desperate to move on --- from his former job as a prison warden, from his wife’s horrific death in a car accident, and, most of all, from the torturous suspicion that the hit-and-run driver was actually aiming for them.

Grave of Angels
by Michael Prescott

Kate Malick’s first calling was as a Carmelite nun, a life devoted to prayer and faith. Now she runs a Hollywood security service dedicated to protecting its clients.

Out of Sight
by William Hackman - Art History

Histories of modern art are typically centered in Paris and New York. Los Angeles is relegated to its role as the center of popular culture --- a city of movie stars, tan lines, and surfers --- but lacking the highbrow credentials of the chosen places. Until 1965, there was no art museum, few notable collectors, and --- especially in terms of modern and contemporary work --- even fewer galleries. Yet in the 1950s and 1960s, L.A. witnessed a burst of artistic energy and invention rivaling New York’s burgeoning art scene a half-century earlier. As New York Times art critic Roberta Smith has noted, it was “a euphoric moment,” at a “time when East and West coasts seemed evenly matched.”

OUT OF SIGHT chronicles the rapid-fire rise, fall, and rebirth of the L.A. art scene --- from the emergence of a small bohemian community in the 1950s to the founding of the Museum of Contemporary Art in 1980 --- and explains how artists such as Ed Ruscha, Robert Irwin, and Ken Price reshaped contemporary art. William Hackman also explores the ways in which the L.A. art scene reflected the hopes and fears of postwar America --- both the self-confidence of an increasingly affluent middle class, and the anxiety produced by violent upheavals at home and abroad. Perhaps most of all, he pays tribute to the city that gave birth to a fascinating and until now overlooked moment in modern art.

Return of the Thin Man
by Dashiell Hammett - Fiction, Mystery

This pair of never-before published Thin Man novellas --- AFTER THE THIN MAN and ANOTHER THIN MAN --- features the classic Hammett characters Nick Charles, a retired private investigator, and his former debutante wife, Nora. In these two stories, Nick and Nora become involved in a deadly game of cat and mouse when they find Nora's family gardener murdered.

Kafka In Love
by Jacqueline Raoul-Duval - Biography, Romance
Kafka was an attractive, slender, and elegant man --- something of a dandy, who captivated his friends and knew how to charm women. He seemed to have had four important love affairs: Felice, Julie, Milena, and Dora. All of them lived far away, in Berlin or Vienna, and perhaps that's one of the reasons that he loved them: he chose long-distance relationships so he could have the pleasure of writing to them, without the burden of having to live with them. He was engaged to all four women, and four times he avoided marriage. At the end of each love affair, he threw himself into his writing and produced some of his most famous novels: AMERIKA, THE TRIAL and THE CASTLE.
 
In this charming book, author Jacqueline Raoul-Duval follows the paper trail of Kafka's ardor. She uses his voice in her own writing, and a third of the book is pulled from Kafka's journals. It is the perfect introduction to this giant of world literature, and captures his life and romances in a style worthy of his own.
Pines
by Blake Crouch - Mystery, Thriller

Secret service agent Ethan Burke arrives in Wayward Pines, Idaho, with a clear mission: locate and recover two federal agents who went missing in the bucolic town one month earlier. But within minutes of his arrival, Ethan is involved in a violent accident.

The Spy Lover
by Kiana Davenport - Fiction, Historical Fiction

Era Tom is leading a double life. Desperate to find her father --- a Chinese immigrant who has been promised US citizenship in exchange for serving in the Union army --- she agrees to work as a nurse at a Confederate camp while spying for the Union. But when she falls in love with a Confederate cavalryman, her loyalties are divided between the father she adores in the North and the love that sustains her in the South.