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Reviews

Reviews

by Joe Pompeo - History, Nonfiction, True Crime

On September 16, 1922, the bodies of Reverend Edward Hall and Eleanor Mills were found on an abandoned farm outside of New Brunswick, New Jersey. The killer had arranged the bodies in a pose conveying intimacy. The murder of Hall --- a prominent clergyman whose wife, Frances Hall, was a proud heiress with illustrious ancestors and ties to the Johnson & Johnson dynasty --- would have made headlines on its own. But when authorities identified Eleanor Mills as a choir singer from his church married to the church sexton, the story shocked locals and sent the scandal ricocheting around the country, fueling the nascent tabloid industry. BLOOD & INK freshly chronicles what remains one of the most electrifying but forgotten murder mysteries in U.S. history.

by Scott Higham and Sari Horwitz - Nonfiction, True Crime

AMERICAN CARTEL is an unflinching and deeply documented dive into the culpability of the drug companies behind the staggering death toll of the opioid epidemic. It follows a small band of DEA agents led by Joseph Rannazzisi, a tough-talking New Yorker who had spent a storied 30 years bringing down bad guys, along with a band of lawyers, including West Virginia native Paul Farrell Jr., who fought to hold the drug industry to account in the face of the worst man-made drug epidemic in American history. It is the story of underdogs prevailing over corporate greed and political cowardice, persevering in the face of predicted failure, and how they found some semblance of justice for the families of the dead during the most complex civil litigation ever seen.

by Patrick Radden Keefe - Nonfiction, True Crime

ROGUES brings together a dozen of Patrick Radden Keefe’s most celebrated articles from The New Yorker. Here, he brilliantly explores the intricacies of forging $150,000 vintage wines, examines if a whistleblower who dared to expose money laundering at a Swiss bank is a hero or a fabulist, spends time in Vietnam with Anthony Bourdain, chronicles the quest to bring down a cheerful international black market arms merchant, and profiles a passionate death penalty attorney who represents the “worst of the worst,” among other bravura works of literary journalism.

by Eric Van Lustbader - Adventure, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Evan Ryder was once a field agent for a black-ops arm of the Department of Defense. Now she works for Parachute, a cutting-edge quantum-computing firm whose private espionage network exceeds any government spy agency. But her mission remains the same: seek out and destroy Omega, a fanatical global cult intent on destroying democracy. The fight against Omega has already cost Evan dearly, but she will not stop until she has torn out the conspiracy by its roots, no matter the risk. In OMEGA RULES, the assassination of a Parachute agent in Vienna sets Evan on a dangerous, world-wide hunt for answers and on a collision course with forces so powerful they may be beyond her abilities to annihilate.

by Valerie Bertinelli - Memoir, Nonfiction

Behind the curtain of her happy on-screen persona, Valerie Bertinelli’s life has been no easy ride, especially when it comes to her own self-image and self-worth. She waged a war against herself for years, learning to equate her value to her appearance as a child star on "One Day at a Time" and punishing herself in order to fit into the unachievable Hollywood mold. She struggled to make her marriage to Eddie Van Halen --- the true love of her life --- work, despite all the rifts that the rock-star lifestyle created between them. Through mourning the loss of her parents, discovering more about her family’s past, and realizing how short life really is when she and her son lost Eddie, Valerie finally said “Enough already!” to a lifelong battle with the scale and found a new path forward to joy and connection.

by Jenna Blum - Memoir, Nonfiction

Since she adopted him as a puppy 15 years earlier, Jenna Blum and Woodrow have been inseparable. Known to many as “the George Clooney of dogs” for his good looks and charm, Woodrow and his “Mommoo” are fixtures in their Boston neighborhood. But Woodrow is aging. As he begins to fail, the true nature of his extraordinary relationship with Jenna is revealed. Jenna may be the dog parent, but it is Woodrow, with his amazing personality and trusting nature, who has much to teach her. A divorcée who has experienced her share of sadness and loss, Jenna discovers, over the months she spends caring for her ailing dog, what it is to be present in the moment, and what it truly means to love.

by Patti Callahan Henry, writing as Patti Callahan - Fiction, Historical Fiction

Megs Devonshire is brilliant with numbers and equations, on a scholarship at Oxford, and dreams of solving the greatest mysteries of physics. She prefers the dependability of facts --- except for one: the younger brother she loves with all her heart doesn’t have long to live. When George becomes captivated by THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE and begs her to find out where Narnia came from, there’s no way she can refuse. Despite her timidity about approaching the famous author, Megs soon finds herself taking tea with the Oxford don and his own brother, imploring them for answers. Why won’t Mr. Lewis just tell her plainly what George wants to know? The answer will reveal to Meg many truths that science and math cannot.

by Katie Couric - Memoir, Nonfiction

For more than 40 years, Katie Couric has been an iconic presence in the media world. In her brutally honest, hilarious and heartbreaking memoir, she reveals what was going on behind the scenes of her sometimes tumultuous personal and professional life --- a story she’s never shared, until now. Of the medium she loves, the one that made her a household name, she says, “Television can put you in a box; the flat-screen can flatten. On TV, you are larger than life but smaller, too. It is not the whole story, and it is not the whole me. This book is.”

by Richard Osman - Fiction, Mystery

Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim --- the Thursday Murder Club --- are still riding high off their recent real-life murder case and are looking forward to a bit of peace and quiet at Cooper’s Chase, their posh retirement village. But they are out of luck. An unexpected visitor --- an old pal of Elizabeth’s (or perhaps more than just a pal?) --- arrives, desperate for her help. He has been accused of stealing diamonds worth millions from the wrong men, and he’s seriously on the lam. Then, as night follows day, the first body is found. But not the last. Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Ibrahim are up against a ruthless murderer who wouldn’t bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can our four friends catch the killer before the killer catches them?

by Rick Bragg - Memoir, Nonfiction

Speck is not a good boy. He is a terrible boy, a defiant, self-destructive, often malodorous boy, a grave robber and screen door moocher who spends his days playing chicken with the FedEx man, picking fights with thousand-pound livestock and rolling in donkey manure, and his nights howling at the moon. He has been that way since the moment he appeared on the ridgeline behind Rick Bragg's house, a starved and half-dead creature, 76 pounds of wet hair and poor decisions. Speck arrived in Rick's life at a moment of looming uncertainty. A cancer diagnosis, chemo, kidney failure and recurring pneumonia had left Rick lethargic and melancholy. Speck helped, and he is helping, still, when he is not peeing on the rose of Sharon.