Skip to main content

Reviews

Reviews

by Charles Dubow - Fiction, Romance

Harry and Madeleine Winslow share a love that is both envied and admired. One weekend at the start of the summer season, Harry and Maddy meet Claire and cannot help but be enchanted by her winsome youth, quiet intelligence, and disarming naivete. Drawn by the Winslows' inscrutable magnetism, Claire eagerly falls into their welcoming orbit. But over the course of the summer, her reverence transforms into a dangerous desire.

by Woody Guthrie - Fiction, Historical Fiction

Finished in 1947 and lost to readers until now, HOUSE OF EARTH is Woody Guthrie's only fully-realized novel --- a powerful portrait of Dust Bowl America, filled with the homespun lyricism and authenticity that have made his songs a part of our national consciousness. It is the story of an ordinary couple's dreams of a better life and their search for love and meaning in a corrupt world.

by Dave Barry - Fiction, Humor, Suspense

Seth Weinstein knew Tina was way out of his league, so it’s astonishing that he was on the plane now for their destination wedding in Florida. In the next several hours, he and his friends will become embroiled with rioters, Russian gangsters, angry strippers, a pimp as big as the Death Star, a very desperate Haitian refugee on the run with her two children from some very bad men, and an 11-foot albino Burmese python named Blossom.

by Alan Bradley - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

When the tomb of St. Tancred is opened at a village church in Bishop's Lacey, its shocking contents lead to another case for Flavia de Luce. Greed, pride and murder result in old secrets coming to light --- along with a forgotten flower that hasn't been seen for half a thousand years.

by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

In 1890s San Francisco, former Pinkerton operative Sabina Carpenter and her detective partner, ex-Secret Service agent John Quincannon, undertake what initially appear to be two unrelated investigations. The two cases eventually connect in surprising fashion, but not before two murders and other felonies complicate matters even further. And not before the two sleuths are hindered, assisted and exasperated by the bughouse Sherlock Holmes.

by Sue Grafton - Fiction, Nonfiction, Short Stories

In 1982, Sue Grafton introduced us to Kinsey Millhone. Thirty years later, Kinsey is an established international icon and Grafton is a number-one bestselling author. To mark this anniversary year, Grafton has given us stories that reveal Kinsey’s origins and Grafton’s past. KINSEY AND ME has two parts: the nine Kinsey stories (1986-93), and the And Me stories, written in the decade after Grafton's mother died.

by Domingo Martinez - Nonfiction

Domingo Martinez lays bare his interior and exterior worlds as he struggles to make sense of the violent and the ugly, along with the beautiful and the loving, in a Texas border town in the 1980s. Partly a reflection on the culture of machismo and partly an exploration of the author’s boyhood spent in his sister’s hand-me-down clothes, this book delves into the enduring, complex bond between Martinez and his deeply flawed but fiercely protective older brother, Daniel.

by Janet Evanovich - Fiction, Mystery

After a slow summer of chasing low-level skips for her cousin Vinnie’s bail bonds agency, Stephanie Plum finally lands an assignment that could put her checkbook back in the black. Geoffrey Cubbin, facing trial for embezzling millions from Trenton’s premier assisted-living facility, has mysteriously vanished from the hospital after an emergency appendectomy. Now it’s on Stephanie to track down the con man.

by Herman Wouk - Fiction

Margo Solovei is a brilliant young writer-director who has rejected her rabbinical father’s strict Jewish upbringing to pursue a career in the arts. When an Australian multibillionaire promises to finance a movie about Moses if the script meets certain standards, Margo does everything she can to land the job, including a reunion with her estranged first love, an influential lawyer with whom she still has unfinished business.

by Alexander McCall Smith - Fiction, Mystery

In this ninth installment of Alexander McCall Smith’s Isabel Dalhousie series, the Edinburgh philosopher and amateur sleuth answers an unexpected appeal from a wealthy Scottish collector who has been robbed of a valuable painting. She soon discovers that the thieves may be closer to the owner than he ever would have expected. Against the backdrop of this intriguing case, Isabel copes with life’s issues, large and small.