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Week of August 16, 2021

New in Paperback

Week of August 16, 2021

Paperback releases for the week of August 16th include SHOW THEM YOU'RE GOOD by Jeff Hobbs, a brilliant and transcendent work that closely follows four Los Angeles high school boys as they apply to college; CRY BABY, a prequel to Mark Billingham’s acclaimed debut, SLEEPYHEAD, which highlights the case that shaped the career of Detective Inspector Tom Thorne; CROSSHAIRS, Catherine Hernandez's unforgettable and timely dystopian tale about a near-future, where a queer Black performer and his allies join forces to rise up when an oppressive regime gathers those deemed “Other” into concentration camps; and KILLER, COME BACK TO ME, a deluxe illustrated commemorative collection of Ray Bradbury's finest crime stories --- tales as strange and wonderful as his signature fantasy.

The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld - Fiction

August 17, 2021

Surging out of the sea, the Bass Rock has always borne witness to the lives that pass under its shadow on the Scottish mainland. And across the centuries, the fates of three women are inextricably linked to this place and to one another. Sarah, accused of being a witch, is fleeing for her life; Ruth, in the aftermath of the Second World War, is navigating a new marriage and the strange waters of the local community; and six decades later, Viv, still mourning the death of her father, is cataloging Ruth's belongings in the now-empty house. As each woman's story unfolds, it becomes increasingly clear that their choices are circumscribed, in ways big and small, by the men who seek to control them. But in sisterhood there is also the possibility of survival and a new way of life.

Before You Go by Tommy Butler - Fiction

August 17, 2021

In the Before, humankind is created with a hole in its heart, the designers not realizing their mistake --- if it was a mistake --- until too late. Elliot Chance is just a boy and knows nothing of this. All he knows is that he doesn’t feel at home in this world, and his desire for escape becomes more urgent as he grows into adulthood. Desperate and lost, he stumbles upon a support group on the edge of Manhattan. There he meets Sasha, who leaves coded messages in the copy she writes for advertising campaigns, and Bannor, whose detailed depictions of the future make Elliot think he may have actually been there. With these two unlikely allies, Elliot launches into the business of life, determined to be happy in spite of himself. Yet the hole in the heart is not so easily filled.

The Bookseller's Secret: A Novel of Nancy Mitford and WWII by Michelle Gable - Historical Fiction

August 17, 2021

London, 1942. Still recovering from a devastating loss, Nancy Mitford is estranged from her husband and has given up her writing career. Eager for distraction and desperate for income, Nancy jumps at the chance to manage the Heywood Hill bookshop while the owner is away at war. But when a mysterious French officer insists that she has a story to tell, Nancy must decide if picking up the pen again and revealing all is worth the price she might be forced to pay. Eighty years later, Heywood Hill is abuzz with the hunt for a lost wartime manuscript written by Nancy Mitford. For one woman desperately in need of a change, the search will reveal not only a new side to Nancy, but an even more surprising link between the past and present.

Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez - Dystopian Fiction

August 17, 2021

Kay, the gay son of Filipino and Jamaican immigrants, is on the run from a fascist regime operated by a paramilitary group known as the Boots. Those who fall at the bottom of the Boots’ social stratification are rendered “Other” and subsequently sent to work camps. They suffer violence that pushes them further into this otherness, although the new regime labels these sweeping acts the “Renovation.” Kay’s account of these events is a silent letter to his lover, Evan, from whom he is separated when the Renovation’s plans fall rapidly into place. When Kay finds himself on the run again, he lands in the front lines of a civilian-led movement called the Resistance.

Cry Baby: A Tom Thorne Novel by Mark Billingham - Mystery/Thriller

August 17, 2021

In the summer of 1996, two boys run from a playground into the adjoining woods, but only one comes out. DS Tom Thorne takes on a case that quickly spirals out of control when two people connected with the missing boy are murdered. As London prepares to host the European Soccer Championships, Thorne fights to keep on top of a baffling investigation while also dealing with the ugly fallout of his broken marriage.

Fire and Vengeance: A Koa Kāne Hawaiian Mystery by Robert McCaw - Mystery/Thriller

August 17, 2021

Hilo, Hawaiʻi Chief Detective Koa Kāne learns that an elementary school was placed atop a volcanic vent, which has now exploded. The subsequent murders of the school’s contractor and architect only add urgency to his search for the truth. As Koa’s investigation heats up, his brother collapses in jail from a previously undiagnosed brain tumor. Using his connections, Koa devises a risky plan to win his brother’s freedom. As Koa gradually unravels the obscure connections between multiple suspects, he uncovers a 40-year-old conspiracy. When he is about to apprehend the perpetrators, his investigation suddenly becomes entwined with his brother’s future, forcing Koa to choose between justice for the victims and his brother’s freedom.

Killer, Come Back to Me: The Crime Stories of Ray Bradbury by Ray Bradbury - Hard-boiled Crime Fiction/Short Stories

August 17, 2021

Honoring the 100th birthday of Ray Bradbury, this definitive collection of the master's less well-known crime fiction, published in a high-grade premium collectible edition, features classic stories and rare gems. Is it murder to destroy a robot if it looks and speaks and thinks and feels like a human being? Can a ventriloquist be incriminated by the testimony of his own dummy? Can a time traveler prevent his younger self from killing the woman they both loved? And can the survivor of a pair of Siamese twins investigate his own brother's murder? No other writer has ever rivaled the imagination and narrative gifts of Ray Bradbury, and the 20 stories in KILLER, COME BACK TO ME demonstrate this singular writer's extraordinary range, influence and emotional power.

The Last Mona Lisa by Jonathan Santlofer - Thriller

August 17, 2021

August, 1911: The Mona Lisa is stolen by Vincent Peruggia. Exactly what happens in the two years before its recovery is a mystery. Many replicas of the Mona Lisa exist, and more than one historian has wondered if the painting now returned to the Louvre is a fake, switched in 1911. Present day: Art professor Luke Perrone digs for the truth behind his most famous ancestor: Peruggia. His search attracts an Interpol detective with something to prove and an unfamiliar but curiously helpful woman. Soon, Luke tumbles deep into the world of art and forgery, a land of obsession and danger.

Night Music by Jojo Moyes - Fiction

August 17, 2021

Isabel Delancey, a classical violinist, has always taken her comfortable life for granted. But when her husband dies suddenly, leaving her with a mountain of debt, she and her two children are forced to abandon their home and move to the Spanish House, a now-dilapidated manor Isabel inherited in the English countryside. With the house falling down around them, and the last of her savings disappearing fast, Isabel turns to her neighbors for help, not knowing that her mere presence there has stirred up long-standing obsessions. As she fights to make her house a home, passions and lives collide. Isabel will discover an instinct for survival she never knew she had --- and that a heart can play a new song.

No Witness: A Cal Claxton Mystery by Warren C. Easley - Mystery

August 17, 2021

Running a one-man law practice in the heart of Oregon's wine country, Cal Claxton hires a young, undocumented man as an assistant. Timoteo Fuentes is a bright, hardworking student by day and Cal's legal clerk by night. When one of Timoteo's family members is brutally murdered, the migrant community is reluctant to cooperate with the police investigation for fear of deportation. Devastated by the loss and nervous about engaging with the legal system, the family turns to Cal for help. With Timoteo protected as a "Dreamer" from deportation, the two begin a dangerous investigation of ruthless people who leverage the fear of a vulnerable population for profit and an assassin who is as cunning as he is deadly.

Olive the Lionheart: Lost Love, Imperial Spies, and One Woman's Journey into the Heart of Africa by Brad Ricca - Biography

August 17, 2021

In 1910, Olive MacLeod, a 30-year-old, redheaded Scottish aristocrat, received word that her fiancé, the famous naturalist Boyd Alexander, was missing in Africa. So she went to find him. In jungles, swamps, cities and deserts, Olive and her two companions, the Talbots, come face to face with cobras and crocodiles, wise native chiefs, a murderous leopard cult, a haunted forest, and even two adorable lion cubs that she adopts as her own. Olive awakens to the many forces around her, from shadowy colonial powers to an invisible Islamic warlord who may hold the key to Boyd’s disappearance. As these secrets begin to unravel, Olive is forced to confront the darkest, most shocking secret of all: why she really came to Africa in the first place.

Show Them You're Good: Four Boys and the Quest for College by Jeff Hobbs - Social Sciences

August 17, 2021

Four teenage boys are high school seniors at two very different schools within the city of Los Angeles, the second largest school district in the nation with nearly 700,000 students. Blending complex social issues with each individual experience, Jeff Hobbs takes us deep inside these boys’ worlds. The foursome includes Carlos, the younger son of undocumented delivery workers, who aims to follow in his older brother’s footsteps and attend an Ivy League college; Tio harbors serious ambitions to become an engineer, despite a father who doesn’t believe in him; Jon struggles to put distance between himself and his mother, who is suffocating him with her own expectations; and Owen, raised in a wealthy family, can’t get serious about academics but knows he must.