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End-of-the-Year Contest 2021

Congratulations to the winners of our 2021 End-of-the-Year Contest! One Grand Prize winner received all 44 of Carol Fitzgerald's Bookreporter.com Bets On picks from 2021, while 11 others won a selection of four of these titles. You can see all the winners below, along with 2021's Bets On books.

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.

Jonathan Santlofer, author of The Last Mona Lisa

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.

The Last Mona Lisa by Jonathan Santlofer

August 2021

THE LAST MONA LISA is Jonathan Santlofer’s first novel with a historical setting. It explores the 1911 theft of the Mona Lisa from the Louvre, giving readers a backstage look at what happened with the painting and the thief behind it all. With forgeries popping up in its wake, the ensuing years became a mystery for the art world. Where is the real painting? And what if the Mona Lisa that ended up in the Louvre has been a replica all along? Luke Perrone, a descendant of the thief, tries to sort out what happened and ends up deep in the underworld of art forgery.