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Cormac McCarthy, author of The Passenger

1980, Pass Christian, Mississippi: It is three in the morning when Bobby Western zips the jacket of his wet suit and plunges from the Coast Guard tender into darkness. His dive light illuminates the sunken jet, nine bodies still buckled in their seats, hair floating, eyes devoid of speculation. Missing from the crash site are the pilot’s flight bag, the plane’s black box and the 10th passenger. But how? A collateral witness to machinations that can only bring him harm, Western is shadowed in body and spirit --- by men with badges; by the ghost of his father, inventor of the bomb that melted glass and flesh in Hiroshima; and by his sister, the love and ruin of his soul.

Week of September 25, 2023

Paperback releases for the week of September 25th include the two books in Cormac McCarthy's masterful The Passenger series --- THE PASSENGER, the story of a salvage diver, haunted by loss, afraid of the watery deep, pursued for a conspiracy beyond his understanding, and longing for a death he cannot reconcile with God, and STELLA MARIS, an intimate portrait of grief and longing, as a young woman in a psychiatric facility seeks to understand her own existence; LEARNING TO TALK, a dazzling collection of loosely autobiographical stories from Hilary Mantel that locates the transforming moments of a haunted childhood; DON’T FEAR THE REAPER, the riveting sequel to Stephen Graham Jones' MY HEART IS A CHAINSAW, in which Jade Daniels returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings; and THE CHRISTMAS SPIRIT, a delightful novel from the queen of holiday stories, Debbie Macomber, about two lifelong friends who decide to trade places the week before Christmas and end up finding love along the way.