Adult

A.J. Jacobs has received some strange emails over the years, but this note was perhaps the strangest: “You don’t know me, but I’m your eighth cousin. And we have over 80,000 relatives of yours in our database.” Who are these people, he wondered, and how do I find them? So began A.J.’s three-year adventure to help build the biggest family tree in history. His journey would take him to all seven continents. He drank beer with a US president, found himself singing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and unearthed genetic links to Hollywood actresses and real-life scoundrels. After all, we can choose our friends, but not our family.

Edgar Feuchtwanger came from a prominent German-Jewish family. He was a carefree five-year-old when Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi Party, moved into the building opposite theirs in Munich. In 1933, the joy of this untroubled life was shattered. Hitler had been named Chancellor. Edgar's parents, stripped of their rights as citizens, tried to protect him from increasingly degrading realities. In class, his teacher had him draw swastikas, and his schoolmates joined the Hitler Youth. In 1939, Edgar was sent on his own to England, where he would make a new life, a career, have a family, and strive to forget the nightmare of his past --- a past that came rushing back when he decided, at the age of 88, to tell the story of his buried childhood and his infamous neighbor.

As well-versed in politics, pop culture and crime fiction as he is ill-fated in life, Jack Taylor is recovering from a failed suicide attempt. In need of money, Jack has been hired as a night-shift security guard. But his Ukrainian boss has Jack in mind for some unexpected off-the-books work --- getting his hands on what some claim to be the first true book of heresy, The Red Book, which is currently in the possession of a rogue priest hiding out in Galway. Despite Jack’s distaste for priests of any stripe, the money is too good to turn down. Em, the woman-of-many-guises who has had a vise on Jack’s heart and mind for the past two years, reappears and turns out to be entangled with the story of the same blasphemous book.

In an era of such great national divisiveness, there could be no more timely biography of one of our greatest presidents than one that focuses on his unparalleled political ability as a uniter and consensus maker. Robert Dallek’s book takes a fresh look at the many compelling questions that have attracted all his biographers: How did a man who came from so privileged a background become the greatest presidential champion of the country’s needy? How did someone who never won recognition for his intellect foster revolutionary changes in the country’s economic and social institutions? How did he work such a profound change in the country’s foreign relations?

The two most difficult days in Bangkok writer Poke Rafferty’s life begin with an emergency visit from Edward Dell, the almost-boyfriend of Poke’s teenage daughter, Miaow. The boy’s father, Buddy, a late-middle-aged womanizer who has moved to Bangkok for happy hunting, has disappeared, and money is being siphoned out of his bank and credit card accounts. It soon becomes apparent that Buddy is in the hands of a pair of killers who prey on Bangkok’s “sexpats”; when his accounts are empty, he’ll be found, like a dozen others before him, floating facedown in a Bangkok canal. His money is almost gone. Over 48 frantic hours, Poke does everything he can to locate Buddy before it’s too late.

Laurie Moran’s television show “Under Suspicion” is a hit, both in the ratings and its record of solving cold cases. But her romantic break from former host Alex Buckley has left her with on-air talent she can’t stand --- Ryan Nichols --- and a sense of loneliness. Now Ryan has suggested a new case. Three years ago, Virginia Wakeling, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and one of the museum’s most generous donors, was found dead in the snow. The leading suspect then and now is her much younger boyfriend and personal trainer, Ivan Gray. Laurie’s skepticism about the case is upended by a tip from her father’s NYPD connection, and soon Laurie realizes there are a bevy of suspects --- including Virginia’s trusted inner circle.

As London is submerged below floodwaters, a woman gives birth to her first child, Z. Days later, she and her baby are forced to leave their home in search of safety. They head north through a newly dangerous country seeking refuge from place to place. The story traces fear and wonder as the baby grows, thriving and content against all the odds.

A violent crash has occurred. Not only is the vehicle totaled and the driver and a passenger crushed inside, a dead boy has been ejected. The first deputy to join Undersheriff Bill Gastner at the scene is rookie Robert Torrez, the department's newest hire. Before Gastner can head him off, Torrez sees that the boy is his spirited younger brother. And the girl crushed inside the SUV is a younger sister. The driver of the Suburban, also dead, is the assistant District Attorney's teenaged son. Were the three dead kids running from someone --- or something --- rather than speeding? Further investigation reveals that a fourth teen should have been in the vehicle, but is now missing. Where had the four kids been? And why?

One-named stunning actress Helen mysteriously vanished 30 years ago. An elderly family friend is unable to bear not knowing any longer and commissions Lady Frances Ffolkes to track her down. Taking on the role of Lady Sherlock, with her loyal maid Mallow drafted as her Watson, Frances finds herself immersed in the glamorous world of Edwardian theater and London’s latest craze --- motion pictures. When one of Helen’s old suitors is suddenly murdered, Frances and Mallow work quickly to uncover a box of subtle clues to Helen’s whereabouts. But someone unexpected wants that box just as badly and is willing to kill to keep it shut.

In 1899, in Brooklyn, New York, Dr. Noah Whitestone is called urgently to his wealthy neighbor’s house to treat a five-year-old boy with a shocking set of symptoms. When the child dies suddenly later that night, Noah is accused by the boy’s regular physician --- the powerful and politically connected Dr. Arnold Frias --- of prescribing a lethal dose of laudanum. To prove his innocence, Noah must investigate the murder --- for it must be murder --- and confront the man whom he is convinced is the real killer. His investigation leads him to a reporter for a muckraking magazine and a beautiful radical editor who are convinced that a secret, experimental drug from Germany has caused the death of at least five local children, and possibly many more.