Adult

John Quincannon has been hired by the owner of the Golden State brewery to investigate the ''accidental'' death of the head brewmaster, who drowned in a vat of beer. John is certain he can catch his quarry, but his partner, Sabina Carpenter, is not sure she even wants to catch hers: Sherlock Holmes or, rather, the madman claiming his identity. A Mr. Roland W. Fairchild of Chicago claims the man is his first cousin, who is due to inherit a $3 million estate --- if Sabina can find him and if he can be proved sane.

Robert Hendricks, an established psychiatrist and author, has so bottled up memories of his own wartime past that he is nearly sunk into a life of depression. Out of the blue, a baffling letter arrives from Dr. Alexander Pereira, a neurologist and a World War I veteran who claims to be an admirer of Robert's published work. The letter brings Robert to the older man's home on a rocky, secluded island off the south of France, and into tempests of memories. As Robert's recollections pour forth, he's unsure whether they will lead to psychosis or redemption. But Dr. Pereira knows.

On an unseasonably warm autumn day, an American teacher enters a public bathroom beneath Sofia’s National Palace of Culture. There he meets Mitko, a charismatic young hustler, and pays him for sex. He returns to Mitko again and again over the next few months and finds himself ensnared in a relationship in which lust leads to mutual predation, and tenderness can transform into violence. As he struggles to reconcile his longing with the anguish it creates, he’s forced to grapple with his own fraught history.

Callum, a seasoned horse thief at 15 years old, came to America from his native Ireland as an orphan. Ava, her father and brother lost to the war, hides in her crumbling home until Callum determines to rescue her from the bands of hungry soldiers pillaging the land. Ava and Callum have only each other in the world and their remarkable horse, Reiver, who carries them through the destruction that is the South. Pursued relentlessly by a murderous slave hunter, tracking dogs and ruthless ex-partisan rangers, the couple race through a beautiful but ruined land, surviving on food they glean from abandoned farms and the occasional kindness of strangers.

An elderly woman has been shot and killed while walking her dog. A short while later, another murder is committed, and the modus operandi is eerily similar. Two more murders follow in short order. None of the victims had enemies, and no one knows why they were singled out. As fear of the Taunus Sniper grows among the local residents, the pressure rises on Police Detective Pia Kirchhoff. She and her partner, Oliver von Bodenstein, search for a suspect who appears to murder at will, but as the investigation progresses, the police officers uncover a human tragedy.

A car crashes into a tree in central Dublin and bursts into flames. The police assume the driver’s death was either an accident or a suicide, but Quirke believes otherwise. Then his daughter, Phoebe, gets a mysterious visit from an acquaintance, who later disappears. Phoebe asks her father for help, and Quirke in turn seeks the assistance of his old friend, Inspector Hackett. Before long, the two men find themselves untangling a twisted string of events that takes them deep into a shadowy world where one of the city’s most powerful men uses the cover of politics and religion to make obscene profits.

Alison lives her life under the radar. She has no ties, no home, and she spends her days at a backroom publishing job. Which is how she wants it. Because Alison used to be a teenager named Esme, who was the only survivor in a brutal attack on her family. In order to escape from the horror she witnessed, she moved away from her village, changed her name and cut herself off from her past. But soon Alison realizes that that night's events have left a terrible mark on everyone in the village, and she begins to suspect they are all somehow implicated in her family's murder.

THE OTHER ME spans from 1930s Germany to 1990s England as Saskia Sarginson explores whether our identities are tied to where we came from, and if it's possible that sometimes history doesn't get the story right. In 1986 London, Klaudia is about to start high school. She's embarrassed by her German father, never knowing what he may or may not have done during the war. In 1995 Leeds, Eliza is a young woman in love --- with her life as a dance student, and with her boyfriend Cosmo. And woven throughout the novel is Ernst's story --- Ernst is one of two brothers growing up in Nazi Germany.

Situated hundreds of miles from any other settlement, deep within the inhospitable desert of northern Kenya, Dadaab is a city like no other. Over the course of four years, Ben Rawlence became a first-hand witness to a strange and desperate limbo-land, getting to know many of those who have come there seeking sanctuary. In CITY OF THORNS, Rawlence interweaves the stories of nine individuals to show what life is like in the camp and to sketch the wider political forces that keep the refugees trapped there.

Ruth Wariner was the 39th of her father’s 42 children. After Ruth’s father is brutally murdered by his brother in a bid for church power, her mother remarries. In need of government assistance and supplemental income, Ruth and her siblings are carted back and forth between Mexico and the United States, where Ruth’s mother collects welfare and her stepfather works a variety of odd jobs. As she begins to doubt her family’s beliefs and question her mother’s choices, Ruth struggles to balance her fierce love for her siblings with her determination to forge a better life for herself.