Adult

Fleeing New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina approaches, Henry Garrett is haunted by the ruins of his marriage, a squandered inheritance, and the teaching job he inexplicably quit. He pulls into a small Virginia town after three days on the road, hoping to silence the ceaseless clamor in his head. But this quest for peace and quiet as the only guest at a roadside motel is destroyed when Henry finds himself at the center of a bizarre and violent tragedy. As a result, Henry winds up stranded at the ramshackle motel just outside the small town of Marimore, and it's there that he is pulled into the lives of those around him.

Inseparable throughout college, Eva, Benedict, Sylvie and Lucien graduate in 1997. Hopelessly in love with playboy Lucien and eager to shrug off the socialist politics of her upbringing, Eva breaks away to work for a big bank. Benedict, a budding scientist who's pined for Eva for years, stays on to complete his PhD in physics. Siblings Sylvie and Lucien, never much inclined toward mortgages or monogamy, pursue more bohemian existences --- she as an aspiring artist, and he as a club promoter and professional partyer. But as their 20s give way to their 30s, the group struggles to navigate their thwarted dreams.

In 1950's Boston, the Irish Republican Army is running guns and killing witnesses. Cal and Dante, introduced in SERPENTS IN THE COLD, must descend into the city's shadowy underbelly --- a world of packed dance halls, Irish wakes and funeral parlors. There they discover a terrorist plot that will shake the city to its core and bring them head-to-head not only with Cal's past, but with the IRA Army Council itself.

Beautiful white-sand beaches, gorgeous women, and stunning natural beauty. It sounds like heaven on earth, but to Jack Morgan, head of the renowned international security firm Private, it's a place where threats are coming fast and furious. As summer reaches full swing, prominent clients he's supposed to protect are disappearing and bodies mysteriously start to litter the streets. The countdown to a deadly spectacle has begun. Jack must fight his way deep into the heart of a ruthless underworld and stop his most destructive enemies ever. Before their dark plan can reach its catastrophic end.

Celebrity chef Deacon Thorpe has always been a force of nature with an insatiable appetite for life. But after that appetite contributes to Deacon's shocking death in his favorite place on earth, a ramshackle Nantucket summer cottage, his family is reeling. Now Deacon's three wives, his children and his best friend gather on the island he loved to say farewell. The three very different women have long been bitter rivals, each wanting to claim the primary place in Deacon's life and his heart. But as they slowly let go of the resentments they've held onto for years and remember the good times, secrets are revealed, confidences are shared and improbable bonds are formed.

A decorated former police detective, Frank Marr retired early and now ekes a living as a private eye for a defense attorney. A long-functioning drug addict, Frank has devoted his considerable skills to hiding his usage from others. But after accidentally discovering a kidnapped teenage girl in the home of an Adams Morgan drug gang, Frank becomes a hero and is thrust into the spotlight. He reluctantly agrees to investigate the disappearance of another girl --- possibly connected to the first --- and the heightened scrutiny may bring his own secrets to light.

Hazel Nash wakes up in a hospital and is told she's been in a car accident that killed her father and injured her brother. But she can't remember any of it, because of her own traumatic brain injury. Then a man from the FBI shows up, asking questions about her dad --- and about his connection to the corpse of a man found with an object stuffed into his chest: a priceless book that belonged to Benedict Arnold. Trying to put together the puzzle pieces of her past and present, Hazel needs to figure out who killed this man --- and how the book wound up in his chest.

General Sherman’s 1864 burning of Atlanta solidified his legacy as a ruthless leader. Yet he proved far more complex than his legendary military tactics reveal. James Lee McDonough offers fresh insight into a man tormented by the fear that history would pass him by, who was plagued by personal debts, and who lived much of his life separated from his family. As a soldier, Sherman evolved from a spirited student at West Point into a general who steered the Civil War’s most decisive campaigns. Lamenting casualties, Sherman sought the war’s swift end by devastating Southern resources in the Carolinas and on his famous March to the Sea.

As a child, Joseph Beck heard about his father’s legacy: Foster Beck had once been a respected trial lawyer who defied the unspoken code of 1930s Alabama by defending a black man charged with raping a white woman. Now a lawyer himself, Beck has become intrigued by the similarities between his father’s story and the one at the heart of Harper Lee’s iconic novel. This riveting memoir seeks to understand how race, class and the memory of the South’s defeat in the Civil War produced the trial’s outcome, and how these issues figure into our literary imagination.

GRUNT tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries --- panic, exhaustion, heat, noise --- and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them. Mary Roach answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks? Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you’ll never see our nation’s defenders in the same way again.