Adult

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE CASABLANCA is celebrated film historian Noah Isenberg’s rich account of the origins of the famed Humphrey Bogart movie, which premiered over 75 years ago. Through extensive research and interviews with filmmakers, film critics, family members of the cast and crew, and diehard fans, Isenberg reveals the myths and realities behind Casablanca’s production, exploring the transformation of the unproduced stage play into the classic screenplay, the controversial casting decisions, the battles with Production Code censors, and the effect of the war’s progress on the movie’s reception.

When the Twin Towers suddenly reappear in the Badlands of South Dakota two decades after their fall, nobody can explain their return. To the tens of thousands drawn to the “American Stonehenge” --- including Parker and Zema, siblings driving from L.A. to Michigan --- the Towers seem to sing, even as everybody hears a different song. And on the 93rd floor of the South Tower, Jesse Presley, the stillborn twin of the most famous singer who ever lived, suddenly awakes. Over the days and months and years to come, he’s driven mad by a voice in his head that sounds like his but isn’t, and by the memory of a country where he survived in his brother’s place.

It’s February 1862, and the Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved 11-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. The boy finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state --- called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo --- a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.

As the specter of war darkens Europe in 1939, Rose Zimmer’s parents manage to secure passage for their young daughter on a kindertransport and send her to live with strangers in England. Six years later, Rose cannot help but try to search out one piece of her childhood: the Chaim Soutine painting her mother had cherished. In modern-day Los Angeles, Lizzie Goldstein has returned home for her father’s funeral. The Soutine painting that she loved and had provided lasting comfort to her after her own mother had died was stolen, and has never been recovered. This painting will bring Lizzie and Rose together and ignite an unexpected friendship, eventually revealing long-held secrets that hold painful truths.

Jake Lassiter’s client, Miami Dolphins’ running back Thunder Thurston, has been cleared of murdering his wife. Jake didn’t expect to win (or want to win) since he is sure his client is guilty. When Thurston walks free, Lassiter vows to seek his own kind of justice. Street justice. Vigilante justice. Law partners Steve Solomon and Victoria Lord can’t believe their friend has become so obsessed with killing Thurston. Convinced Jake’s unhinged behavior is due to concussive brain injuries suffered during his football career, they beg him to seek treatment. But as Lassiter’s raging fixation on vengeance grows, Solomon and Lord wonder if they’re too late to help.

Who is Andrea Bern? When her dippy therapist asks the question, Andrea knows the right things to say: she’s a designer, a friend, a daughter, a sister. But it’s what she leaves unsaid --- she’s alone, a drinker, a former artist, a shrieker in bed, captain of the sinking ship that is her flesh --- that feels the most true. Everyone around her seems to have an entirely different idea of what it means to be an adult, though. But when Andrea’s niece finally arrives, born with a heartbreaking ailment, the Bern family is forced to reexamine what really matters. Will this drive them together or tear them apart?

In Echo Park, in the small town of Santa Rita, California, the mutilated body of Martin Torrey is found by two passersby. A registered sex offender, Torrey has been a suspect in a string of recent rapes, and instant suspicion for his murder falls on the relatives and friends of the women attacked. Police chief Griffin Kells and detective Robert Ortiz are under increasing pressure from the public and from a mayor demanding results in a case that has no easy solution. Bill Pronzini unfolds the case through alternating perspectives until a surprising break leads to a completely unexpected conclusion.

Ex-FBI agent Brigid Quinn, now happily settled in Tucson, doesn’t visit her family in Florida much. But her former partner on the force, Laura Coleman --- a woman whose life she has saved and who has saved her life in turn --- is living there now. So when Laura calls about a case that is not going well, Brigid doesn’t hesitate to get on a plane. On leave from the Bureau, Laura has been volunteering for a legal group trying to prove the innocence of a man who is on death row for killing his family. Laura is firmly convinced that he didn’t do it, while Brigid isn’t so sure. But the date for his execution is coming up so quickly that they’ll have to act fast to find any evidence that may absolve him before it’s too late.

The Altamaha River, Georgia’s “Little Amazon,” is one of the last truly wild places in America. Crossed by roads only five times in its 137 miles, the black-water river is home to thousand-year-old virgin cypress, direct descendants of 18th-century Highland warriors, and a staggering array of rare and endangered species. Brothers Hunter and Lawton Loggins set off to kayak the river, bearing their father’s ashes toward the sea. As they proceed downriver, their story alternates with that of Jacques le Moyne, the first European artist in North America, who accompanied a 1564 French expedition that began as a search for riches and ended in a bloody confrontation with Spanish conquistadors and native tribes.

Grayson Hernandez has just graduated from a fourth-tier law school, he's drowning in student debt, and the only job he can find is as a messenger. But after intervening in a violent mugging, he lands in the good graces of the victim: the Chief Justice of the United States. Gray soon finds himself the newest --- and unlikeliest --- law clerk at the Supreme Court. However, just as Gray begins to adapt to his new life, the FBI approaches him with unsettling news. The Feds think there's a killer connected to the Supreme Court, and they want Gray to be their eyes and ears inside One First Street. Racing against the clock in a world cloaked in secrecy, Gray must uncover the truth before the murderer strikes again.