BEYOND THE TRUTH: A Hanne Wilhelmsen Novel by Anne Holt (Mystery)
Shortly before Christmas, four people are found shot dead at the home of the Stahlbergs, a wealthy family of shipping merchants notorious for their miserliness and infighting. Three of the victims are members of the family, and the fourth is an outsider, seemingly out of place. As Hanne Wilhelmsen investigates the case alongside her longtime police partner, Billy T., motives for the murders emerge in abundance; each surviving member of the Stahlberg family had good reason to want the victims dead. As she searches for the killer, Hanne will once again risk everything to find out the truth. But this time, will she go too far? Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
BOOKS FOR LIVING by Will Schwalbe (Memoir/Literature)
Audiobook available, read by Jeff Harding
Why is it that we read? Is it to pass time? To learn something new? To escape from reality? For Will Schwalbe, reading is a way to entertain himself but also to make sense of the world, to become a better person, and to find the answers to the big (and small) questions about how to live his life. In BOOKS FOR LIVING, Schwalbe invites us along on his quest for books that speak to the specific challenges of living in our modern world, with all its noise and distractions. In each chapter, he discusses a particular book --- what brought him to it (or vice versa), the people in his life he associates with it, and how it became a part of his understanding of himself in the world. Reviewed by Harvey Freedenberg.
BRYANT & MAY: STRANGE TIDE: A Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery by Christopher Fowler (Mystery)
Audiobook available, narrated by Tim Goodman
Along the River Thames, the body of a woman has been discovered chained to a stone post and left to drown. “The Bride in the Tide,” as the London press gleefully dubs her, has the Peculiar Crimes Unit stumped. Why wouldn’t the killer simply dump her body in the river as so many do? Arthur Bryant wonders if the answer lies in the mythology of the Thames itself. Unfortunately, the venerable detective seems to be losing his grip on reality. John May fears the worst, as Bryant starts hallucinating that he’s traveled back in time to solve the case. As more bodies are pulled from the river’s depths, May and the rest of the PCU find themselves in over their heads. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
CHILD’S PLAY by Merry Jones (Psychological Thriller)
Just before the first day of school, second-grade teacher Elle Harrison learns that a former student, Ty Evans, has been released from juvenile detention where he served time for killing his abusive father. Within days of his release, Elle’s school principal, who had tormented Ty as a child, is brutally murdered, along with a teacher at the school and Ty’s former girlfriend. Ty seeks Elle out, confiding that she’s the only adult he’s ever trusted. But when she’s assaulted in the night, she suspects that Ty is her attacker. Is he a serial killer? Is she his next intended victim? Before Elle discovers the truth, she’s caught in a deadly trap that challenges her deepest convictions about guilt and innocence, childhood and family. Reviewed by L. Dean Murphy.
THE CHOSEN by Kristina Ohlsson (Mystery/Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Justine Eyre
On a cold winter’s day, a pre-school teacher is shot to death in front of parents and children at the Jewish Congregation in Stockholm. Just a few hours later, two Jewish boys go missing on their way to tennis practice, and an unexpected blizzard destroys any trace of the perpetrator. As investigative analyst Fredrika Bergman and police superintendent Alex Recht struggle to pin down a lead, someone or something called the Paper Boy --- a mysterious old Israeli legend of a nighttime killer --- keeps popping up in the police investigation. But who was the Paper Boy really? And how could he have resurfaced in Stockholm? Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
CIVILIANIZED: A Young Veteran's Memoir by Michael Anthony (Memoir)
After 12 months of military service in Iraq, Michael Anthony stepped off a plane, seemingly happy to be home --- or at least back on US soil. He was 21 years old, a bit of a nerd, and carrying a pack of cigarettes that he thought would be his last. Two weeks later, Michael was stoned on Vicodin, drinking way too much, and picking a fight with a very large Hell's Angel. At his wit's end, he came to an agreement with himself: If things didn't improve in three months, he was going to kill himself. CIVILIANIZED is a memoir chronicling Michael's search for meaning in a suddenly destabilized world. Reviewed by John Bentlyewski.
DIFFERENT CLASS by Joanne Harris (Psychological Thriller)
After 30 years at St. Oswald’s Grammar in North Yorkshire, England, Latin master Roy Straitley has seen all kinds of boys come and go. But every so often there’s a boy who doesn’t quite fit the mold. A troublemaker. A boy with darkness inside. With insolvency and academic failure looming, a new headmaster arrives at the venerable school, bringing with him new technology, sharp suits and even girls to the dusty corridors. But while Straitley does his sardonic best to resist these steps toward the future, a shadow from his past begins to stir again. A boy who still haunts Straitley’s dreams 20 years later. A boy capable of terrible things. Reviewed by Ray Palen.
DIFFICULT WOMEN by Roxane Gay (Fiction/Short Stories)
The women in Roxane Gay’s latest collection of stories live lives of privilege and of poverty, are in marriages both loving and haunted by past crimes or emotional blackmail. A pair of sisters have been inseparable ever since they were abducted together as children, and must negotiate the elder sister's marriage. A woman married to a twin pretends not to realize when her husband and his brother impersonate each other. A stripper putting herself through college fends off the advances of an overzealous customer. A black engineer moves to Upper Michigan for a job and faces the malign curiosity of her colleagues and the difficulty of leaving her past behind. Reviewed by Maya Gittelman.
DON'T TURN OUT THE LIGHTS by Bernard Minier (Mystery)
Christine Steinmeyer thought the anonymous suicide note she found in her mailbox on Christmas Eve wasn’t meant for her. But the man calling in to her radio show seems convinced otherwise. Bit by bit, her life is turned upside down. Martin Servaz is on leave in a clinic for depressed cops, haunted by his childhood sweetheart’s kidnapping by his psychopathic nemesis. One day, he receives a key card to a hotel room --- the room where an artist committed suicide a year earlier. Servaz soon uncovers evidence of a truly terrifying crime. Could someone really be cruelly, consciously hounding women to death? Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE GIRL IN GREEN by Derek B. Miller (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Will Damron
1991. Near Checkpoint Zulu, 100 miles from the Kuwaiti border, British journalist Thomas Benton meets Arwood Hobbes, an American private. Desert Storm is over and peace has been declared, but as they argue about whether it makes sense to cross the nearest border in search of an ice cream, they become embroiled in a horrific attack in which a young local girl in a green dress is killed as they are trying to protect her. The two men walk away into their respective lives. But something has cracked for them both. Twenty-two years later, in another place, in another war, they meet again and are offered an unlikely opportunity to redeem themselves when that same girl in green is found alive and in need of salvation. Or is she? Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
HISTORY OF WOLVES by Emily Fridlund (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Susan Bennett
Isolated at home and an outlander at school, 14-year-old Linda is drawn to the enigmatic, attractive Lily and new history teacher Mr. Grierson. When Mr. Grierson is charged with possessing child pornography, the implications of his arrest deeply affect Linda as she wrestles with her own fledgling desires and craving to belong. And then the young Gardner family moves in across the lake, and Linda finds herself welcomed into their home as a babysitter for their little boy, Paul. It seems that her life finally has purpose, but with this new sense of belonging she is also drawn into secrets she doesn’t understand. Over the course of a few days, Linda makes a set of choices that reverberate throughout her life. Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman.
THE ICE BENEATH HER written by Camilla Grebe, translated by Elizabeth Clark Wessel (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available; read by Katharine McEwan, John Lee and Justine Eyre
A young woman is found beheaded in the Stockholm home of business tycoon Jesper Orre. Investigator Peter Lindgren and psychological profiler Hanne Lagerlind-Schön are put on the case. Side-stepping their own dangerous relationship, Peter and Hanne find they can’t yet identify the woman --- and Orre is missing. In a separate thread, two months earlier, Emma Bohman, a timid beauty with a dark past, works in Orre’s company. A chance encounter between them leads to a love affair. Orre insists their relationship stay a secret, then leaves her without explanation --- and frightening things begin to happen to Emma. Why does Orre want to hurt her? And how far would he go to silence his secret lover? Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
KILL THE NEXT ONE by Federico Axat (Psychological Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Maxwell Hamilton
After being diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor, Ted McKay finds himself with a gun to his temple, ready to pull the trigger. Then the doorbell rings. A stranger makes him a proposition: Why not kill two deserving men before dying? The first target is a criminal, and the second is a man with terminal cancer who, like Ted, wants to die. After executing these kills, he will become someone else's next target. As Ted commits the murders, the crime scenes strike him as odd. The targets know him by name and possess familiar mementos. Even more bizarrely, Ted recognizes locations and men he shouldn't know. As Ted's mind begins to crack, dark secrets from his past seep through the fissures. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE MARRIAGE LIE by Kimberly Belle (Psychological Thriller/Mystery)
Audiobook available, read by Johanna Parker
Iris and Will have been married for seven years, and life is as close to perfect as it can be. But on the morning Will flies out for a business trip to Florida, Iris' happy world comes to an abrupt halt: Another plane headed for Seattle has crashed into a field, killing everyone on board --- and, according to the airline, Will was one of the passengers. Grief stricken and confused, Iris is convinced it all must be a huge misunderstanding. Why did Will lie about where he was going? And what else has he lied about? As Iris sets off on a desperate quest to uncover what her husband was keeping from her, the answers she finds shock her to her very core. Reviewed by Kate Ayers.
THE OLD MAN by Thomas Perry (Thriller)
Audiobook available, read by Peter Berkrot
To all appearances, Dan Chase is a harmless retiree in Vermont. But most 60-year-old widowers don’t have multiple driver’s licenses, savings stockpiled in banks across the country, and a bugout kit with two Beretta Nanos stashed in the spare bedroom closet. Most have not spent decades on the run. Thirty-five years ago, Chase was sent to Libya to covertly assist a rebel army. When the plan turned sour, he reacted according to his own ideas of right and wrong, triggering consequences he never could have anticipated. Just as he had begun to think himself finally safe, Chase must reawaken his survival instincts to contend with the history he has spent his adult life trying to escape. Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub.
THE PLATINUM AGE OF TELEVISION: From I Love Lucy to The Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific by David Bianculli (Entertainment/History)
Audiobook available, read by David Bianculli
Darwin had his theory of evolution, and David Bianculli has his. Bianculli's theory has to do with the concept of quality television: what it is and, crucially, how it got that way. In tracing the evolutionary history of our progress toward a Platinum Age of Television, he focuses on the development of the classic TV genres, among them the sitcom, the crime show, the miniseries, the soap opera, the western, the animated series and the late night talk show. In each genre, he selects five key examples of the form, tracing its continuities and its dramatic departures, and drawing on exclusive and in-depth interviews with many of the most famed auteurs in television history. Reviewed by Ron Kaplan.
THE PRIVATE LIFE OF MRS SHARMA by Ratika Kapur (Fiction)
Audiobook available, read by Tania Rodrigues
Renuka Sharma is a dutiful wife, mother and daughter-in-law holding the fort in a modest rental in Delhi while her husband tries to rack up savings in Dubai. Working as a receptionist and committed to finding a place for her family in the New Indian Dream of air-conditioned malls and high-paid jobs at multi-national companies, life is going as planned until the day she strikes up a conversation with an uncommonly self-possessed stranger at a Metro station. Because while Mrs. Sharma may espouse traditional values, India is changing all around her. And it wouldn't be the end of the world if she came out of her shell a little, would it? Reviewed by Amie Taylor.
TURBO TWENTY-THREE: A Stephanie Plum Novel by Janet Evanovich (Mystery)
Audiobook available, read by Lorelei King
Larry Virgil skipped out on his latest court date after he was arrested for hijacking an 18-wheeler full of premium bourbon. Fortunately for bounty hunter Stephanie Plum, Larry is just stupid enough to attempt almost the exact same crime again. Only this time he flees the scene, leaving behind a freezer truck loaded with Bogart ice cream and a dead body --- frozen solid and covered in chocolate and chopped pecans. As fate would have it, Stephanie’s mentor and occasional employer, Ranger, needs her to go undercover at the Bogart factory to find out who’s putting their employees on ice and sabotaging the business. Reviewed by Judy Gigstad.
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO INTERRACIAL LOVE?: Stories by Kathleen Collins (Fiction/Short Stories)
Audiobook available; performed by Nina Lorez Collins, Cherise Boothe, Adenrele Ojo, Paula J. Parker, Desean Terry and Dan Woren
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO INTERRACIAL LOVE? is a never-before-published collection of stories from African-American artist and filmmaker Kathleen Collins, whose stories masterfully blend the quotidian and the profound in a personal, intimate way, exploring deep, far-reaching issues --- race, gender, family and sexuality --- that shape the ordinary moments in our lives. Her work seamlessly integrates the African-American experience in her characters’ lives, creating rich, devastatingly familiar, full-bodied men, women and children who transcend the symbolic, penetrating both the reader’s heart and mind. Reviewed by Bianca Ambrosio.