Readers > New Books > Fiction, June 2009
Fiction, June 2009
General Fiction |Mysteries |Horror/Science Fiction/Fantasy
General Fiction
- Carlson, Ron
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Carlson's love for the mountains and his mastery of fiction radiate in the pages of this thrilling, fast-paced love story.
- Castillo, Linda
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Kate Burkholder, who grew up in the Amish community before leaving for the outside world, has recently been appointed Chief of Police in her former hometown. What she returns to find is a world where good and evil collide.
- Cooper, Dennis
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"Acclaimed cult-writer Cooper continues to study the material he's always explored so honestly — pornography, violence and mutilation — but with a satirical touch. This is high-risk literature." The New York Times Book Review
- Fahy, Warren
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A television crew stumbles onto an unexplored island inhabited by terrifying creatures and seething with danger. There's no question it is the reality-TV chance of a lifetime, but will it be the death of the crew — or something more precious?
- Gabbay, Tom
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Agent Jack Teller had to make an ugly choice in his youth — and now, decades later, he and the United States must deal with the blowback.
- Gilling, Tom
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It was just a harmless lie — to say he was driving Danny Grogan’s car when it was caught speeding down the Sydney streets on New Year’s Eve — and Danny’s father, a billionaire real estate tycoon, has promised to make it worth his while. But when former reporter Nick Carmody stands up in court to profess his guilt, it suddenly becomes clear that he doesn’t understand what he’s admitting to — until it’s too late. Nick’s "good deed" hurls him into a world of secrets, drugs, corruption and murder.
- Haas, Charlie
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Henry Bay is a modern nomad, associate-editing his way from state to state, exploring the small worlds that make up modern America in a string of comic literary adventures.
- Hoffman, Alice
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A family is shattered when one of three sisters dies tragically in an automobile accident. How the family survives — separates, reconfigures and reconciles — is at the heart of this exquisite exploration of the ties that bind.
- Knox, Tom
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In this debut thriller, a secret with shocking consequences is buried deep in the Middle Eastern desert — challenging everything the modern world knows about the origins of Christianity, Judaism and Islam.
- Montefiore, Santa
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Wise and winsome, poignant and powerfully moving, The French Gardener combines the savvy of contemporary women's fiction with an old fashioned sensibility steeped in the importance of family and the magical power of love.
- Moore, Laurie
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"The first in a new romantic suspense series from Moore sparkles with Janet Evanovich-style humor. Aspen Wicklow, a University of North Texas journalism grad down to her last $75, lucks out and lands a plum job on WBFD-TV's Public Defender in Fort Worth, Tex. Tig Welder, a hotshot gunning for an anchor spot, reminds "Investigative Reporter Barbie" never to try scooping him, while station manager J. Gordon Pfeiffer warns her never to become part of the story. Following either tip isn't easy after Aspen meets handsome Spike Granger, a Johnson County sheriff who's on a rampage about prison overcrowding. Even more alarming is researching a missing person report on Candy Drummond, who pledged at the same sorority as Aspen. Candy later turns up a strangled corpse. " Publisher's Weekly
- Oyeyemi, Helen
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As a child, Miranda Silver developed pica, a rare eating disorder that causes its victims to consume nonedible substances. The death of her mother when Miranda is 16 exacerbates her condition; nothing, however, satisfies a strange hunger passed down through the women in her family. And then there’s the family house in Dover, England, converted to a bed-and-breakfast by Miranda’s father. Dover has long been known for its hostility toward outsiders. But the Silver House manifests a more conscious malice toward strangers, dispatching those visitors it despises.
- Strachan, Mari
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This debut novel by a 62-year-old Welsh novelist tells a story of dark family secrets unraveled by the shrewd insight of 12-year-old Gwenni, a child with an irrepressible spirit living in a Welsh village that is reluctantly entering the modern age.
- Tel, Jonathan
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Blending elements of the surreal with carefully observed details of life in present-day Beijing, Tel's short stories offer a rich and highly entertaining guide to the city and its many and varied inhabitants.
- Theroux, Marcel
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Far North takes the reader on a quest through an unforgettable arctic landscape, from humanity's origins to its possible end.
- Venezia, Mariolina
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In this sweeping work, Venezia portrays five generations of the Falcone family. Through their complicated, funny, tragic and astonishing stories, Venezia also recounts a century and a half of Italy's tumultuous history.
- Walbert, Kate
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From a lecture delivered to suffragettes in Victorian England to a play date on Manhattan's Upper West Side, this provocative work chronicles four generations of women, their aspirations, the limits imposed on them and the sometimes startling choices they make in the world.
- Weil, Josh
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The linked novellas that comprise Weil's debut bring readers into America's remote, unforgiving back country and delicately unveil the private worlds of three very different men as they confront love, loss and their own personal demons.
Mysteries
- Barclay, Tessa
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"Even though Gregory Crowne’s grandmother Nicoletta is no longer the queen of Hirtenstein, she still knows how to issue a command. So when Nicoletta insists that Gregory immediately leave his music consulting business in Switzerland and fly to Rome, he begins packing. Once he arrives in the Eternal City, Gregory discovers that his grandmother expects him to use his amateur sleuthing skills to find out who has stolen a fortune in diamonds from retired Russian opera diva Irina Grushenka." Booklist
- Davis, Kyra
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In this final Sophie Katz mystery, Sophie is in love — with a three-bedroom Victorian. However, the rich, creepy seller wants Sophie to join San Francisco's spirited Specter Society. After a Society member is found dead, Sophie is sure her problems are caused by someone six-feet tall rather than six-feet under.
- Fenton, Margaret
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Social worker Clare Conover honestly believed she could make a difference in the world until she gets the phone call she's dreaded her entire career. One of her young clients, Michael, has been found dead and his mother, Ashley, has been arrested for his murder. Devastated but determined to discover where her instincts failed her, Claire vows to find the truth about what really happened to Michael. What Claire finds is no shortage of suspects.
- Grabenstein, Chris
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John Ceepak and Danny Boyle are making the rounds in Atlantic City when Danny runs into his former crush, Katie. Ceepak and Boyle soon find themselves on another case when Katie is found strangled to death. It is up to them to find out who has killed her.
- Haines, Kathryn Miller
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New York, 1943: Aspiring actress Rosie Winter has been marooned in New York throughout the war. Now, faced with the news that her ex-boyfriend Jack might not be coming home again, she's desperate to leave the home front and head for the war front. So when Rosie and her best pal Jayne get an offer to go to the South Pacific to perform with USO Camp Shows, they jump at the chance. But being a greasepaint soldier isn't as easy as they had hoped.
- Hall, Tarquin
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The first in an new detective series introduces Vish Puri, who styles himself as the best private investigator in India. His main gig is running background checks, but bigger, more sensational cases are coming his way.
- Johnson, Craig
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Interweaving classic noir sensibilities and humor with contemporary themes of social justice, Johnson's popular Walt Longmire mystery series transports readers to the sparse and rugged landscape of Wyoming.
- Kelly, Jim
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Rookie detective Peter Shaw, along with his chain-smoking, hard-as-nails veteran partner, is confronted with a baffling crime that stretches him to the breaking point.
- Lange, Richard
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Former marine and ex-con Jimmy Boone is tending bar on Hollywood Boulevard, keeping his nose clean until he figures out his next move. But when he agrees to back up a buddy and look into a young man's mysterious death, he is soon neck-deep in trouble again.
- Maleeny, Tim
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When the most hated landlord in San Francisco takes an unexpected jump off the roof of his own building, ex-cop Sam McGowan knows that anyone living on the top floor of the building should be a suspect, including himself.
- Pattison, Eliot
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"In the latest work in the Tao Yun Shan series, Shan, an exiled Chinese national, has a murder investigation to solve. The life of his son depends on it. A powerful picture of courage in the face of tyranny." The Washington Post
- Raichev, R. T.
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It promised to be the perfect Indian holiday with every modern convenience: exotic terraced gardens complete with an English folly, 38 varieties of ice cream and cocktails with names like Widow’s Wink and Mumbay Mule. Antonia Darcy and Hugh Payne never seriously imagined they would encounter anything worse than extravagance in this idyllic setting. But an uninvited guest at the garden party given in their honor makes Antonia his confidante. Not only does he claim to have witnessed the strangling of beautiful, wayward Marigold Leighton, he also insists it was their host Roman Songhera, the uncrowned King of Goa, who had committed the murder.
- Sampsell, Kevin
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In a city full of police controversies, hippie artist punk houses and overzealous liberals, Portland, Oregon, is a place where even its fiction blurs with its bizarre realities. Edited by bookstore employee and writer Kevin Sampsell, Portland Noir includes new stories by Christopher Bolton, Monica Drake, Dan DeWeese, Zoe Trope, Luciana Lopez, Karen Karbo, Ariel Gore and Floyd Skloot.
- Sangalli, Arturo
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The celebrated mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras left no writings. But what if he had and the manuscript was never found? Suspenseful and instructive, Pythagoras' Revenge weaves fact, fiction, mathematics, computer science and ancient history into an entertaining story.
- Stanley, Michael
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Botswana's Detective Kubu is caught in a twisted tangle of money, murder and hidden motives, in this second evocative mystery from the author of A CarrionDeath.
- Tesh, Jane
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Madeline Maclin, fledgling private eye in a small town in North Carolina, investigates the sudden death of an unpopular teacher at the elementary school. She has a hunch that the teacher's death is somehow related to a mysterious riddle.
Horror/Science Fiction/Fantasy
- Bolton, S. J.
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Clara Benning, a veterinary surgeon in charge of a wildlife hospital in a small English village, is young and intelligent, but nearly a recluse. Disfigured by a childhood accident, she generally prefers the company of animals to people. But when a local man dies following a supposed snakebite, Clara's expertise is needed. She's chilled to learn that the victim's postmortem shows a higher concentration of venom than could ever be found in a single snake — and that therefore the killer must be human.
- Brennan, Marie
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September 1666. The mortal civil war is over. But the war among the fae is still raging, and London is its battleground. There are forces that despise the Onyx Court, and will do anything to destroy it. But now a greater threat has come, one that could destroy everything. For three harrowing days, the mortals and fae of the city will fight to save their home. While the humans struggle to halt the conflagration that is devouring London street by street, the fae pit themselves against a less tangible foe: the spirit of the fire itself, powerful enough to annihilate everything in its path. Neither side can win on its own — but can they find a way to fight together?
- Cussler, Clive
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In the Micronesian Islands, a top secret, U.S. government-sponsored undersea lab conducting biomedical research on a rare jellyfish known as the Blue Medusa suddenly disappears. At the same time, off Bermuda, a bathysphere is attacked by an underwater vehicle and left helpless a half mile below the surface, its passengers left to die. Only Kurt Austin's heroic measures save them from a watery grave, but, suspecting a connection, Austin puts the NUMA team on the case. He has no idea what he's just gotten them all into.
- Huff, Tanya
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Alysha Gale is a member of a family capable of changing the world with the charms they cast. Then she receives word that she's inherited her grandmother's junk shop in Calgary, only to discover upon arriving that she'll be serving the fey community. And when Alysha learns just how much trouble is brewing in Calgary, even calling in the family to help may not be enough to save the day.
- Lake, Jay
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She was born in poverty, in a dusty village under the equatorial sun. She does not remember her mother, she does not remember her own name — her earliest clear memory is of the day her father sold her to the tall pale man. In the Court of the Pomegranate Tree she was taught the ways of a courtesan and the skills of an assassin. She was named Emerald, the precious jewel of the Undying Duke's collection of beauties. She calls herself Green. The world she inhabits is one of political power and magic, where Gods meddle in the affairs of mortals. At the center of it is the immortal Duke's city of Copper Downs, which controls all the trade on the Storm Sea. Green has made many enemies, and some secret friends, and she has become a very dangerous woman indeed.
- Reynolds, Alastair
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Six million years ago, at the dawn of the star-faring era, Abigail Gentian fractured herself into a thousand male and female clones, which she called shatterlings. She sent them out into the galaxy to observe and document the rise and fall of countless human empires. Since then, every 200,000 years, they gather to exchange news and memories of their travels. Only this millennium there is no gathering. Someone is eliminating the Gentian line. And Campion and Purslane, two shatterlings who have fallen in love and shared forbidden experiences must determine exactly who, or what, their enemy is, before they are wiped out of existence.
- Sanderson, Brandon
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Sanderson takes a break from completing Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series with this story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn't like his job, and the immortal who's still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago.
- Wilson, Robert Charles
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In the reign of President Deklan Comstock, a reborn United States is struggling back to prosperity. Then out of Labrador come tales of a new Ajax — Captain Commongold, the Youthful Hero of the Saguenay. The ordinary people follow his adventures in the popular press. The Army adores him. The President is troubled. Especially when the dashing Captain turns out to be his nephew Julian, son of the falsely accused and executed Bryce.