Inyo County Free Library - New Acquisitions
July 2014 - August 2014
These are books and media new to the library and cataloged by the Inyo County Free Library.
Additional information about each title can be found in the catalog (click on the title). For older acquisition lists choose from Select another list. To request any of these titles please contact your local library branch.
NEW RELEASE By Lescroart, John T. Publishing Date: 2014 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC "On the evening before Thanksgiving, Hal Chase, a guard inthe San Francisco County Jail, drives to the airport to pick up his step-brother for the weekend. When they return, Hal's wife, Katie, has disappeared without a clue. By the time Dismas Hardy hears about this, Katie has been missing for five days. The case strikes close to home because Katie had been seeing Hardy's wife, a marriage counselor. By this time, the original Missing Persons case has become a suspected homicide, and Hal is the prime suspect. And the lawyer he wants for his defense is none other than Hardy himself. Hardy calls on his friend, former homicide detective Abe Glitsky, to look into the case. At first it seems like the police might have it right; the Chases' marriage was fraught with problems; Hal's alibi is suspect; the life insurance policy on Katie was huge. But Glitsky's mission is to identify other possible suspects, and there proves to be no shortage of them: Patti Orosco--rich, beautiful, dangerous, and Hal's former lover; the still unknown person who had a recent affair with Katie; even Hal's own step-mother Ruth, resentful of Katie's gatekeeping against her grandchildren. And as Glitsky probes further, he learns of an incident at the San Francisco jail, where Hal works--only one of many questionable inmate deaths that have taken place there. Then, when Katie's body is found not three blocks from theChase home, Homicide arrests Hal and he finds himself an inmate in the very jail where he used to work, a place full of secrets he knows all too well. Against this backdrop of conspiracy and corruption, ambiguous motives and suspicious alibis, an obsessed Glitsky closes in on the elusive truth. As other deaths begin to pile up he realizes, perhaps too late, that the next victim might be himself" -- |
By Lethem, Jonathan Publishing Date: [2013] Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC "A dazzling novel from one of our finest writers--an epic yet intimate family saga about three generations of all-American radicals At the center of Jonathan Lethem's superb new novel stand two extraordinary women. Rose Zimmer, the aptly nicknamed Red Queen of Sunnyside, Queens, is an unreconstructed Communist and mercurial tyrant who terrorizes her neighborhood and her family with the ferocity of her personality and the absolutism of her beliefs. Her brilliant and willful daughter, Miriam, is equally passionate in her activism, but flees Rose's suffocating influence and embraces the Age of Aquarius counterculture of Greenwich Village. Both women cast spells that entrance or enchain the men in their lives: Rose's aristocratic German Jewish husband, Albert; her nephew, the feckless chess hustler Lenny Angrush; Cicero Lookins, the brilliant son of her black cop lover; Miriam's (slightly fraudulent) Irish folksinging husband, Tommy Gogan; their bewildered son, Sergius. These flawed, idealistic people all struggle to follow their own utopian dreams in an America where radicalism is viewed with bemusement, hostility, or indifference. As the decades pass--from the parlor communism of the '30s, McCarthyism, the civil rights movement, ragged '70s communes, the romanticization of the Sandinistas, up to the Occupy movement of the moment--we come to understand through Lethem's extraordinarily vivid storytelling that the personal may be political, but the political, even more so, is personal. Brilliantly constructed as it weaves across time and among characters, Dissident Gardens is riotous and haunting, satiric and sympathetic--and a joy to read"-- |
By Li, Yiyun Publishing Date: c2009 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC In 1979 Muddy River, a provincial Chinese city, the Gu family struggles to deal with the imminent loss of their daughter, Gu Shan, about to be executed as a counterrevolutionary, while their neighbors deal with the realities of life in China. |
Robert Ludlum's The Hades factor By Ludlum, Robert Publishing Date: 2000 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC Despite being warned off by a shadowy FBI contact and barely surviving an attempt on his life, combat doctor Jonathon Smith assembles a private team to investigate a mysterious virus that is randomly causing sudden, painful deaths among people of all socioeconomic levels. |
By Ma, Jian Publishing Date: c2008 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC Awakening after a decade of unconsciousness, former Tiananmen Square protester Dai Wei learns that his mother had sold one of his kidneys to finance his care, and that the China he knew has undergone radical change. |
By Manning, Olivia Publishing Date: c2009 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC Jerusalem in 1945 is a city in flux: refugees from the war in Europe fill its streets and cafés, the British colonial mandate is coming to an end, and tensions are on the rise between the Arab and Jewish populations. Felix Latimer, a recently orphaned teenager, arrives in Jerusalem from Baghdad, biding time until he can secure passage to England. Adrift and deeply lonely, Felix has no choice but to room in a boardinghouse run by Miss Bohun, a relative he has never met. Miss Bohun is a holy terror, a cheerless miser who proclaims the ideals of a fundamentalist group known as the Ever-Readies--joy, charity, and love--even as she makes life a misery for her boarders. Then Mrs. Ellis, a fascinating young widow, moves into the house and disrupts its dreary routine for good. |
The fortunes of war: the Balkan trilogy By Manning, Olivia Publishing Date: c2010 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC |
By Marías, Javier Publishing Date: 2013 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC Breakfasting daily at a Madrid café where she observes fellow patrons, María Dolz offers condolences to a widow whose husband has been shockingly murdered, an act that leads to a new relationship and disturbing insights into the crime. |
NEW RELEASE By Nesbø, Jo Publishing Date: 2014, c1998 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC When the Norwegian ambassador to Thailand is found dead in a Bangkok brothel, Inspector Harry Hole is dispatched from Oslo to help hush up the case. But once he arrives Harry discovers that this case is about much more than one random murder. There is something else, something more pervasive, scrabbling around behind the scenes. Or, put another way, for every cockroach you see in your hotel room, there are hundreds behind the walls. Surrounded by round-the-clock traffic noise, Harry wanders the streets of Bangkok lined with go-go bars, temples, opium dens, and tourist traps, trying to piece together the story of the ambassador's death even though no one asked him to, and no one wants him to, not even Harry himself. |
NEW RELEASE Instructions for a heatwave: a novel By O'Farrell, Maggie Publishing Date: 2014, c2013 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC When a recently retired family patriarch clears out his bank account and disappears during a sweltering summer in 1976, his three children converge on their mother's home for the first time in years and track clues to an ancestral village in Ireland, where they uncover illuminating family secrets. |
NEW RELEASE By Osborne, Lawrence Publishing Date: c2014 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC As night falls on Macau and the neon signs that line the rain-slick streets come alive, Doyle - "Lord Doyle" to his fellow players - descends into his casino of choice to try his luck at the baccarat tables that are the anchor of his current existence. A corrupt English lawyer who has escaped prosecution by fleeing to the East, Doyle spends his nights drinking and gambling and his days sleeping off his excesses, continually haunted by his past. Taking refuge in a series of louche and dimly lit hotels, he watches his fortune rise and fall as the cards decide his fate. In a moment of crisis he meets Dao-Ming, an enigmatic Chinese woman who appears to be a denizen of the casinos just like himself, and seems to offer him salvation in the form of both money and love. But as Doyle attempts to make a rare and true connection, all that he accepts as reality seems to be slipping from his grasp. |
By Preston, Douglas J. Publishing Date: 2011 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC "A bonding trip for Pendergast and his brother-in-law, Judson Esterhazy, turns violent. Before abandoning a mortally-wounded Pendergast, Esterhazy announces his sister, Pendergast's long-dead wife Helen, is alive"--Provided by publisher. |
By Rush, Norman Publishing Date: 2013 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC When Douglas, the ringleader of a clique of self-styled wits of "superior sensibility" dies suddenly, his four remaining friends are summoned to his luxe estate high in the Catskills to memorialize his life and mourn his passing. |
By Salter, James Publishing Date: 2013 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC Returning to America after World War II, former naval officer Philip Bowman finds a position as a book editor and loses himself in a world of intimate connections and surprising triumphs until he is betrayed by the woman he loves, which sets him on a course he could never have imagined for himself. |
By Saramago, José Publishing Date: 2012, c2009 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC "In this, his last novel, Saramago daringly reimagines the characters and narratives of the Bible through the story of Cain. Condemned to wander forever after he kills Abel, he is whisked around in time and space. He experiences the almost-sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, the Tower of Babel, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Joshua at the battle of Jericho, Job's ordeal, and finally Noah's ark and the Flood. And over and over again Cain encounters an unjust, even cruel God. A startling, beautifully written, and powerful book, in all ways a fitting end to Saramago's extraordinary career"-- |
Where'd you go, Bernadette: a novel By Semple, Maria Publishing Date: 2012 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC When her notorious, hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled, and agoraphobic mother goes missing, teenage Bee begins a trip that takes her to the ends of the earth to find her. |
Murder at Mansfield Park: A novel By Shepherd, Lynn Publishing Date: 2010 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC Mary Crawford, a minor character in Mansfield Park, takes center stage in Shepherd's debut, a clever reworking of the Austen novel that's strong on plot, character, and historical accuracy. Shepherd has altered Austen's characters, some beyond recognition. Most notably, meek and unassuming Fanny Price has become "a monster of complacency and pride" in Kingsley Amis's phrase borrowed from his essay on Jane Austen. Mary, whose cheerful disposition and wit ensure her acceptance at Mansfield Park, suffers much at Fanny's hands. When Fanny turns up dead in a trench on the park grounds, an apparent victim of foul play, a horrified Mary winds up playing detective. While mystery fans will find much to like, it is Austenites who will be most gratified, particularly by how well Shepherd has captured the tone of Austen's original. For anyone who thought Henry Crawford deserved Fanny or who has a problem with vampires and ghouls invading Jane Austen's world, this will be a delight. Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information. |
By Shepherd, Lynn Publishing Date: c2012 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC Summoned to the offices of Victorian London's most powerful and dangerous solicitors, disgraced police officer turned independent detective Charles Maddox turns to his famous but aging investigator uncle to identify who has been sending threatening letters to a client. |
By Silva, Daniel Publishing Date: 2013 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC The wayward son of Israeli intelligence, Allon is plunged into a high stakes game of murder, espionage, and corruption after a beautiful young British woman vanishes on the island of Corsica, which threatens to destroy a prime minister's career. |
By Sparks, Nicholas Publishing Date: 2012, c2010 Classification: FIC Call Number: FIC "When a mysterious young woman named Katie appears in the small North Carolina town of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past. Beautiful yet self-effacing, Katie seems determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships: one with Alex, a widowed store owner with a kind heart and two young children; and another with her plainspoken single neighbor, Jo. Despite her reservations, Katie slowly begins to let down her guard, putting down roots in the close-knit community and becoming increasingly attached to Alex and his family. But even as Katie begins to fall in love, she struggles with the dark secret that still haunts and terrifies her-- a past that set her on a fearful, shattering journey across the country, to the sheltered oasis of Southport. With Jo's empathic and stubborn support, Katie eventually realizes that she must choose between a life of transient safety and one of riskier rewards-- and that in the darkest hour, love is the only true safe haven"-- Cover. |