Customer Picks
January/February 2007 Picks
Betrayal in Death by J.D. Robb
"This 12th installment in Robb's (aka Nora Roberts) popular and critically praised futuristic cop series, set in the year 2059, finds Lt. Eve Dallas butting heads with the FBI in a race to take down a hired killer who appears to be targeting the employees of her wealthy hotelier husband, Roarke. Adding to Eve's suspicions is the sudden and unexpected visit by one of Roarke's boyhood chums from Dublin a shady character named Mick Connelly who used to run with Roarke when they were petty thieves and con men shortly after the first murder. Eve knows Mick is not the killer; in fact, she's tussled with the prime suspect, Sly Yost, before, and his signature modus operandi, what he would call "murder with class," is unmistakable. Sly's an anal sort with a taste for fine art, classical music, rape and strangulation by silver wire. But, master of disguise that he is, finding him is virtually impossible. Since the murders all take place at Roarke's hotel, Eve allows him to assist in the investigation, a stroke of creative genius on Robb's part that plays on the strengths that brought them together way back in book one (Naked in Death), and that serves to bring out Eve's softer side. So certain is Robb at maintaining an atmospheric setting for this well-paced and expertly rendered series, followers will feel as if they have gone home to the future." ---Publisher's Weekly
Recommended by Michele Schutt
$7.99
Keeper Chronicles #3: Long Hot Summoning by Tanya Huff
"A force from the Otherside threatens to break through and destroy the balance between Light and Darkness unless, of course, the Keepers Claire and Diana can reweave the possibilities of time and space and prevent a permanent rift between the two worlds at the local shopping mall."
Recommended by Allison Herndon
$6.99
Lord of the Silent by Elizabeth Peters
"For archaeologist Amelia Peabody and her family, the allure of Egypt remains as powerful as ever, even in this tense time of World War. But nowhere in this desert land is safe -- especially for Amelia's son Ramses and his beautiful new wife Nefret. Treachery and peril are pursuing the two young lovers across the length and breadth of this strange, exotic world, strengthening a bond of passion and devotion that only death can sever. And the grim discovery of a recent corpse in a tomb where it does not belong is pulling Amelia deeper into a furious desert storm of intrigue, corruption, kidnapping, and murder -- and toward dark revelations that threaten to awaken the past...and alter the family's destiny."
Recommended by Katie Toth
$7.50
The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
"Four American scientists, chosen in advance for their experimental achievements in the fields of clinical microbiology, epidemiology, pathology, and electrolyte chemistry, are summoned under conditions of total news blackout and utmost urgency to Wildfire's secret laboratory five stories beneath the Nevada desert. There -- surrounded by banks of the most sophisticated computer-assisted equipment, and sealed off from the outside world except for a telecommunications link with the national security apparatus -- they work against the threat of a worldwide epidemic to find an antidote to the unknown microorganism that has inexplicably killed all but two inhabitants (an elderly derelict and an infant) of the tiny Arizona town where the satellite was retrieved. Step by step they begin to unravel the puzzle of the Andromeda Strain, until, terrifyingly, their microbacterial "adversary" ruptures the hypersterile seal of the laboratory and their already desperate search for a biomedical answer becomes a split-second race against an atomic deadline."
Recommended by Roy Carroll
$7.99