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Featured author: Anne Perry
Staff Picks for January/February 2007
Lelia's Staff Picks
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
"They are the last generation, the innocent victims of an accidental war, living out their last days, making do with what they have, hoping for a miracle. As the deadly rain moves ever closer, the world as we know it winds toward an inevitable end...."
$6.99
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
" 'Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'
A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel--a black man charged with the rape of a white girl. Through the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with rich humor and unswerving honesty the irrationality of adult attitudes toward race and class in the Deep South of the 1930s. The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence, and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina and quiet heroism of one man's struggle for justice--but the weight of history will only tolerate so much."
$6.99
Charlotte's Web by E. B. White
"This is the story of a little girl named Fern who loved a little pig named Wilbur - and of Wilbur's dear friend Charlotte A. Cavatica, a beautiful large grey spider who lived with Wilbur in the barn. With the help of Templeton, the rat who never did anything for anybody unless there was something in it for him, and by a wonderfully clever plan of their own, Charlotte saved the life of Wilbur, who by this time had grown up to be quite a pig.
Some Pig
These are the words in Charlotte's web, high in the barn. Her spiderweb tells of her feelings for a little pig named Wilbur, as well as the feelings of a little girl named Fern ... who loves Wilbur, too."
$24.95
Whiskey Straight Up by Nina Wright
"Thirty-something realtor Whiskey Mattimoe and her purse-stealing Afghan hound are drawn into the lives of the eccentric characters of the resort town of Magnet Springs, Michigan, after nearly drowning in an icy lake, finding the body of the local mayor during the town's annual Ice Fishing Jamboree, and searching for her precocious runaway charge, Chester."
$13.95
The Dresden Files #1: Storm Front by Jim Butcher
"A modern-day mage and consultant to the police finds his stale life suddenly enlivened by the presence of a rival in the black arts.
Meet Harry Dresden, Wizard for Hire. He finds lost items, conducts paranormal investigations, does consulting work, gives advice and charges reasonable rates."
$7.99
Andrew's Staff Picks
The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint
"In novel after novel, and story after story, Charles de Lint has brought an entire imaginary North American city to vivid life. Newford: where magic lights dark streets; where myths walk clothed in modern shapes; where a broad cast of extraordinary and affecting people work to keep the whole world turning.
At the center of all the entwined lives in Newford stands a young artist named Jilly Coppercorn, with her tangled hair, her paint-splattered jeans, a smile perpetually on her lips--Jilly, whose paintings capture the hidden beings that dwell in the city's shadows. Now, at last, de Lint tells Jilly's own story...for behind the painter's fey charm lies a dark secret and a past she's labored to forget. And that past is coming to claim her now.
'I'm the onion girl,' Jilly Coppercorn says. 'Pull back the layers of my life, and you won't find anything at the core. Just a broken child. A hollow girl.' She's very, very good at running. But life has just forced Jilly to stop."
$14.95
Black And Blue by Ian Rankin
"A murdered oil-rig worker. A copycat serial killer dubbed "Johnny Bible." And a reopened investigation that doesn't bode well for Detective John Rebus or his mentor, Inspector Lawson Geddes. Rebus's Scotland, along with his malt-soaked psyche, is riddled with trouble. Now he's got to tie up the loose ends if he wants to save his job - or live to see another dark Edinburgh day."
$7.99
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
"Beneath the towering bleached ribs of a dead, ancient beast lies New Crobuzon, a squalid city where humans, Re-mades, and arcane races live in perpetual fear of Parliament and its brutal militia. The air and rivers are thick with factory pollutants and the strange effluents of alchemy, and the ghettos contain a vast mix of workers, artists, spies, junkies, and whores. In New Crobuzon, the unsavory deal is stranger to none--not even to Isaac, a brilliant scientist with a penchant for Crisis Theory.
Isaac has spent a lifetime quietly carrying out his unique research. But when a half-bird, half-human creature known as the Garuda comes to him from afar, Isaac is faced with challenges he has never before fathomed. Though the Garuda's request is scientifically daunting, Isaac is sparked by his own curiosity and an uncanny reverence for this curious stranger.
While Isaac's experiments for the Garuda turn into an obsession, one of his lab specimens demands attention: a brilliantly colored caterpillar that feeds on nothing but a hallucinatory drug and grows larger--and more consuming--by the day. What finally emerges from the silken cocoon will permeate every fiber of New Crobuzon--and not even the Ambassador of Hell will challenge the malignant terror it invokes . . .
A magnificent fantasy rife with scientific splendor, magical intrigue, and wonderfully realized characters, told in a storytelling style in which Charles Dickens meets Neal Stephenson, Perdido Street Station offers an eerie, voluptuously crafted world that will plumb the depths of every reader's imagination."
$7.99
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
"Meet Dexter Morgan, a polite wolf in sheep's clothing. He's handsome and charming, but something in his past has made him abide by a different set of rules. He's a serial killer whose one golden rule makes him immensely likeable: he only kills bad people. And his job as a blood splatter expert for the Miami police department puts him in the perfect position to identify his victims. But when a series of brutal murders bearing a striking similarity to his own style start turning up, Dexter is caught between being flattered and being frightened-of himself or some other fiend."
$12.95
No Dominion by Charlie Huston
"Joe Pitt's life sucks. He hasn't had a case or a job in God knows how long and his stashes are running on empty. What stashes? The only ones that count to a guy like Joe: blood and money. The money he uses to buy blood; the blood he drinks. Hey, buddy, it's that or your neck-you want to choose? The only way to lay his hands on both is to take a gig with the local Vampyre Clan. See, something new is on the streets, a new high, a high so strong it can send a Vampyre spazzing through Joe's local watering hole. Till Joe sends him through a plate-glass window, that is.
So it's time for Joe to gut up and swallow that pride and follow the leads wherever they go. It won't be long before he's slapping stoolies, getting sapped, and being taken for a ride above 110th Street. Someone's pulling Joe's strings, and now he's riding the A train, looking to find who it is. He's gonna cut them when he finds them-the strings and the hands that hold them."
$13.95
Charity's Staff Picks
And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander
"Emily Bromley, a Victorian beauty, doesn't really want to marry, but her mother's persistent pressure forces her to accept wealthy Viscount Philip Ashton's proposal. When Philip dies on safari in Africa a few months after the wedding, Emily feels relief more than grief. Now the wealthy widow of a man she hardly knew, she is free to pursue her heart's real passion--reading! Yet once Emily begins to hear stories about Philip's interest in Greek literature and his exquisite collection of antiquities, Emily begins to feel herself falling in love with her mysterious, now-dead husband. But the more she discovers about Philip's extraordinary life, the more she fears that his death may not have been an accident. Compounding her concern are some very mixed messages from Philip's two best friends and the mounting evidence that he may have engaged in some backdoor business dealings. Who can Emily trust? This engaging, witty mix of Victorian cozy and suspense thriller draws its dramatic spark from the endearingly headstrong heroine's growth in life and love. A memorable debut."---Booklist
$13.95
Murder on Monday by Ann Purser
"To supplement her income, Lois Meade cleans houses in the village of Long Farnden. She only works for a select few, in her own no-nonsense way, but her experience there allows her to help police when a prominent local woman is murdered in the village hall. Lois, who wants special constable status anyway, digs up information on likely suspects: a helpful doctor, a randy professor, a preoccupied nurse, an ineffectual reverend, and a jealous gallery owner. Her own family, in the meantime, interrupts her investigation with its own emergencies. Fans of British "cozies" will enjoy this delightful mystery with its quaint setting and fascinating players."---Library Journal
$5.99
Fall of a Philanderer by Carola Dunn
"Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher, three months pregnant, has been anticipating a quiet getaway with her husband and stepdaughter in the coastal town of Westcombe. The murder of the town Casanova George Enderby lands Alec in charge of the investigation and Daisy stubbornly at his side. It's hard to find someone who wouldn't have wanted Enderby dead. The married pub owner's scandalous seductions had earned him the enmity of every jilted lover and cuckolded husband in town - not to mention the resentment of his long-suffering wife. But for someone the insult cut deep enough to kill. Now, Daisy delves beneath the gossip and into a small town's darkest secrets."
$6.99
Oxford Murders by Guillermo Martinez
"A young Argentinean mathematics specialist studying in Oxford finds lodging with an old woman who worked on the Enigma Code during World War II. The lodger returns home one afternoon to find two surprises: his hero, a mathematics don who has written an acclaimed book on logical series, is on the doorstep, and, when they enter, they find the old woman murdered in her wheelchair. The Oxford don, we learn, has received a note hinting at the murder and calling it "the first of the series." He fears that the killer may be testing him, thanks to a chapter in his book on serial murders. The notes, with coded messages, keep arriving as more murders are committed. Although the novel is eminently logical in its explanation of sequences and assigned meanings, the way that the police share details of their investigation with the young math student is completely illogical. This should be read for atmosphere and fascinating applications of logical sequences to crime-scene investigation--an extreme extension of Agatha Christie's 'Ten Little Indians'."---Booklist
$13.00
Shoulder the Sky by Ann Perry
"Second in the WWI series, Perry continues the exploits of the Reavley children, who lost their parents in a devastating car crash that proved to be no accident on the eve of WWI. The implications of that double homicide continue to dog Joseph, a military chaplain in the thick of trench warfare at Ypres; his sister, Judith, a volunteer driver/translator for the general in command of that front; and their brother, Matthew, an intelligence officer. While justice of a sort was meted out to the man directly responsible for the murder of their parents, the Reavleys believe a master manipulator and traitor they have dubbed the "Peacemaker," who seeks a radical alliance between king and Kaiser to end the bloodshed, was the prime mover. When Joseph finds the corpse of an arrogant, bullying journalist in no-man's land, he soon realizes that a British hand was responsible, and that even in the midst of war's savagery, his conscience demands that he seek out the truth. This classic puzzle is nicely paralleled by Matthew's dogged search for the Peacemaker's identity. Perry cleverly resolves some plot lines while reserving the solution of others for future mysteries."
---Publishers Weekly
$13.95
