See Upcoming Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Releases
See Upcoming Mystery Releases
Staff Picks for March/April 2006
Laura's Staff Picks
Timeline by Michael Crichton
"In an Arizona desert a man wanders in a daze, speaking words that make no sense. Within twenty-four hours he is dead, his body swiftly cremated by his only known associates. Halfway around the world archaeologists make a shocking discovery at a medieval site. Suddenly they are swept off to the headquarters of a secretive multinational corporation that has developed an astounding technology. Now this group is about to get a chance not to study the past but to enter it. And with history opened to the present, the dead awakened to the living, these men and women will soon find themselves fighting for their very survival-six hundred years ago. . . ."
$7.99
L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy
"In the tradition of Raymond Chandler's crime fiction comes this story of three tortured souls in the 1950s LAPD: a clean-cut cop who lives shivering in the shadow of his dad, his colleague who busts movie stars for payoffs from a sleazy magazine; and a detective haunted by the sight of his mother's murder. Intensity mounts as the novel's various plots intertwine more and more tightly, yet the narrative never veers too far from its core theme of cops competing with crooks to see who can be more corrupt and violent."
$14.95
Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay
"Beckoned by the Emperor Valerius, renowned mosaicist Crispin arrives in the fabled city of Sarantium, where he seeks to fulfill his artistic destiny high upon the dome that will become the emperor's magnificent sanctuary. But Crispin is not protected from intrigue. Rumors of war and conspiracy swirl about the city, and Valerius looks west to Crispin's homeland to reunite an Empire."
$6.99
The Hidden Staircase by Carolyn Keene
"Teenage detective Nancy Drew uses her courage and powers of deduction to solve the mysterious happenings in an old stone mansion."
$5.99
The Hanging Garden by Ian Rankin
"Tough and complex, Detective John Rebus gets personally involved in a case when he rescues a young Bosnian girl forced into prostitution. Add to that the hunt for an elderly Nazi accused of slaughtering a French village, and Rebus wonders just how evil humans can be. But when his daughter is mortally injured, he just might make a deal with the devil to find the culprit."
$5.99
Lelia's Staff Picks
Wishful Sinful by Tracy Dunham
"Kicking off a new mystery series, Dunham introduces Tal Jefferson, a big city lawyer returning to her small-town roots in Georgia. When Tal's childhood friend is accused in the stabbing death of a local man, and then confesses, Tal doubts the woman's guilt and risks her own life to unravel the truth."
$6.50
The Body in the Bouillon by Katherine Hall Page
" 'Only the best people go to Hubbard House to die". So Faith Sibley Fairchild, gourmet caterer-turned-amateur sleuth, is told as she begins to investigate some mysterious doings at a retirement community near the village of Aleford, Massachusetts, where her husband is the local minister. And die they do--in Faith's bouillon, even in her bed."
$6.99
Joker Poker by Richard Helms
"Pat Gallegher, oversized cornet player, former forensic psychologist, and all-around gruff-but-lovable hard nose, plays nights in a French Quarter jazz club. He also works as an enforcer for a loan shark to whom he owes a gambling habit. When a wealthy woman hires him to find her missing lothario lover, fearing that her husband may have killed him, Pat's protective sense of justice emerges. He discovers the husband's connection to the local mob and realizes that he has been framed after the husband is murdered. For fans of noir mysteries, this debut offers a hearty concoction of violence, intrigue, sex, and even a little articulate humor."
---Library Journal
$14.95
Cell by Stephen King
"Civilization doesn't end with a bang or a whimper. It ends with a call on your cell phone. What happens on the afternoon of October 1 came to be known as the Pulse, a signal sent though every operating cell phone that turns its user into something...well, something less than human. Savage, murderous, unthinking-and on a wanton rampage. Terrorist act? Cyber prank gone haywire? It really doesn't matter, not to the people who avoided the technological attack. What matters to them is surviving the aftermath. Before long a band of them-"normies" is how they think of themselves-have gathered on the grounds of Gaiten Academy, where the headmaster and one remaining student have something awesome and terrifying to show them on the school's moonlit soccer field. Clearly there can be no escape. The only option is to take them on."
$26.95 prior to 25% new hardcover discount
Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven
"Monumental devastation will sweep across the globe if the newly-discovered Hamner-Brown comet collides with the one major obstacle in its path: Earth.
For millionaire Tim Hamner, the comet is a ticket to immortality. For filmmaker Harvey Randall, it's a shot to redeem a flagging career. And for astronauts John Baker and Rick Delanty, it's a second chance for glory in outer space.
But for a world gripped by comet fever, fascination quickly turns to fear. And only those who survive the impact will know the even greater terror, when rich and poor, politicians and killers, turn to each other or against each other--and the remnants of humanity grow savage to battle for what little remains . . ."
$6.99
Andrew's Staff Picks
The Sweet Forever by George P. Pelecanos
"It's March madness. And the college boys are playing basketball on TV. But on the streets of D.C., the homeboys are dealing, dissing, dying. From behind plate glass, with an 80s backbeat pounding in his brain, Marcus Clay watches it all happen, and prays that he can make a go with his downtown record store. Then a car comes careening down U Street. And what Marcus sees next will plunge him into the middle of a war.
A drug runner is decapitated in the crash. A bystander -- a white boy desperate to buy a woman's love -- snatches a bag of cash from the wreck. And a prince of crime wants it back. . . . For Marcus's buddy, Dimitri Karras, the mayhem is a chance to make a score. For a pair of dirty cops it's a chance to get free. And for dozens of lives swept up into the maelstrom, it's just another springtime in America's capital, where the game is played for keeps . . ."
$7.50
The Colorado Kid by Stephen King
"On an island off the coast of Maine, a man is found dead. There's no identification on the body. Only the dogged work of a pair of local newspapermen and a graduate student in forensics turns up any clus, and it's more than a year before the man is identified.
And that's just the beginning of the mystery. Because the more they learn about the man and the baffling circumstances of his death, the less they understand. Was it an impossible crime? Or something stranger still…?"
$5.99
Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin
"Packed off to the remote Scottish Police College for a lesson in teamwork-after hurling a mug at his supervisor's face-Inspector John Rebus finds himself in a snake pit. His classmates, an unruly band of rebel cops known as Resurrection Men, are suspected of orchestrating an elaborate drug heist, and Rebus is recruited by headquarters to get to the bottom of things. It's no easy task: the investigation threatens to uncover a secret Rebus has spent years trying to conceal, and before long Rebus finds himself in the thick of a scandal with conspirators seemingly everywhere-men who have no problem spilling blood to get what they want."
$6.99
First Blood by David Morrell
"First came the man: a young wanderer in a fatigue coat and long hair. Then came the legend, as John Rambo sprang from the pages of FIRST BLOOD to take his place in the American cultural landscape. This remarkable novel pits a young Vietnam veteran against a small-town cop who doesn't know whom he's dealing with -- or how far Rambo will take him into a life-and-death struggle through the woods, hills, and caves of rural Kentucky."
$6.99
Y: The Last Man; Vol. 1: Unmanned by Brian K. Vaughan
"When a plague of unknown origin instantly kills every mammal with a Y chromosome, unemployed and unmotivated slacker Yorick Brown suddenly discovers that he is the only male left in a world inhabited solely by women. Accompanied by his mischievous monkey and the mysterious Agent 355, Yorick embarks on a transcontinental journey to find his girlfriend and discover why he is the last man on Earth. But with a gang of feminist extremists and the leader of the Israel Defense Forces hunting him, Yorick's future, as well as that of the human race, may be short-lived."
$12.95
