New Bestsellers in Book Express

Today, the following three books are being put out on Book Express:

Deeper than the Dead by Tami Hoag

California, 1984. Detective Tony Mendez, fresh from a law enforcement course at FBI headquarters, is charged with discovering the identity of a brutal, calculating psychopath. His search pushes him ever deeper into the lives of three children, and closer to the young teacher whose interest in recent events becomes as intense as his own.

Honor of Spies by W.E.B. Griffin

August 6, 1943: In his brief career in the Office of Strategic Services, twenty-four-year-old Cletus Frade has already been involved in a lot of unusual situations, but nothing like the one he's in now, standing with a German lieutenant colonel named Wilhelm Frogger in a Mississippi prisoner-of-war detention facility. Frade's job? To help Frogger escape so the OSS can use Frogger's knowledge and connections to kill Adolf Hitler.

Fired Up by Janye Ann Krentz

Jack Winters, descendant of genetically altered Nicholas, has been experiencing nightmares and blackouts--just the beginning, he believes--of the manifestation of the Winters family curse. The legend says that he must find the Burning Lamp or risk turning into a monster. But he can't do it alone; he needs the help of private investigator Chloe Harper who possesses the gift to read the lamp's dreamlight.

In the Winter

The Dead of Winter
Rennie Airth
Set in London and rural England in 1944, Airth's fine third mystery to feature ex-Scotland Yard inspector John Madden (after The Blood-Dimmed Tide) shows how five years of war and an overstretched police force have brought 'a new dimension to lawbreaking,' with a serious rise in murders, thefts and extortion. Even decent citizens aren't above black- market dealings. The murder of Rosa Nowak, a young Polish woman, on a deserted London street during a blackout appears to be another act of random violence. Since Nowak worked on Madden's farm, his reputation ensures that his former colleagues thoroughly investigate the case, which leads to continental Europe, stolen diamonds and a string of murders, including that of a Jewish furrier. Airth takes a perceptive look at the frayed emotions of his fully realized characters as he carefully lays the groundwork for the next book in this rewarding series. Publishers Weekly Review; May 2009.


Winter Run
Robert Ashcom
Rural Virginia in the 1940s was a magical place into which modernity had not yet crept. This attracted city dwellers Charles and Gretchen, who moved there after World War II with their precocious son, Charlie. Charlie was inquisitive about everything, especially nature. He had a knack with animals, almost uncannily knew what they were thinking. He also had a knack for seeming more grown-up than he was, which endeared him to the adults of the community. Especially since there were few other children around, the adults took care of Charlie--he was always around, and they didn't mind. Charlie also had a knack for mixing equally well with the black folks who worked on the farm and in the town, along with the white landowners and the professor-patriarch of the community. Ashcom creates a very sweet, almost mystical tale of a boy who was amazed by what nature brought him, his growing up, and his understanding that all things, even life as he knows it, are passing.
Booklist Review; September 2002.

Winter Study
Nevada Barr
In bestseller Barr's chilling 14th mystery thriller to feature National Park Service ranger Anna Pigeon (after 2005's Hard Truth), Anna joins the team of Winter Study, a research project intended to study the wolves and moose of Michigan's Isle Royale National Park, the setting for 1994's A Superior Death. Complicating the study is Bob Menechinn, an untrustworthy Homeland Security officer assigned to shadow the research. Crowded into inhospitable lodgings and persecuted by unrelenting cold, Anna is far from her comfort zone as nature turns awry with a series of bizarre events. The team stumbles upon the tracks--and the mutilated victim--of a preternaturally large, unidentified beast, and local packs of wolves descend on human- populated areas, a behavior out of step with their species. The campfire legends of youth metastasize into adult fears as Anna must piece together a connection between these anomalies while guarding herself from the strangers around her. Barr's visceral descriptions of the winter cold nicely complement the paranoia that follows the appearance of the mythic monsters at play.
Publishers Weekly Review; February 2008.

Blackthorn Winter
Sarah Challis
When her famous and unfaithful husband is sentenced to prison for fraud and divorce proceedings are under way, Claudia Barron eschews the London scene and moves to a modest cottage in the Dorset hills. Anonymity is her goal, but Claudia quickly discovers the alacrity of village gossip: her previous life soon becomes the focus of discussions in upper-class dining rooms and the local pub. Aided by her two grown children, Lila, a vivacious free spirit who lives in New York, and Jerome, just returning from a year in India and his own personal tragedy, Claudia forges a new identity in her adopted village. She makes ends meet first by picking mushrooms, then by cooking at the village school; she even manages to find a couple of romantic interests, as her spunky attitude attracts both a local dandy and the quiet widower next door. Inspired by the farms, fields, and stables she so obviously loves, Challis has crafted another charming village tale spiced with just the right amounts of near tragedy and romance.
Booklist Review; September 2004.

The Hounds of Winter
James Magnuson
As brooding and lethal as a Wisconsin winter storm, this taut thriller puts small-town relations into frightening relief. College senior Maya Neisen arrives a bit early to a Christmas reconciliation at a cabin in her father's hometown of Black Hawk, Wis., and is brutally murdered just minutes before her father, New York literary agent David Neisen, arrives. Finding his daughter slain, he hastily dials 911, then, hearing the screen door slam, chases a figure in a blue ski mask into the woods, to no avail. Returning to the cabin, he is confronted by sheriff Doug Danacek, who, after 35 years, still thinks David could have saved Danacek's brother from drowning. Noting Danacek's pants are wet up to his knees, and convinced that Danacek killed Maya as payback, David flees, steals the sheriff's Jeep and drives off, determined to find Maya's killer. Scrambling from pillar to post in the frozen wilderness, trying to find help among his old friends, David slowly uncovers a conspiracy among the denizens of the tiny, heavily Scandinavian backwater. While not terrific on the mechanics of the chase, Magnuson (Windfall; Ghost Dancing; etc.) keeps the psychological tension high, right up to the satisfying denouement. Publishers Weekly Review; July 2005.

The Winter Vault
Anne Michaels
Profound loss, desolation and rebuilding are the literal and metaphoric themes of Michaels's exquisite second novel (after Fugitive Pieces). Avery Escher is a Canadian engineer recently moved to a houseboat on the Nile with his new wife, Jean, in 1964. Avery's part of a team of engineers trying to salvage Abu Simbel, which is about to be flooded by the new Aswan dam. His wife, Jean, meanwhile, carries with her childhood memories of flooded villages and the heavy absence of her mother, who died when she was young. Now, the sight of the entire Nubian nation being evacuated from their native land before it's flooded affects both Avery and Jean intensely. Jean's pregnancy seems a possible redemption, but their daughter is stillborn, and Jean falls into despair, shunning the former intimacy of her marriage. When the couple returns to Canada, they set up separate lives and another man enters the picture. Michaels is especially impressive at making a rundown of construction materials or the contents of a market as evocative as the shared moments between two young lovers. A tender love story set against an intriguing bit of history is handled with uncommon skill.
Publishers Weekly Review; March 2009.

The Edge of Winter
Luanne Rice
Rhode Island teenager Mickey and her best friend, Jenna, have shared a love of bird watching, but now they are growing apart as Jenna becomes part of the cool crowd and Mickey clings to her love of nature. She also has to deal with the finality of her parents' divorce and her burgeoning feelings for an outcast surfer. When Mickey finds a snowy owl at Refuge Beach, she brings together her mother and the park ranger Tim O'Casey, a World War II hero and raptor expert. When the owl is injured, and the beach is threatened by a developer who is attempting to dig up a sunken U-boat that is a treasured part of the community's history, a bond forms between adults and teens as they try to save the owl and the refuge, and maybe even heal themselves. Once again Rice weaves together an involving tale of love, loss, and redemption, then deepens the story with a resonant appreciation for nature. Booklist Review; January 2007.

The Winter Queen
Jane Stevenson
Exiled in 17th-century Amsterdam, Elizabeth of Bohemia, sister of England's King Charles I and widow of the dethroned Elector Palatine, spends her days in an agony of rumor and worried uncertainty about her children, who are scattered across Europe. Pelagius van Overmeer, ex-slave and formerly a prince of the Yoruba tribe of Oyo, comes to her attention as a learned and pious man whose arcane skill as a seer may give assurance of her sons' safety. Aside from such insights, Pelagius gives Elizabeth his companionship and his love, and when they secretly marry, he is installed in Elizabeth's household. History mentions no royal prince of Africa, no slave lover, and no black physician in the life of the Winter Queen, but readers will be glad to believe that Pelagius existed for her as they read this well-crafted, moody portrait of royal striving and human need. While this novel is not as thickly plotted as Dorothy Dunnett's masterly Niccolo series, fans of Dunnett will enjoy Stevenson's (London Bridges) complex characterization and marvelous rendering of the dark ambiance of the Dutch Golden Age. Readers will be impatient for the second book in a projected trilogy so that they can find out what will happen to the secret harbored in Middleburg. Highly recommended for most fiction collections.
Library Journal Review; October 2002.

The Art Student's War

The Art Student's War by Brad Leithauser

You will have seen this book on several Best of 2009 lists and on the Michigan Notable Books list for 2010. Detroit in WWII was a machine. Every factory was running day and night producing tanks & planes for the war. Bianca Paradiso, daughter of Italian immigrants, is an 18-year-old art student who is asked to draw "uplifiting" portraits of wounded soldiers. Despite family turmoil, Bianca is exploring her feelings for life, men, and work.

An evocative novel with insight into a young woman's innermost desires at a turning point in her life. The depiction of life in wartime Detroit is riveting (ha, ha).

Cat Stories

Baseball Cat
Garrison Allen
Thirtysomething Penelope Warren owns a mystery bookstore in Empty Creek, Arizona, and does some amateur sleuthing on the side. When the owner of the Empty Creek Coyotes, a minor-league baseball team, is found murdered, police chief Dutch Fowler asks Penelope to help find the killer. Penelope, her cat Big Mike, Dutch, and two doughnut-eating detectives have a fine time plowing through clues on their way to solving the crime. Set against a background of beautiful scenery and minor-league baseball (described in a manner that would please W. P. Kinsella), the novel moves briskly, with Allen supplying plenty of entertaining banter. What makes it all work, though, is the cast of well-drawn characters, especially Penelope herself, surely one of the wittiest and most intelligent women ever found in a cozy mystery. (Even Big Mike the cat works--and not just for cat people.) If P. G. Wodehouse had liked baseball and hung out in the Arizona desert, he might have written a novel much like this one.
Booklist Review; May 1997.

Only the Cat Knows
Marian Babson
The diverting new feline-themed cozy from British author Babson (Please Do Feed the Cat) takes readers to a remote castle where a wealthy business tycoon, Everett Oversall, lives surrounded by a harem of female employees. One of them, Vanessa, takes a fall and lapses into a coma. Vanessa's twin brother, Vance, who happens to work as a female impersonator, is sure that someone tried to kill his sister, so he dons her clothes, fakes amnesia and infiltrates Oversall's compound. There, Vance-as-Vanessa encounters a host of eccentrics, all of whom might have been jealous of his sister, who was Oversall's personal assistant. The only trustworthy member of the household is Vanessa's devoted cat, Gloriana, who proves crucial in sniffing out whodunit. If character development is a tad weak, Vance's constant efforts to keep up his feminine persona will keep readers' attention.
Publishers Weekly Review; April 2007.

Curiosity Killed the Cat sitter
Blaize Clement
Clement's assured cozy debut introduces an appealing heroine, 32-year- old Dixie Hemingway, who's given up her stressful job as a sheriff's deputy in Sarasota, Fla., to become a professional pet sitter. When Dixie calls early one morning on her latest client, a silver-blue Abyssinian named Ghost, she finds a dead man face down in the cat bowl. The contact person (a requirement when you leave an animal with a sitting service) has no clue where Ghost's owner, gorgeous Marilee Doerring, could have gone or why her locks were changed before she left. Unfortunately, when Dixie locates Marilee, she, too, is dead. And that makes Dixie suspect number one. With sensitivity and insight, Clement develops a plot line involving a bigoted, radio psychologist, Carl Winnick; his repressed wife, Olga; and their gay teenage son, Phillip, who's a talented pianist. The difficulties and humor inherent to the pet-sitting business, a local law-enforcement hunk with romantic potential and crisp writing all bode well for future entries in the series.
Publishers Weekly Review; November 2005.

Scratch the Surface
Susan Conant

Fans of Conant's Dog Lover's mysteries (Bride and Groom, etc.) will lap up the first installment of a new series, which introduces Felicity Pride, the author of a mystery series about cats. When Felicity returns to her Boston-area home from a book signing, she's a little freaked out to stumble on a very dead corpse, and a very live cat, in her vestibule. Her shock, however, doesn't prevent her from trying to get as much publicity as possible from her discovery. Envisioning her book sales skyrocketing after she catches the killer, Felicity learns that solving a murder in real life is a lot harder than writing a mystery novel. Yes, the setup, a cat mystery about a cat mystery writer who finds a real body, is a trifle meta. But Conant, never precious, takes the opportunity to poke gentle fun at some of the conventions of the cozy genre. Side-splittingly funny and very clever, this book is just about purr-fect.
Publishers Weekly Review; May 2005.

Cat Stories
James Herriot

Books by the beloved Yorkshire veterinarian, best-selling author of such titles as All Creatures Great and Small, Every Living Thing, and James Herriot's Dog Stories, are always welcome. Cat lovers in particular will cheer this collection of favorite cat tales from Herriot's veterinary practice. Retired after over 50 years in practice, Herriot continues to entertain young and old alike with his storytelling ability. His current collection includes 'Alfred, the Sweet-Shop Cat,' 'Boris and Mrs. Bond's Cat Establishment,' 'Moses Found Among the Rushes,' and others. Guaranteed to warm the hearts of readers of all ages, this book is sure to be in demand.
Library Journal Review; August 1994.

The Unscratchables
Cornelious Kane

In a world inhabited entirely by animals, Max 'Crusher' McNab is a bull terrier working in the San Bernardo Slaughter Unit (homicide). He's a good cop, dedicated and hardworking, but when three local goons for hire (Rottweilers) are torn apart and the evidence points to a cat as the killer, McNab is assigned a partner. Part Siamese Cassius Lap works for the FBI (Feline Bureau of Investigation), and he is McNab's opposite in every way: shiny clean, always dressed in a stylish suit, and a dedicated soy milk drinker. Not only is the unlikely duo of McNab and Lap one of the best new pairs in detective fiction, but The Unscratchables is a perfect mix of wit, classic hard-boiled style, and perceptive commentary on modern society, all coming together to create one of the best mysteries of 2009. What makes this novel stand out is the fully fleshed and utterly believable world created by Kane. Every detail of his fantastical setting is clearly thought out, from locales to the noirish slang of the cops; yet the reader is never subjected to an info dump: all the details are neatly parceled out along with the compelling and fast-paced plot.
Booklist Review; May 2009.

My Cat Spit McGee
Willie Morris

The New York Times obituary for Morris, who died August 2, stated that he was survived by his wife and son but failed to mention Spit McGee, the author's beloved white cat. After reading this slim, sentimental memoir (made poignant by Morris's death), one wonders what is going to happen to Spit now that his master is gone. As he recounted in his best-selling My Dog Skip, Morris had always been a dog man; in his hometown of Yazoo, MS, he and his boyhood friends considered cats to be 'dumb, vain and coldhearted, not to mention remote, calculating, and sinister.' What changed his mind was the Cat Woman, Morris's second wife and a true ailurophile, and a little white kitten with one blue and one gold eye. Saving Spit's life at his birth, Morris became a fascinated cat watcher but not always a responsible owner; he often neglected to have his pets neutered. Believing that Spit was the reincarnation of Skip, Morris tried to teach him a few tricks but soon learned that 'cats ain't dogs' and that Spit McGee was Spit McGee.
Library Journal Review; October 1999.


Cat Fear No Evil
Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Once again sleek feline sleuth Joe Grey and his tabby partner, Dulcie, prove to be the best snitches the Molena Point, Calif., police ever had in this superior cat cozy, the ninth entry in Murphy's popular series (after 2003's Cat Seeing Double). A sophisticated thief has been targeting the small coastal town, stealing prize jewelry and paintings, despite elaborate security measures. Also missing is a vintage 1927 Packard belonging to Joe's owner, Clyde Damen. The ante is raised when a waiter at an art gallery opening suddenly falls dead and a local realtor gets blown up in a gas explosion. Meanwhile, someone is stalking interior designer Kate Osborne, whose apartment is invaded by ferocious tomcat Azrael, an old adversary of Joe's, and the avaricious Consuela Benton is leading astray troubled teenager Dillon Thurwell, whose mother is having an affair with a suave art collector. As usual, the relationships between the lively human characters and the talking cats in whom they confide their problems provide as much interest as the crime solving. The intricate and absorbing plot keeps the reader in suspense throughout.
Publishers Weekly Review; February 2004.

Classic Christmas Music

EmmyLou Harris. Light of the Stable.

Emmylou Harris’ 1978 masterpiece was reengineered in 2004, providing it with a cleaner sound and three additional tracks. A must hear for the holiday season.

Bob Dylan. Christmas in the Heart.

Bob Dylan’s latest finds the cultural icon giving some of the most famous holiday carols his uniquely introspective treatment. Oddly enough, O' Little Town Of Bethlehem sounds as honest and as bewildering as Dylan’s most experimental work. Well worth a play thru at your holiday party.

A Jolly Christmas from Frank Sinatra.

The Chairman of the Board croons his way through all the standards on this album. Nothing enhances a festive holiday evening at home more than a good martini and Mr. Sinatra’s version of Silent Night. A sure way to put even the most un-festive in a cheerful spirit.

Vince Guaraldi. A Charlie Brown Christmas.

The Vince Guaraldi Trio turns in a history making performance on this essential holiday album. Listen to it straight through and you will recall all those times in your childhood you watched with wonder as Charlie Brown and the gang made the saddest looking Christmas tree seem like a thing of sheer beauty.

Bing Crosby. White Christmas.

White Christmas. What more can you say? Probably the most famous and definitive of any holiday recording. The other entries on this collection aren’t too shabby either. Listen while you put up the tree and you’ll experience a complete holiday immersion.

Mariah Carey. Merry Christmas.

Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas deserves a listen as well. Carey was noted in the New Yorker magazine as having written “one of the few worthy modern additions to the holiday canon, the charming “All I Want for Christmas Is You”

Dog Stories

Timbuktu
Paul Auster

Meet discerning and sympathetic Mr. Bones, a dog who is unconditionally faithful to his troubled master, Willy G. Christmas. Auster's leading human character is a tormented writer from Brooklyn who blindly believes in his ideals and willingly chooses to become a vagabond. But the real hero is the four-legged creature who follows him on his impromptu journeys and leads readers through the story. Yes, he thinks and he understands, and although he cannot speak, he keenly observes and contemplates the questionable logic of human behavior. The beginning of the story is promising; the middle gets suspiciously trivial but is rescued by a clever and moving ending. This is not the kind of work Auster has been praised for, but it proves his hunger for innovation once again. Timbuktu will undoubtedly provoke mixed responses, but that is the price of originality. There is something plain yet mysteriously intricate beneath Auster's trademark smooth writing.
Library Journal Review; May 1999.

Jingle Bell Bark
Laurien Berenson

In Berenson's delightful holiday romp, the 11th entry in her popular canine cozy series (Best in Show, etc.), trainer Melanie Travis investigates the suspicious death of her eight-year-old son's school-bus driver, the personable and reliable Henry Pruitt. Melanie rescues the victim's two golden retrievers and takes them to the kennel run by her bossy Aunt Peg, who's keen to learn what really happened to Henry. As Melanie delves into Henry's background, his two disagreeable and greedy daughters arrive on the scene with the outrageous idea of selling the pair of aging dogs on eBay. Preparing for an important dog show, trying to find time for her fiance and dealing with her ex-husband further complicate Melanie's busy life. Oh, and then there's Christmas. Despite all the demands, Melanie manages to hang the wreath, decorate the tree, finish the shopping and collar a murderer. As ever, the author provides a captivating behind-the-scenes look at the world of show dogs.
Publishers Weekly Review; August 2004.

Jenny Willow
Mike Gaddis

A remarkable grouse-hunting dog undergoes a difficult transition from old master to new owner in Gaddis's debut, a compassionate, heartwarming story that begins with octogenarian Ben Willow facing the prospect of spending his twilight years without his late wife, Libby. Willow is rescued from his nostalgic ennui when a neighbor in his West Virginia hamlet offers him a young pointer pup named Jenny. Willow quickly realizes the implications of the dog's lineage as well as her remarkable hunting skills, but when he goes to hunt with her, he finds himself frustrated by his own decline. To compensate for his limitations, he loans her out to another trainer, and Jenny goes on to become a national champion. When she retires, still in her prime, she returns to Willow; on their reunion hunt, however, has a fatal heart attack. After being mauled by a pack of wild dogs and imprisoned by a nasty local redneck who wants to sell her, Jenny is finally rescued by Willow's best friend, Clyde Wood. He fulfills his friend's final request, passing her on to a local boy who promises to train and care for her. Gaddis's decision to eliminate his human protagonist halfway through the book is a risky gamble that pays off with his riveting account of Jenny's dangerous adventure, although the story of her recovery is overwrought and overwritten, and there's never much doubt about a happy ending. Gaddis wears his heart on his sleeve, but despite the occasional mawkish passage, his obvious love of the land, its creatures and his characters makes this book an endearing read.
Publishers Weekly Review; March 2002.

The Labrador Pact
Matt Haig

In the second novel by British author Haig (The Dead Fathers Club), morality is left to the dogs. Prince, the Labrador narrator, lives by the creed, 'Duty over all.' At the beginning of the novel, it seems that Prince has failed all of humanity and disgraced Labs for all time, and, as he is about to be put down, he tells his own tragic story. Although he clings to the teachings of his mentor, Henry, a former police dog, Prince can't keep his married master Adam's eye from roving toward Emily, the new gal in town who just happens to be married to old schoolmate Simon. Further puzzling Prince are the aromas of fear and desire that Adam's wife, Katie, exudes whenever Simon comes around. And he certainly can't seem to sniff out a fix for the teenage woes encountered by Adam and Katie's two kids. With dogged determination, he sacrifices his own pleasure to protect and serve the family that can neither understand his entreaties nor appreciate his level of commitment. Although a little heavy-handed and arguably gimmicky, readers can't help feeling bad for Prince, a good dog just trying to do the right thing.
Publishers Weekly Review; November 2007.

Buster’s Diaries
Roy Hattersley

Pet 'memoirs' can often be silly, but certainly not this one. Books purporting to tell an animal's story in its own 'voice' are often simply too gimmicky and cute to be taken seriously. British writer Hattersley tells the story of his dog, Buster, as if through Buster's own consciousness and voice, and it is actually a charming tale, one that seems 'authentic.' Hattersley has a knack for investing Buster with a perfect mix of human savvy and canine unknowingness. Buster relates his life story as 'the account of an odyssey which took a crossbreed orphan from living rough on a public park to the comfort and security of South West London.' The most troubling moment in Buster's rags-to-riches life was the time when he killed a goose in St. James' Park, which brought him trouble but also fame. Buster is sanguine about his lot in life. Granted, he is 'domesticated and needs to be reminded of the wolf that sleeps inside him,' but that situation 'means that almost everybody loves him.'
Booklist Review; August 2000.

James Herriot’s Favorite Dog Stories
James Herriot

In this sequel to his 1994 Favorite Cat Stories, the estwhile veterinarian spins more loving yarns of the animal world; this time, though, the heartwarming tales are about dogs, and dog lovers will certainly be satisfied. The nine stories that make up this slim volume range from moving and poignant (old dogs, dying dogs, dying dog owners) to clever and silly (fat, spoiled, pompous little dogs, absurdly doting owners) to fond reminiscences of Herriot's own pets. Herriot, who died in 1995, was the author of several books both for adults and for children and is popular for the love, warmth, and humor expressed in his work and the keen insights inherent in his writing, derived from years of veterinary work. This posthumous piece is no exception; fans of Herriot's previous works and animal lovers everywhere will enjoy this collection.
Booklist Review; September 1996.

Nose Down, Eyes Up
Merrill Markoe

Jimmy, the canine star of Merrill's second fun-loving doggie novel (after Walking in Circles Before Lying Down), is the Tony Robbins of the dog world and holds informal seminars with the neighborhood dogs to instruct them in the art of manipulating their human masters (the key, he intones, is nose down, eyes up). Jimmy's poochly wisdom--spot-on and hilarious throughout--is made available courtesy of his owner, Gil, an unlucky in love handyman who learns how to communicate with dogs. This launches the novel's plot, as Gil shoots down Jimmy's idea that he is Gil's biological son. Soon, Jimmy is intent on meeting his birth mother, who happens to belong to Gil's now-remarried ex-wife. A series of setbacks beset the duo, and the tribulations provide lessons in life, love and finding happiness. The conversations with the wry, wise and lovable Jimmy (and his three other oddball dog pals) comprise the novel's heart and comedic through-line--discourse ranges from business matters to why dogs pee so many times during walks. Markoe's hilarious dialogue should be a must-read for dog lovers.
Publishers Weekly Review; October 2008.

Dog On It
Spencer Quinn

An exciting new mystery series debuts with this first Chet and Bernie novel. Chet the Jet is a dog who failed K-9 school (cats in the open country played a role in his demise), but now he is a dedicated PI and works with Bernie, owner of the Little Detective Agency. The story is told entirely from Chet's point of view, which will delight dog-loving mystery readers, but the book is also an excellent PI tale, dogs aside, as Chet and Bernie investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl whose developer dad may be up to no good. Chet may not understand things like maps (he doesn't need them, as he can sniff his way home), but he is a great sleuth who finds the girl and solves the case. The always upbeat Chet may well be one of the most appealing new detectives on the block, but conscientious, kind, and environmentally aware Bernie is a close runner-up. Excellent and fully fleshed primary and secondary characters, a consistently doggy view of the world, and a sprightly pace make this a not-to-be-missed debut. Essential for all mystery collections and for dog lovers everywhere.
Booklist Review; December 2008.

Books on Your Christmas List?

Do you need a gift for that someone who has everything? A special child in your life? A father or grandfather? Lists of selected books for gift giving are everywhere this time of year. Here are links to a few:

Nancy Pearl's Under-the-Radar Holiday Books. Nancy Pearl, librarian and author of Book Lust, recommends books on NPR. This list includes books for adults, teens & children. NPR's best lists for 2009 are listed by critic, so you know who is recommending what.

The New York Times prefers to list the 10 Best Books of 2009 for different categories: children, graphic novels, crime novels, cookbooks, and many more.

Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2009. These are the folks who review books for the bookselling & library world. They present an exhaustive list of adult books divided by type/genre, for example Fiction, Non-Fiction, Mystery, Comics, etc. The only hitch is toward the bottom of the list where Religion runs right into Cookbooks without a break. I am religious about cooking, but I don't think that's what they meant. They have another list of Best Childrens Books.

Amazon gives us two top books lists: Top 100 Editor's Picks and Top 100 Customer Favorites. The customer favorites are decided by books sold by the end of October, 2009, at Amazon.

BookPage's Book Case blog lists the top ten in categories: Fiction, Picture Books, Cookbooks, Audiobooks, Middle Grade Books.

And how do these lists help? They give you a quick blurb about each book. You will see books that you may have missed or that are outside your normal reading interests. Soon we'll be seeing best books of the decade lists.

New Bestsellers in Book Express 12/8/09

Put out this morning:

Divine Misdemeanors by Laurell K. Hamilton.

Someone is killing the fey, which has left the LAPD baffled and Merry Gentry, Los Angeles private eye and princess of faerie, determined to get to the bottom of the case even if means going up against Gilda, the Fairy Godmother. But even stranger things are happening. Mortals Gentry once healed with magic are suddenly performing miracles, a shocking phenomenon wreaking havoc on human/faerie relations. (book summary)


La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith.

It is 1939. Lavender--La to her friends--decides to flee London, not only to avoid German bombs but also to escape the memories of her shattered marriage. Settling in as small town, she organizes an amateur orchestra from the village and the local RAF base and falls in love with one of her prized recruits. (book summary)

Book Express copies go out for 7 days, no renewals, no holds, no overdue grace period. The library also has 14-day copies of these same books, which you can place on hold, renew, etc.

Theft in the Art World

The Promise of Happiness
Justin Cartwright

Cartwright's hilarious, despairing, rapier-sharp third book (Leading the Cheers) delivers a great deal of the absent titular emotion. The five members of the Judd family, reeling from a series of personal and professional blows, have each retreated into a private world. But the impending release of eldest daughter Juliet, an art historian incarcerated in an upstate New York prison for helping to sell stolen Tiffany windows, sets the plot, and the family, in motion. As Juliet, once the apple of her parents' eye but now the family's black sheep, drives to the city with brother Charlie, her father mulls his own professional disgrace, her mother looks to home cooking as a salve, sister Sophie continues to wean herself off drugs (and a married man) and Charlie, the rock of the family, has doubts about his impending marriage to a South American socialite. Each sees their efforts as 'the secretion of human folly,' but the novel retains a measure of hope for the very thing it despairs of: family. Happiness may be too much to ask for, but its chase, Cartwright suggests, can be at the best of times a family pursuit.
Publishers Weekly Review; November 2005.

The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam
Chris Ewan

This impressive debut, a comic whodunit from British entertainment lawyer Ewan, owes much of its charm and success to its compelling antihero, Charles Howard. An established author of mysteries featuring a burglar-detective, Howard himself is a successful burglar. While finishing his latest novel in Amsterdam, Howard receives a cryptic invitation via his Web site and follows his curiosity to a meeting with a mysterious American who somehow knows of the author's secret profession. Howard initially declines the commission to steal two small plaster monkeys, but when he succeeds in his assignment, he finds his client has been brutally bludgeoned. After becoming a suspect, Howard scrambles to understand the link between the monkeys and a diamond heist over a decade earlier. The ease with which Ewan creates a memorable protagonist and pits him against a plausible and tricky killer will be the envy of many more established authors. The detection is first-rate, and Howard is a fresh, irreverent creation who will make readers eager for his next exploit.
Publishers Weekly Review; September 2007.

Museum of the Missing
Simon Houpt

Houpt is best known for his vibrant arts and culture column in Canada's Globe and Mail. This, his first book-length production explores the subject of art theft and its multivalent consequences, from its historical and ethical implications to the complexity of post-recovery restorations. It is one of the first books to cut such a wide and incisive swath across the subject, addressing everything from wartime looting and collector-initiated heists to the motivations behind other historically documented cases of art larceny. Each chapter contains three to four full-page, illustrated features that highlight thefts of exceptional infamy, profile the detectives and agencies working on art crimes, or provide a glimpse of the contemporary technologies employed to facilitate the recovery of stolen work. The concluding 'Gallery of Missing Art' serves as a visual reprise of the thefts discussed in previous chapters and offers a valuable record of many works still unaccounted for. Informative and insightful, this book is highly recommended for art history and cultural history collections. With a foreword by Julian Radcliffe, whose London-based Art Loss Register reunites stolen artworks with their rightful owners.
Library Journal Review; August 2006.

Artistic License
Julie Hyzy

Artist Annie Callaghan, on the verge of divorcing her grammar- challenged, on-the-make, burglar husband Gary, sleeps with him one last time and winds up pregnant, and even worse, saddled with him and his smelly pal Pete in her nice house. Still, some things are looking up. She's been hired to paint a mural in Sam Morgan's ice cream parlor, and when two bratty kids deface it, their mom, Gina DeChristopher, asks Annie to paint a dinosaur mural in the kids' playroom. Three floors down, the very wealthy Mr. DeChristopher has decorated his private study with purloined Fabergi eggs and a Durer etching stolen from Chicago's Art Institute and valued at ten million dollars. In typically dumb fashion, Gary and Pete naturally plan a heist that winds up with Gary dead, Pete on the lam, and poor Annie weeping all over nice Sam Morgan's shirt. Annie almost comes to a bad end when DeChristopher tries to get his goodies back, but not to worry: Sam to the rescue.
Kirkus Review; December 2003.

Chasing Cezanne
Peter Mayle

Mayle gets better with each book, creating even more inventive plots and fashioning even more delectable characters. In his latest wonderful novel, Andre Kelly does substantial freelance photography for Camilla Porter, editor of the splashy New York magazine DQ. Camilla sends Andre to the South of France on a particular assignment. With time to kill, he ventures to a local villa to pay his respects to the owner, but, instead, observes a Cezanne painting being removed from the premises. Curiosity aroused, Andre pursues the story and inadvertently gets himself involved in a complicated art-forgery scam. With the enlisted aid of his assistant back in New York and a sophisticated art dealer only too thrilled to be involved in such a delicious caper, Andre successfully circumvents all attempts to do him bodily harm and finds out exactly what is going on. And who turns out to be up to her exquisitely plucked eyebrows in the art fraud? DQ editor Camilla Porter herself. At once breezy and intelligent, Mayle's novel is absolutely pleasurable reading.
Booklist Review; May 1997.

The Man Who Stole the Mona Lisa

Robert Noah

Based on an actual 1911 attempt to steal the world's most famous work of art, this intricate, fable-like yarn concerns the Marquis de Valfierno, an urbane Buenos Aires swindler, and his partner in crime, a master painter who can only copy other people's work. After the duplicitous duo successfully steal and forge several prominent masterpieces in Mexico City, Valfierno sets his sights on the Mona Lisa. The plot acquires a romantic angle when the marquis marries a much younger Brazilian and finds himself providing for a family. Noah's (All the Right Answers) descriptions of the cat-and-mouse games of an art thief are consistently entertaining, but it's the elaborate fantasy atmosphere that makes the machinations work. The intriguing cast of secondary characters includes the young cripple who performs the actual thefts, the barber who organizes the marquis's affairs and the blackmailer who tries to capitalize on the loss of the Louvre's showcase piece. The decision to present the climactic theft before the final resolution robs the book of some momentum, but this charming tale should delight art lovers as well as readers who love a creative caper.
Publishers Weekly Review; September 2001.

The Pieces from Berlin
Michael Pye

This human drama unfolds as Nicolas Muller-Rossi, an elderly Swiss academic, attempts to attend his estranged father's funeral, only to be shunned by the deceased's second family. The reason? During World War II, his mother, Lucia, now a frail antiques dealer, used her mercenary charm to collect and sell the art treasures 'abandoned' by Jewish German residents. When a former neighbor passes by Lucia's store and recognizes a valuable table once held in her own home, it catalyzes the long delayed process of bringing Lucia's actions to justice. As Lucia's trial approaches, each character must grapple with his or her (often repressed) memories of the war. Pye fully fleshes out his characters, never allowing them to slip into easy stereotypes: Lucia is both a selfish flirt as well as an intelligent businesswoman who struggled against the constrictions society placed on her gender; Nicolas is a thoughtful professor as well as a frightened old man who selectively ignores key moments from his past.
Booklist Review; January 2003.

The Chrysalis
Heather Terrell

Attorney Mara Coyne's firm is hired by the venerable art-auction-house Beazley's to defend the ownership of 'The Chrysalis,' a seventeenth- century Dutch painting by Johannes Miereveld. The owner, who purchased the painting through Beazley's, is ready to sell, but Hilda Baum, whose parents died in the Holocaust, says the Nazis stole the painting from her family, and she wants it back. Working with Beazley's employee Michael Roarke, a former college classmate, Mara prepares the case, certain a positive outcome will guarantee her a partnership in her prestigious law firm. Then, when Mara finds some irregularities in Beazley's way of doing business, she works to unravel the truth-- perhaps at the expense of her career. Jumping between present-day New York City and Holland, both in the seventeenth century and during World War II, the story starts slowly but builds in intensity to an exciting climax. Rich details about the art-auction business and case law are woven throughout this fascinating debut.
Booklist Review; May 2007.

New Bestsellers in Book Express

Just added this week:

Too Many Murders by Colleen McCullogh

The call number is FIC McCullogh. There are 3 copies in Book Express and 2 copies in New Fiction (14-day). Holds may be placed on the New Fiction copies.

On a beautiful spring day in the little city of Holloman, Connecticut, home to prestigious Chubb University and armaments giant Cornucopia, chief of detectives Captain Carmine Delmonico has more pressing concerns than finding a name for his infant son: twelve murders have taken place in one day, and Delmonico is drawn into a gruesome web of secrets and lies. (book summary)

U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton

The call number is M Grafton. There are 10 copies in Book Express and 10 copies in New Fiction (14-day). All are checked out at the moment, but click on the title above to see when they are due. Holds can be placed on the New Fiction copies.

After a recent reference to a kidnapping triggers a flood of memories, unemployed college dropout Michael Sutton hires Kinsey Millhone to locate a four-year-old girl's remains and find the men who killed her. (book description)