New Fiction Releases
December 2009

(Do you need more information on how to place a hold?)

General Fiction . Mystery & Detective . Romance . Science Fiction & Fantasy

General Fiction

The Autobiography of Fidel Castro
By Norberto Fuentes
A satirical fictionalized portrait by an exiled former confidante seeks to capture the Cuban dictator’s authentic voice while sharing the story of his life, covering everything from his early sexual experiences and perspectives on Che Guevara to his state secrets and philosophy on murder.

Burning Shadows:  A Novel of the Count Saint-Germain
By Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
Seeking sanctuary at an isolated monastery to protect hundreds of villagers who are being targeted by Hun attacks, the vampire Saint-Germain finds his efforts complicated by the monks’ fervently religious belief that self-defense is contrary to God’s will.

Days of Gold
By Jude Deveraux
After a failed attempt to reclaim Edilean Talbot’s family gold, Angus McTern is accused of kidnapping and theft and must flee 1766 Scotland with Edilean to find refuge in the growing American colonies.

Deeper Than the Dead
By Tami Hoag
A California town is rocked to its core when two boys and a girl stumble upon a murder victim, drawing Special Agent Tony Mendez into a search for a psychopathic serial killer called “The See No Evil Killer.”  As his probe continues, he realizes that the killer may be the father of one of the boys and enlists the aid of their teacher, Anne Navarre, to uncover the truth.

Delilah
By India Edghill
Raised to be a priestess to the Five Cities ruling Canaan, a rebellion-wary Delilah sets out to capture reluctant Israelite warrior Samson, who falls in love with Delilah and forces the young priestess to question her heart and loyalties.

The Disappeared
By M. R. Hall
When a routine inquiry into the presumed death of a long-missing university student escalates into a cover-up extending to the highest levels of the UK legal system, coroner Jenny Cooper takes on corrupt individuals who would resort to any means to hide the truth.

The Disciple
By Stephen Coonts
When it is discovered that Iran is weeks away from having operational nuclear weapons and that Admadinejad is plotting a brutal holy war, CIA agents Tommy Carmellini and Jake Grafton receive vital information from a group of Iranian dissidents and begin a world-saving race against time.

Foolproof
By Barbara D’Amato; Jeanne M. Dams; and Mark Richard Zubro
In a collaborative work by three award-winning authors, September 11 survivors Brenda and Daniel establish a secret anti-terrorist division within their new software security firm and expose a terrorist plot to rig a presidential election.

Ghosts and Lightning
By Trevor Byrne
Called back to his native Dublin to attend his mother’s funeral, Denny, a sweet-natured but disillusioned young man, struggles with his feelings of powerlessness in the face of death, drug use, and unemployment, while spending his empty days with a series of hooligan companions.

A Good Fall:  Stories
By Ha Jin
An anthology by the National Book Award-winning author contains intricately detailed pieces illuminating the experiences of Chinese immigrants in America, from a lonely composer who takes comfort in a parakeet’s song, to a group of children who want to change their names.

Hollywood Moon
By Joseph Wambaugh
In the wake of reports about a young man who has been attacking women, LAPD cops Flotsam and Jetsam encounter a suspicious pair of individuals with ties to a deadly, high-tech organization that pits its own con artists against one another.

The Honor of Spies (Honor Bound)
By W. E. B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth, IV
Assigned to help a German lieutenant colonel escape from a Mississippi prisoner-of-war detention center, World War II OSS officer Cletus Frade learns of the colonel’s role in a conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler and must outmaneuver a plot to kill the man’s Nazi-connected parents.

I, Sniper (Bob Lee Swagger)
By Stephen Hunter
Bob Lee Swagger fights to clear the name of a fellow soldier-in-arms and faces off against one of his most ruthless adversaries yet, a sniper whose keen intellect and pinpoint accuracy rivals his own.

Liberating Atlantis:  A Novel of Alternate History
By Harry Turtledove
Frederick, a descendent of the family that founded Atlantis’s first settlement, must work as a slave when he is unable to prove his lineage, and becomes the leader of a revolutionary army of freedom fighters.

Mariposa:  A Quantico Novel
By Greg Bear
When the Talos Corporation threatens to subvert the American government with the mind-altering Mariposa program, it is up to FBI agents William Griffin, Rebecca Rose, and Nathan Trace to stop the military-contracting company and its ruthless CEO before it’s too late.

The Memory Quilt:  A Christmas Story for Our Times
By T. D. Jakes
A grandmother learns 10 life lessons from the story of Jesus’s birth in the Bible, inspiring her to create quilts for children at a local shelter.  A first Christmas story from the best-selling author of Reposition Yourself: Living Life Without Limits.

Nanny Returns
By Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
A sequel to the best-selling Nanny Diaries finds Nan returning to New York after 10 years abroad and getting approached by a drunken 16-year-old Grayer X, who describes his parents’ brutal divorce and prompts her re-entry into child care for the elite.

The Paris Vendetta
By Steve Berry
Awakened by a housebreaking stranger who is revealed to be a friend of Henrik Thorvaldsen and the father of a young man he once tried to save, Cotton Malone flees with the intruder when they are pursued by a shadowy organization that is hiding a dangerous Napoleon-era secret.

Trial by Fire
By J. A. Jance
Taking a media relations position with the Yavapai County Police Department, former television journalist Ali Reynolds investigates a subdivision fire and the identity of an injured amnesiac woman, a case that unleashes a family drama and a remorseless killer.

True Confections
By Katharine Weber
Marrying into a candy conglomerate family that is struggling with differences over the company’s eventual succession, Alice investigates the family’s rags-to-riches story from a slave ancestor’s efforts to flee the cacao plantations in Cote d’Ivoire to a Hungarian immigrant’s inspiration from a stolen library book.

Unfinished Desires
By Gail Godwin
Sparking enthusiasm for a play about the founding of their Catholic girls’ school located in the mountains of North Carolina, a charismatic ninth grader and her recently-orphaned best friend set in motion a series of events that have decades-long ramifications.

Mystery & Detective
(some titles may also be found in General Fiction)

Alone
By Loren D. Estleman
Struggling to keep his beloved run-down movie palace from being condemned, film archivist Valentino attends a gala party held in memory of Greta Garbo and learns about a love letter revealing the film icon’s scandalous affair, a situation that is complicated by a blackmailer’s untimely murder.

Cat Striking Back:  A Joe Grey Mystery
By Shirley Rousseau Murphy
Feline investigators Joe Grey, Dulcie, and Kit track a killer whose plans soon entangle the lives of the cats’ human companions, and a feral-cat stranger leads Joe and his friends to an unlikely crypt that might have lain undiscovered for generations.

A Catered Birthday Party:  A Mystery with Recipes
By Isis Crawford
When sisters Bernie and Libby Simmons cater a canine birthday celebration for Trudy the Pug, who is the mascot for the Colbert Toy Company, the big day is marred by murder when Trudy’s pugnacious owner is poisoned, forcing Bernie and Libby to sniff out a killer among a lot of suspects – all of whom had a bone to pick with the deceased.

Crawlspace (A Home Repair Is Homicide Mystery)
By Sarah Graves
Six years after the alleged death of murderer Randy Dodd, true-crime writer Jake Tiptree and her assistant journey to the city of Eastport to investigate suspicions that Dodd faked his death, an effort that is challenged by sinister threats and the abduction of Jake’s son.

Faces of the Gone
By Brad Parks
Realizing that the police are failing to correctly assess an execution-style murder that has claimed four lives, Newark investigative reporter Carter Ross recruits a team of colorful helpers to identify a common link between the seemingly unrelated victims.

Final Exam
By Maggie Barbieri
Filling in for a resident director who has disappeared under circumstances that their employer would keep quiet, college professor Alison Bergeron and her boyfriend, Detective Bobby Crawford, discover that the unwanted assignment can only be ended if they find the missing man.

The Good Son
By Russell D. McLean
In the aftermath of the suicide death of a farmer’s estranged brother,  Scottish private investigator Daniel Robertson begins to suspect the work of a pair of killers who are targeting victims throughout the city, a situation that is complicated by personal demons.

London Boulevard
By Ken Bruen
In a dark twist on the classic, Sunset Boulevard, Mitchell completes a prison sentence for a crime he does not remember committing and takes a job at the mansion of a faded movie actress before his violent past catches up with him.

Luck of the Draw
By Anthony J. Cardieri
In the wake of a series of calculated murders that are wiping out entire families in lower Manhattan, Detective Deke Durgess and his team of fellow investigators and FBI agents prepare a daring sting operation only to have the killer turn the tables on them.

Mr. Monk in Trouble
By Lee Goldberg
America’s favorite obsessive-compulsive detective returns in a new original tale based on the popular TV series.

Overkill: An Emma Streat Mystery
By Eugenia Lovett West
Begged to intervene in an affair between her opera-singer niece and a notorious playboy, Emma Streat returns to Boston with Vanessa only to have the young woman struck down by the U.S.’s first case of Avian flu, a situation with dangerous ties to an international organization that traffics in stolen viruses.

The Red Velvet Turnshoe
By Cassandra Clark
A tale set against a backdrop of the Black Death and Hundred Years’ War finds brave nun Abbess Hildegard searching for the sacred Cross of Constantine in order to safeguard the English crown.

Sting of Justice
By Cora Harrison
Attending the funeral of the Burren priest only to discover the dead body of a local silversmith, Mara of early 16th-century western Ireland finds the situation complicated by the victim’s greedy nature, which earned him many enemies.

Too Many Murders:  A Carmine Delmonico Novel
By Colleen McCullough
The best-selling author of The Thorn Birds offers a riveting sequel to her acclaimed detective novel On,Off, in a book that continues the adventures of Carmine Delmonico.

U Is for Undertow
By Sue Grafton
Hired by a preppy college dropout to discern the fate of a 4-year-old girl who disappeared more than 20 years earlier, Kinsey Millhone investigates the young man’s sketchy memories about a brutal scene he believes he discovered at the age of 6.

Where Armadillos Go to Die
By James Hime
Retired Texas Ranger Jeremiah Spur becomes the only investigator interested in determining the fate of a missing restaurant owner whose promising invention has been targeted by venture capitalists and an NFL star.

Winterland
By Alan Glynn
Refusing to believe in the accidental death of a beloved family member who coincidentally died on the same night as a gang member with the same name, a grief-stricken Gina Rafferty ignores edicts to stop asking questions and begins pushing powerful people for the truth.

Romance

Science Fiction & Fantasy
(some titles may also be found in General Fiction)

Cobra Alliance (Cobra War, Book 1)
By Timothy Zahn
Just as most people are thinking that the Cobra warriors – a guerilla force whose weapons are surgically implanted – are not worth their high cost, from the shadows of the universe comes a new menace, one that even the formidable Cobra warriors may not be able to defeat.

Divine Misdemeanors (Meredith Gentry)
By Laurell K. Hamilton
Refusing the throne of faerie in order to protect her unborn twins, Merry withdraws her bodyguards to Los Angeles before encountering unexpected dangers from the factions of the faerie courts and her own worshippers.

Fired Up (Arcane Society: The Dreamlight Trilogy, Book One)
By Jayne Ann Krentz
After nightmares and blackouts signal the presence of a family curse, Jack Winters seeks the Burning Lamp in hopes of preventing his transformation into a monster, enlisting the help of Chloe Harper, an alluring private investigator with special powers who just may be able to read the dreamlight of the Burning Lamp – if the two of them can ever find it.

First Lord’s Fury (Codex Alera)
By Jim Butcher
Legendary man of war and the rightful First Lord of Alera, Gaius Octavian, must save his world from eternal darkness and stand against the savage Vord in the Calderon Valley.

Galileo’s Dream
By Kim Stanley Robinson
The dramatic colonization efforts of the moons of Jupiter parallel the 400-year-old story of Galileo’s heresy trials in Renaissance Italy.

Hidden Empire
By Orson Scott Card
A sequel to the best-selling Empire finds Captain Cole becoming increasingly concerned about new U.S. President Averell Torrent’s tough-handed foreign policy stance, a perspective that causes him to be targeted and prompts his investigation into the president’s role in an assassination plot.

Muse and Reverie
By Charles de Lint
A latest anthology of tales set in the “Newford” universe finds the culture of an everyday North American city transformed by magical elements in between its people and places.

Suicide Kings
By George R. R. Martin
A latest entry in the popular new-generation Wild Card series finds the Suicide Kings inciting chaos throughout America and Africa in their continuing struggle to reclaim their humanity in a world of fearful adversaries.

We can help. Ask Us!
Ask Readers Services for help and reading suggestions by phone or online.

St. Charles Public Library
Readers Services
630-584-0076 ext 214

11/09