SMSA (Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts)
BIOGRAPHY
| Jaku, Eddie | The happiest man on Earth |
| Raja, Christopher | Into the suburbs |
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GENERAL FICTION
| Agar, Haleh | Out of touch |
| Carlyle, Rose | The girl in the mirror |
| Cayre, Hannelore | The inheritors |
| Conte, Steven | The Tolstoy Estate |
| Dalton, Trent | All our shimmering skies |
| Flanagan, Richard | The living sea of waking dreams |
| Goldberg, Nicola Maye | Nothing can hurt you |
| Gyasi, Yaa | Transcendent kingdom |
| Harris, Robert | V2 |
| Hornby, Nick | Just like you |
| Johnson, Alaya Dawn | Trouble the saints |
| Kaikini, Jayant | No presents, please |
| Knox, Malcolm | Bluebird |
| Lohrey, Amanda | The labyrinth |
| McInerney, Monica | The godmothers |
| Nunez, Sigrid | What are you going through |
| Olafsson, Olaf | The sacrament |
| Patel, Ameera | Outside the lines |
| Picoult, Jodi | The book of two ways |
| Tremain, Rose | Islands of mercy |
| Ward, Sophie | Love and other thought experiments |
V2 / Robert Harris
This engrossing novel set in late 1944 from Thriller Award winner Harris (Munich) finds Section Officer Kay Caton-Walsh, of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, getting ready for the day after spending the night with her married lover and boss, Air Commodore Mike Templeton, in his London flat. Then a German V2 rocket damages Templeton’s apartment building, leaving Kay with minor injuries. After the emergency responders mistake Kay for Templeton’s wife, and the real Mrs. Templeton learns that she was erroneously reported hurt in the attack, Templeton begins to distance himself from Kay. That personal loss, coupled with Kay’s direct experience of the V2’s power, leads her to volunteer for a mission to Belgium, where she and several other women are to use their mathematical skills to trace the origin of a missile’s flight by working backward from its trajectory and impact point. Once on the continent, Kay gets on the trail of a saboteur. As usual, Harris brings the past to life through vivid characterizations and clever plotting. Fans of superior historical fiction will be rewarded. (Publishers Weekly, 20 July 2020)
No presents please / Jayant Kaikini
This glorious collection of 16 short stories was written in the author’s first language, Kannada. This language just makes it into the top 10 of languages in India and might not have been on most Australians’ radars. Being written in a language spoken by less than four per cent of the population, it immediately marks the characters as outsiders, and implies these people are at a much greater disadvantage in navigating India’s largest city. These are stories of survivors – from street vendors, like chaiwalas selling tea, and employees forced by long hours to sleep on the business premises, to those without secure employment struggling from irregular meal to irregular meal. This is not a pity party, though. Each of the stories is told with underlying humour and pathos. There is a poetic beauty in the language (with credit due to both author and translator): ‘Now all those memories had the faint smell of naphthalene balls.’ Stories such as ‘Dagadu Parab’s Wedding Horse’ have a dream-like quality. Here, a bridegroom sits on a horse startled by a noise and after it bolts, the rider is transported to a different life entirely. People are together in relationships and yet apart: a metaphor for being an outsider in a huge metropolis. Each of these stories is a sweet snack – a jalebi for instance – and combine as a whole to give a radiance to the daily life of the (monetarily) poor in Mumbai. They were written from the 1980s to 2000s but without the attendant dates, you might not realise that. So little changes over time. With the sublime nature of these stories, it makes you wonder what else you might be missing out on with English as a mother tongue. (Good Reading Magazine, October 2020)
The Labyrinth / Amanda Lohrey
When Erica Marsden abandons city life for a reclusive existence in a ramshackle cottage on the New South Wales coast, she cannot anticipate the restorative and redemptive kindness she will encounter. Devastated by the crime that has led to her artist son’s incarceration, Erica initially holds herself aloof from her neighbours, attempting to assuage her own guilt through isolation and deprivation. As a form of punishment, she perseveres with prison visits that prove torturous to herself and to her son, needing to understand how and why he came to make the choices that would have disastrous consequences for so many. As time passes, Erica’s self-loathing and shame are slowly eroded by the rugged beauty of the environment surrounding her home, and by the gentle overtures of friendship from those who live nearby. Recalling her father’s conviction that the cure for many ills is to build something, Erica embarks on a project to create a labyrinth in her backyard. When an enigmatic foreigner agrees to help Erica to overcome her uncertainty and indecision, she is able to literally and figuratively forge a path out of the darkness, rediscovering her capacity for strength and resilience in the process. This quietly cerebral, emotional and atmospheric story is a gift of hope at a time when so many are struggling with seemingly insurmountable challenges. (Good Reading Magazine, October 2020)
The book of two ways / Jodi Picoult
Dawn Edelstein is a death doula, who helps her clients manage the transition between life and death. In 10 years of work, she has learned a lot about how to confront and manage death. But then she is forced to face her own mortality when she is involved in a plane crash. In what she assumes are her last moments, the face that flashes into her mind is not that of her husband or daughter but of Wyatt, a man she loved 15 years earlier when she was studying for a doctorate in Egyptology. Dawn survives but her world has been rocked off its axis. She must decide whether to return to her old life in Boston or go to Egypt to reconnect with Wyatt and finish her abandoned studies on The Book of Two Ways,an Egyptian map to the afterlife. Fate is offering her a second chance and she starts to doubt the choices she’s made. Her fears are raised in questions she must confront. What does a well-lived life look like? Can she live with her choices or is there a way to revisit the past? When her time runs out, who does she want with her at the end? This thought-provoking novel uses Egyptian history and archaeology, quantum physics, parallel universes and philosophy to examine questions of life, death, love, loss, choices and missed opportunities. A fascinating and profound read. (Good Reading Magazine, October 2020)
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HISTORICAL FICTION
| Janson, Julie | Benevolence |
| Keneally, Meg | The wreck |
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MYSTERY
| Bussi, Michel | Never forget |
| Chien, Vivien | Killer kung pao |
| Diamond, Katerina | The heatwave |
| Finch, Paul | One eye open |
| Frear, Caz | Shed no tears |
| French, Nicci | House of correction |
| Galbraith, Robert | Troubled blood |
| Griffiths, Elly | The postscript murders |
| Harper, Jane | The survivors |
| Ivar, Katja | Deep as death |
| Jeong, You-Jeong | Seven years of darkness |
| Koomson, Dorothy | The ice cream girls |
| McCall Smith, Alexander | How to raise an elephant |
| Nesbo¸, Jo | The kingdom |
| Osman, Richard | The Thursday Murder Club |
| Patterson, James | 1st case |
| Pavesi, Alex | Eight detectives |
| Penny, Louise | All the devils are here |
| Perry, Anne | A question of betrayal |
| Rankin, Ian | A song for the dark times |
| Robb, J. D. | Shadows in death |
| Spain, Jo | Dirty little secrets |
| Stevenson, Benjamin | Either side of midnight |
| Trinchieri, Camilla | Murder in Chianti |
| Ware, Ruth | One by one |
| Woo, Sung J. | Skin deep |
House of correction / Nicci French
Tabitha Hardy is in prison for murder, as House of Correction opens. But she’s convinced it won’t be for long: “I still feel like I’m in the middle of a car crash and the crash is going on and on and on. But soon they’ll realise that all of this is crazy and let me go.” The problem is that Tabitha can’t remember the details of what happened on the day Stuart Rees’s corpse was found in the shed outside her house; she suffers from severe depression and “she couldn’t remember that day, or only a few snatches. It had been a day of wild weather and of a crouching fear. The kind of day she had to crawl blindly through, just to get to the end.” Nicci French husband-and-wife writing team responsible for some of the UK’s best psychological thrillers has created a gem of a protagonist in Tabitha, who sets out to investigate what happened herself, from prison. Sad, small, yet gloriously tough and indomitable, she summons the inhabitants of the place where the murder happened to speak to her and slowly pieces together her case. A version of a locked-room mystery – the killing occurs in a village where the exit road has been blocked by a tree – House of Correction allows the reader to puzzle out what happened alongside Tabitha, while cheering her efforts. (Sydney Morning Herald, 8 September 2020)
Troubled blood / Robert Galbraith
J.K. Rowling returns with the fifth of her Cormoran Strike series of detective thrillers, and the blood flows fast. At the opening, we find Strike at a pub—he’s never far from an adult beverage—when he’s approached by a young woman with a strange tale. Her mother, Margot Bamborough, a general practitioner, disappeared from her clinic—in 1974. Strike, working his first cold case, Googles the doctor’s name only to find that her disappearance had aspects in common with ones attributed to the very unpleasant Dennis Creed, who kidnapped, raped, murdered, and beheaded his victims—sometimes, in a choice that will raise red flags coming from Rowling, while dressed in women’s clothes. Now locked away, Creed is just one of the suspects who emerges in the course of Rowling’s overlong but propulsive yarn, each of whom seems to have the job of pulling Strike away from the elusive truth. Fortunately, he has Robin Ellacott, his associate, to get him back on course: He is the muscle and the mover, prosthetic leg notwithstanding, but Robin has a talent for ferreting just the right bits of information out of people. And what people there are: a supposedly drug-addicted colleague of Margot’s; the son of a cop who investigated the disappearance and slowly went mad in the process, leaving notebooks of speculation behind that increasingly turned toward the astrological and supernatural; prostitutes and minor drug dealers; a young man with a penchant for animal abuse; a philandering fellow, several of whose girlfriends wind up inconveniently dead; even a couple of vicious gangsters. Then there’s Creed himself, a minor Hannibal Lecter whom Strike takes pleasure in deflating: “She was murdered by a far more skillful killer than you ever were,” he tells the psychopath. Ouch! After wading through a barrel of red herrings, Rowling—beg pardon, Galbraith—delivers the real killer, the least obvious of the lot, and it’s a masterful, perfectly thought-through revelation. Too long by a couple of hundred pages but still skillfully told, with a constantly gleeful interest in human awfulness. (Kirkus Reviews, 15 September 2020)
The survivors / Jane Harper
It’s been 12 years since Kieran made a reckless decision that led to fatal consequences and he’s lived with a heavy burden of guilt every day since. He rarely visits the small seaside town of Evelyn Bay in Tasmania that he once called home. But his father, Brian, is suffering from dementia and his mother, Verity, needs help to pack up the family home and move Brian into care. Kieran, his partner, Mia, and their baby daughter return to help. Within a few days of their arrival, a young woman, Bronte, who had a summer job in Evelyn Bay, is found dead on the local beach. As the police investigate, they uncover long-buried secrets. Hidden sea caves, a sunken wreck, a missing girl, a deadly storm: is Kieran ready for the ghosts of his past to be dragged up again? And how is Bronte’s death connected? This is an intriguing mystery, but a deeper layer is added by the well-drawn characters and their relationships. In a small town where everyone knows each other, suspicions are easily aroused. We care as much about what happens to the characters as we do about solving the crime. Like in her previous books, the setting is so strong that it’s almost a character in itself. For fans like me, a new Harper book is a treat and this is another cracking read. (Good Reading Magazine, October 2020)
Thursday Murder Club / Richard Osmond
So now we know what Pointless creator Richard Osman has been up to behind that laptop: drawing on his passion for classic English crime fiction for his own attempt at the genre. When word got out it sparked a 10-way publishing auction, and the novel has become the fastest selling adult crime debut since records began. That’s quite an achievement for what turns out to be an amiable if undemanding cosy caper. What marks it out is the originality of the setting, inspired by a visit Osman paid to an affluent retirement village boasting a full range of recreational and medical facilities including a “contemporary upscale restaurant”. In the novel this becomes Cooper’s Chase, an exclusive development secreted on the Kentish weald: “You can’t move here until you’re over sixty-five and the Waitrose delivery vans clink with wine and repeat prescriptions every time they pass over the cattle grid”. Every Thursday the amateur sleuths of Cooper’s Chase gather in the jigsaw room, “between Art History and Conversational French”, to investigate unsolved murder cases that the Kent police force have been too incompetent to prosecute themselves. Cooper’s Chase sits on the site of a former convent: now the developer, a brash vulgarian who owns a red grand piano, is exploiting a contractual loophole to turn the chapel and graveyard into eight new flats. Clearly he is not long for this world, and when somebody slips him a lethal injection in a scuffle, the Thursday Murder Club have a real life homicide on their hands. Osman’s plotting is both deft and daft in equal measure; and the key members of the over-60s murder squad are distinctly drawn. Elizabeth, the prime mover, was “the sort of teacher who terrifies you all year then gets you a grade A and cries when you leave”. Her sidekicks include militant “Red” Ron Ritchie, who has a West Ham tattoo on his neck and vociferous opinions to match; and former nurse Joyce, the quiet one in a lavender blouse and mauve cardigan, who goes unnoticed but notices everything. Only the fastidious Egyptian psychiatrist Ibrahim feels like a bit of a cipher, included to introduce a hint of diversity. And of course there are loose ends left dangling; the Thursday Murder Club is set to run and run. (Sydney Morning Herald, 3 October 2020)
One by one / Ruth Ware
Set in a remote chalet at an exclusive French Alps resort, this tempestuous locked-room mystery from Ware centers on the 10-person corporate retreat of social media company Snoop. Snoop’s shareholders—cofounders and ex-lovers Topher St. Clair-Bridges and Eva van den Berg, coder Elliot Cross, comptroller Rik Adeyemi, and former secretary Liz Owens (all millennials)—bitterly disagree on whether to sell the business to investors or to seek additional funding and work toward an IPO. The group goes skiing to dispel tension, but then Eva fails to report for lunch. Before chalet employees Erin and Danny can arrange for a search, an avalanche eradicates the exit routes and knocks out power, internet, and phones. After another guest dies, the panicked survivors wonder whether there’s a murderer in their midst. Liz and Erin share the narrative, which Ware rapidly cycles to accelerate pace and amplify suspense. Agatha Christie fans take note. (Publishers Weekly, September 2020)
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NON FICTION
| Kahneman, Daniel | Thinking, fast and slow | 153.4 KAHN |
| Macdonald, Helen | Vesper flights | 508 MACD |
Vesper flights / Helen MacDonald
English naturalist Macdonald (H Is for Hawk) offers meditations on the natural world and its inhabitants in an inviting collection of 41 new and previously published essays that are infused with wonder, nostalgia, and melancholy. Macdonald ruminates on the pleasures of watching animals in “Wicken,” and recalls encounters with fierce creatures in “Nothing Like a Pig,” about wild boars, and in “Hares,” about boxing hares—“magical harbingers of spring” that are increasingly rare in Britain. She reflects on her childhood in “Nests,” in which she recalls collecting detritus like seeds and pinecones, and in “Tekels Park,” about roaming a meadow in the 1970s that’s since been sold to developers. Her appreciation of birds is displayed in essays including “A Cuckoo in the House,” which details how cuckoos trick other birds into sheltering them, and the title essay, about the flight patterns of “magical” swifts. The message throughout is clear: the world humans enjoy today may not be around tomorrow, so it should not be taken for granted. This will inspire readers to get outside. (Publishers Weekly, 23 March 2020)
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POETRY
| James, Clive | The fire of joy |
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SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY
| Paolini, Christopher | To sleep in a sea of stars |
To sleep in a sea of stars / Christopher Paolini
Kira is a xenobiologist, a specialist in alien life, scouring the rocky surface of the uncolonised moon Adrasteia for signs of nasty extraterrestrial bacteria that could wreak havoc on the intrepid humans planning to settle there. She’s part of a team that travels to moons and planets orbiting in the Goldilocks Zone of stars and makes the necessary adjustments to ensure they’re suitable for human habitation. As yet, the only evidence of sentient alien life humanity has stumbled upon as it spreads into space is the infamous Great Beacon, a seemingly abandoned giant artefact in the outer reaches of discovered space. The Beacon’s creators have never been encountered. Kira’s team throws a party to celebrate a successful mission. During the festivities Kira’s colleague and partner Alan proposes. He convinces Kira to give up their life of travel to lonely far-flung planets and suggests they join the colonising civilians of Adrasteia. Thrilled at the prospect of leading a normal life with her lover, Kira accepts. Before the night is over a drone identifies a previously undetected sign of life on Adrasteia. Kira must investigate before they can wrap the mission. She jets out the next morning and discovers a towering structure of black, spear-like rocks. As she explores, Kira plummets into what can only be an underground cave carved by aliens. A shifting presence lurks. This is any xenobiologist’s dream – first contact with an alien organism. Horrifyingly, this presence becomes part of her. As a terrified Kira gains access to preternatural abilities and memories that aren’t hers, she’s dragged into a galactic war that engulfs human-occupied space. Aliens attack – sinister technology, killer tentacles and laser guns galore – and they’re all after Kira. Christopher Paolini is the author of the mega-successful fantasy series ‘The Inheritance Cycle’, which kicked off with Eragon. His early writing success is a masterclass in hustle. Paolini wrote Eragon in his teens and in 2001 his parents self-published the book. Selling the book became the family business and Paolini toured American schools and bookstores for a year promoting his debut. Dressed in a scarlet puffy-sleeved shirt and a black beret intended as medieval garb, he’d spend eight-hour stints in bookstores convincing customers to read Eragon. During this trip, the stepson of a Random House author read and raved about the book. Word reached an editor at the publisher. The rest is history – Eragon sold a million copies in its first five months of re-publication. Paolini’s world-building skills and ability to quickly ensnare your sympathy for his characters prove masterful in both the ancient elf-dwelled forests of his fantasy novels and the alien-riddled starships of his latest book. To Sleep in a Sea of Stars proves just as brilliant as Paolini’s fantasy books – with the added thrill of the prospect that some version of Paolini’s futuristic imaginings in this sci-fi epic could, one day, come true.
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New additions to eBooks at SMSA
EBOOKS
| General novels | Dalton, Trent | All our shimmering skies |
| General novels | Goenawan, Clarissa | The perfect world of Miwako Sumida |
| General novels | Jenoff, Pam | The Ambassador’s daughter |
| General novels | Jones, Gail | Our shadows |
| General novels | Mason, Meg | Sorrow and bliss |
| General novels | Stringer, Tricia | The family inheritance |
| General novels | Zancan, Caroline | We wish you luck |
| Mystery | Anderson, Lin | The innocent dead |
| Mystery | Frances, Michelle | Sisters |
| Mystery | Hammer, Chris | Trust |
| Mystery | Harper, Jane | The survivors |
| Mystery | James, Peter | I follow you |
| Mystery | Nesser, Hakan | The secret life of Mr Roos |
| Mystery | Tedrowe, Emily Gray | The talented Miss Farwell |
| Mystery | Unger, Lisa | Confessions on the 7:45 |
The perfect world of Miwako Sumida / Clarissa Goenawan
Goenawan’s tender and tragic follow-up to Rainbirds follows a group of college friends grasping for answers after the death of their friend. Ryusei Yanagi first meets fellow student Miwako Sumida at a restaurant near the Waseda university campus in Tokyo. They bond while browsing in an English-language bookstore, reading together in their university’s library, and assisting Ryusei’s sister, Fumi, at her painting studio. Ryusei is drawn by Miwako’s candor (“You seem pretty frivolous to me,” she tells him after admitting surprise at his deeper interests), but the two stay in romantic limbo as Miwako keeps Ryusei at a distance. Goenawan conveys Miwako’s story in three parts, alternating from the gentle and heartbroken Ryusei, artist and late-night hostess Fumi, and wistful and anxious best friend Chie, who accompanies Miwako to get an abortion without knowing who had gotten her pregnant, having sensed that her friend had been raped. After Miwako goes to Kitsuyama, a remote Japanese village, and commits suicide, Ryusei and Chie follow a trail of clues from letters and diary entries to understand why she killed herself. Goenawan’s luminous prose captures the deep emotions of her characters as they grapple with questions about family history, gender, and sexuality. The tug of Miwako’s strange, troubled spirit will wrench readers from the beginning. (Publishers Weekly, 23 December 2019)
The talented Miss Farwell / Emily Tedrowe
Tedrowe’s zany, perfectly executed latest (after Commuters) follows Becky Farwell, a comptroller in Pierson, Ill., who uses the small town’s budget to fund her double life as a renowned New York City art collector and dealer named Reba Farwell. Becky has always had a head for numbers and problem solving, but remains tethered to Pierson by her hapless dad and his farm-equipment business. Though she knows nothing about art and never attended college, Becky is drawn to a painting in a Champaign-Urbana gallery. After coming across a surplus of town funds, Becky uses the money to purchase the painting, setting off a decades-long scheme of borrowing more and more from the town coffers to procure art with the intent to resell at a profit to benefit Pierson—but trouble hits when she borrows more than she returns to fuel her habit of bidding for coveted works. Becky’s relationship with the art world gets off to a rough start, but she manages to hit the big-time with the help of mentor Mac Palliser, who both nurtures her collecting habit and betrays her. Tedrowe does a spectacular job of demonstrating the mindset of a character who justifies her criminal activity while believing she’s ultimately good (“Becky breathed a tight little prayer of gratitude, yet again, that she hadn’t been caught. If only she could pay it back, that stupid $542”), as well as making the process of rationalization credible. The unusual plot and Tedrowe’s spirited execution of it make this one sing. (Publishers Weekly, 14 September 2020)
We wish you luck / Caroline Zancan
Zancan’s inventive, addictive second novel (after Local Girls) follows the bonds, ambitions, and betrayals within a group of aspiring writers at a low-residency MFA program. The book is narrated as a collective “we” by the students at competitive Fielding College, but the story focuses on three particular students: Leslie, a spitfire who wants to write erotica and make money; Hannah, who attracts Leslie’s attention after she submits in workshop a short story about a young woman who has lost her mother; and Jimmy, a talented poet whose mysterious background is a source of gossip in the program. Also at Fielding is their teacher, Simone, a new faculty member and former model with a bestselling debut novel under her belt. Zancan spends much of the first act wittily conveying the unique textures of a writing program, and convincingly shows the closeness that develops between Leslie, Hannah, and Jimmy. But when Jimmy experiences a devastating critique of his poems in a workshop led by Simone, the dark turns of the story are set into motion. Zancan excels at portraying the claustrophobia and competitiveness that can arise when someone is near others who share the same goals. This ambitious novel about love and revenge reads like a thriller, while asking probing questions about what it means to make art and how artists influence each other, for better or worse. (Publishers Weekly, 21 October 2019)
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AUDIOBOOKS
| General novels | Glass, Seraphina Nova | Someone’s listening |
| General novels | James, Daisy | Wedding bells at Villa Limoncello |
| General novels | Kim, Nancy Jooyoun | The last story of Mina Lee |
| General novels | Medie, Peace Adzo | His only wife |
| General novels | Pyun, Hye-young | The law of lines |
| General novels | Shalit, Jonathan de | A spy in exile |
| Mystery | Blackburn, Maggie | Little bookshop of murder |
| Mystery | Blackmoore, Stephanie | Marry Christmas murder |
| Mystery | Crombie, Deborah | Water like a stone |
| Mystery | Graham, Heather | Dreaming death |
| Mystery | Mizushima, Margaret | Tracking game |
| Mystery | Morrow, Bradford | The forger’s daughter |
| Mystery | Walters, Alex | Death parts us |
| Mystery | Yu, Ovidia | Aunty Lee’s chilled revenge |
Little bookshop of murder / Maggie Blackburn
This charming series launch from Blackburn (The Jean Harlow Bombshell as Mollie Cox Bryan) introduces Summer Merriweather, who returns after years away to her hometown of Brigid’s Island, N.C., to attend the funeral of her mother, Hildy. Summer’s aunt, Agatha Merriweather St. Clair, tells her that the cause of death has yet to be determined, though Summer doubts her healthy 64-year-old mother died of natural causes. At Beach Reads, the bookstore Hildy owned, Summer is alarmed to find notes threatening Hildy if she won’t sell her beloved store. Summer suspects Rudy Irons, owner of the arcade next door, is behind the threats, but the local police chief isn’t going to be any use to her since he’s hated her ever since she left his son at the altar. Fortunately, she finds allies in Aunt Agatha, Agatha’s daughter, and granddaughter, not to mention the ladies in the Mermaid Pie Book Club, in her effort to unmask a killer. Plenty of booklore (Beach Reads has three shelves of werewolf romances) enhances the sleuthing. Cozy fans will be delighted. (Publishers Weekly, May 2020)
Water like a stone / Deborah Crombie
Crombie’s eleventh mystery is set in Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Duncan Kincaid’s hometown of Nantwich, “in the wilds of Chesire.” The story is told from the point of view of his life partner Gemma James, who also works for the Yard. Traveling with their blended family to spend Christmas with Kincaid’s parents, they find themselves entangled in murders historic and current. Michael Deehy deftly moves from London accents to the tones of quarrelsome teens and country squire snobs. Best of all are his depictions of the canal people who live on barges along England’s internal waterways. Old accusations and recent crimes generate threats against the canal families and the Kincaids–impelling the two detectives into action. (Audiofile 2007)
His only wife / Peace Adzo Medie
Soneela Nankani brings a light and airy approach to the narration of this hilarious story of the perfect arranged marriage. Afi, who is young, ambitious, and poor, recognizes her ticket out of poverty when a man from a wealthy family proposes. Nankani takes us on the wild ride from Afi’s village to the big city of Accra, Ghana. Listeners are entertained from the opening scene, in which a wedding takes place without the presence of the groom. He has declined to attend, having sent a stand-in instead. Nankani plays up Afi’s feisty spirit and the story’s unusual circumstances. This fun, well-delivered performance brings together the best elements of international and women’s fiction. (Audiofile 2020)
Tracking game / Margaret Mizushima
Mizushima’s fifth Timber Creek K-9″ mystery begins with Deputy Mattie Cobb at a dance with her beau, Cole, the local veterinarian. An explosion at the edge of town draws them to a burning van belonging to a local outfitter. His body is pulled from the wreck, but it’s discovered that he died from gunshot wounds. Mattie and her German shepherd partner, Robo, search the scene and find a glove and the murder weapon. The victim is the son-in-law of a prominent ranching family, and no one has anything bad to say about him. Then a second body is found just outside of Timber Creek. While searching the area, Mattie and Robo have an encounter with an unseen big cat. On the personal front, Mattie is trying to deal with her growing feelings for Cole and memories from her difficult past. She and Robo must work quickly to discover the connection between the two victims as well as the mysterious cage found in the burnt-out van. This is compelling and twisty mystery in a well-described location. Fans of Western mysteries as well as those featuring dogs will enjoy this latest entry in the series. (Library Journal, October 2019)
The law of lines / Hye-young Pyun
Se-oh lives a reclusive existence with her father in her childhood home in South Korea, fearing that she’ll be attacked because of a mysterious past transgression. While she is out on a rare errand, a gas explosion claims both her refuge and her father. After the detective investigating her father’s death casually reveals that her father was meeting a debt collector the afternoon of the explosion, Se-oh’s grief shifts into rage. Obsessed with assigning blame for her father’s death, Se-oh stalks the debt collector, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Meanwhile, a high-school teacher, Ki-jeong, learns that her sister, Ha-jeong, a recent suicide, harbored secrets before she died. When everything she knew about Ha-jeong’s life turns out to be lies, guilt propels Ki-jeong’s desperate search for the truth. Slowly, Se-oh’s and Ki-jeong’s investigations come together as they uncover a cultish pyramid scheme with links to both of their pasts. Readers’ groups and fans of literary suspense will find appeal in this dark meditation on the destructive power of self-deception. (Booklist, April 2020)
A spy in exile / Jonathan de Shalit
Narrator Gabra Zackman takes on the challenge of voicing the many characters from diverse backgrounds who form a team of rookie Israeli secret agents. While Zackman succeeds in differentiating male and female, young and old, her slow pace seems mismatched to the narrative. Jonathan de Shalit, a pseudonym for a former Israeli intelligence agent, has written a multifaceted plot with all the characters having intriguing backstories that propel them to action. This is especially true of the group’s leader, beautiful, and sometimes reckless, former Mossad agent Ya’ara Stein, who is chosen by the Israeli prime minister to lead this irregular strike force. The audiobook experience will reward the patient and attentive listener who enjoys a different take on the classic spy story. (Audiofile, 2020)
Aunty Lee’s chilled revenge / Ovidia Yu
The third book in the Singaporean mystery series finds Rosie Aunty Lee only slightly sidelined from running her cafe due to a twisted ankle. Keeping off her feet gives her more time to listen to the woes of a trio of former animal-shelter volunteers being sued by a mad Englishwoman whose husband left her after she euthanized their dog. Then the woman is murdered in her hotel room, and the three friends are suspects. Chatty Aunty Lee uses her friendship with Inspector Salim Mawar of the Neighborhood Police Hub to learn more about the case. Yu, an acclaimed playwright, layers details of foods, festivals, and family obligation in a warm, international cozy. (Booklist, February 2016)
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New Books – October 2020
The new books for October 2020 are now available to borrow, with new ebooks and audiobooks.
We hope you enjoy them!
- New books may be borrowed for a period of two weeks only and may not be renewed.
- Books remain listed as “New Books” for two months.
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