Library acquisitions ~ fiction, shelved by author

1.  Child, Lee ~ No Middle Name (2017)

Eleven previously published pieces and a brand-new novella, “Too Much Time,” in which Reacher’s sharp eye and quick deduction skills are on full-display.  In story after story, Reacher fans and lovers of action-packed fiction will witness “one of this century’s most original, tantalizing pop-fiction heroes” during different periods of his life:  a teenage Reacher in sweltering NYC, Reacher as an MP in Georgia, Reacher as a magnet for women, and, of course, Reacher the loner, on the road and righting wrongs.  No suitcase.  No destination.  No middle name.  No matter how far Reacher travels off the beaten path, trouble always finds him.  Feel bad for trouble.

2.  Grimes, Martha ~ Dakota (2008)

In this sequel to Biting the Moon, amnesiac drifter Andi Oliver invents her life step-by-step as she moves through a landscape that throws up one danger after another.  Andi moves between waitressing jobs throughout the country until a discovery at a livestock facility renders her a target of two men, including a hired gunman and a pursuer from her forgotten past demanding information of which Andi has no memory.

3.  Haynes, Natalie ~ The Furies. (2014)

After losing her fiancé in a shocking tragedy, Alex Morris moves from London to Edinburgh to make a break with the past.  Formerly an actress, Alex accepts a job teaching drama therapy at a school community referred to as “The Unit,” a last-chance learning community for teens expelled from other schools in the city.  Her students have troubled pasts and difficult personalities, and Alex is an inexperienced teacher, terrified of what she’s taken on and drowning in grief.  This is a psychologically complex, dark, and twisting novel about loss, obsession, and the deep tragedies that can connect us to each other even as they blind us to our fate.

4.  Lerner, George ~ The Ambassadors (2014)

This novel examines one family’s passage through war and exile as they come to understand each other and the history that shaped them.  Jacob Furman has always chosen the call of duty over his wife, Suzanna, and their son, Shalom.  When he is deployed to Rwanda (to help arm the Tutsis, who have suffered genocide and are struggling to survive), Susanna and Shalom are once again left to contemplate his absence.  An esteemed anthropology scholar orphaned in the Holocaust, Susanna buries herself in work, searching for the biological roots of human language. Meanwhile Shalom struggles in search of his identity and seeks purpose among a group of musicians.  After years apart, a fragile reunion sparks a sense of family they never had before, connecting the three of them in a web of emotion not just to one another, but to the political events that have defined our century.

5.  Parker, Robert B. ~ Night and Day (2009)

In this Jesse Stone novel, the women get nervous when the sun sets in Paradise.  A Peeping Tom, dubbed "The Night Hawk," is on the loose.  Initially, he's content to simply peer through windows, gut he becomes more reckless, entering homes, forcing his victims to strip at gunpoint, then photographing them at their most vulnerable.  According to the notes he sends Police Chief Jesse Stone, he's about to take his obsession one step further.

6.  Silva, Daniel ~ The English Girl (2013)

Allon, the wayward son of Israeli intelligence, is thrust into a game of shadows where nothing is what it seems and where the only thing more dangerous than his enemies might be the truth.  Madeline Hart is a rising star in Britain’s governing party:  beautiful, intelligent, driven by an impoverished childhood to succeed.  But she is also a woman with a dark secret:  she is the lover of Prime Minister Jonathan Lancaster.  Somehow, her kidnappers have learned of the affair, and they intend to make the British leader pay dearly for his sins.  Fearful of a scandal that will destroy his career, Lancaster decides to handle the matter privately rather than involve the British police.  It is a risky gambit, not only for the prime minister but also for the operative who will conduct the search.