New Books, Films, Databases, and other Resources: December 2012

Poor Fellworth Dolphin has been living under the thumb of his miserly, cold-hearted mother for far too long. Yet he is shocked when he receives a sizable inheritance upon her death. Fell teams up with Maggie, a plain girl in similar circumstances, and sets out to figure out where the riches came from. Could Fell's late father have had a hand in a long-ago train robbery? The two poke around the village for answers in a surprise-filled path to danger and adventure, and -- just possibly -- love.

Agatha Raisin, her hair falling out after a run-in with a hairdresser-cum-murderess from a previous investigation, travels to an old-fashioned hotel in order to repair the damage away from the neighbors in her all-too-cozy Cotswolds village. Unhappy about the slow results and prompted by the elderly residents of the resort, she consults the local witch for help. The brassy yet endearing Agatha won't stop until she finds the culprit--and, of course, a little love, too.

Bossy, impulsive, and unlucky in love, the all-too-human Agatha Raisin has proved to be a surprisingly effective---and endearing---amateur sleuth. But can Agatha make it as a private investigator? After getting mugged on vacation, in what she will always think of as the Paris Incident, she decides to find out.

This is a story of secrets and betrayals that stretch across four generations-secrets political, social, sexual, financial: all of them with the power to kill. Eager for something physical to do in the spirit-exhausting wake of 9/11, V.I. accepts a request from an old client to check up on an empty family mansion; sub-sequently surprises an intruder in the dark; and, giving chase, topples into a pond. Grasping for something to hold on to, her fingers close around a lifeless human hand... A novel as passionate, complex, and powerfully entertaining as its acclaimed heroine, Blacklist is a stunning achievement.

V.I. Warshawski may have left her old South Chicago neighborhood, but she learns that she cannot escape it. When she takes over coaching duties of the girls' basketball team at her former high school, she faces an ill-equipped, ragtag group of gangbangers, fundamentalists, and teenage moms who inevitably draw the detective into their family woes.

"There is no mystery. Lee Herdman stormed into a private school just north of Edinburgh and killed two boys. He was a loner, a creep, an army veteran who got kicks out of terrifying local teenagers on his speedboat - just the sort of shady character to commit a random and heinous crime. It's a simple case of a man gone mad." "But how random were the killings at Port Edgar Academy? Is it a matter of revenge, or a question of blood?"

"Inspector John Rebus has done it again. A few days into a murder inquiry following the brutal death of an Edinburgh art dealer, Rebus blows up at his superior, DCS Gill Templer, and is sent into exile: the remote Scottish Police College, where Rebus must undergo "retraining." And he is not alone. At the college, he joins a group of cops equally troubled by authority - the so-called Resurrection Men, granted one last chance to redeem themselves and save their careers.

"She is Witch, and she makes for alluring prey, teasing her pursuers as she eludes them, hunting her victims with breathtaking creativity, beguiling the most powerful men in the world with her dark beauty and cunning. Witch is wanted by the world's most elite police agencies, doggedly pursued by three very different detectives - one woman and two men. With time growing short, it seems she will elude authorities again - but an unexpected link to her own mysterious past may upset her streak of calculated terror."

Temperance Brennan, like her creator Kathy Reichs, is a brilliant, sexy forensic anthropologist called on to solve the toughest cases. But for Tempe, the discovery of a young girl's skeleton in Acadia, Canada, is more than just another assignment. Meanwhile, Tempe's beau, Ryan, investigates a series of cold cases. Three girls dead. Four missing. Could the New Brunswick skeleton be part of the pattern? As Tempe draws on the latest advances in forensic anthropology to penetrate the past, Ryan hunts down a serial predator.

When a disfigured corpse is discovered in a country parish, the local rector pleads with Lord Peter to take on what will become one of his most brilliant and complicated cases.

"An exquisite rendering of the conflict between the forces of light and darkness" ("San Francisco Chronicle") is the second book in the trilogy that launched one of the most important fantasy writers of our time.

This most exclusive of places is also one of the world’s best kept secrets, created and controlled by The Grail Brotherhood, a private cartel made up of the world’s most powerful and ruthless individuals. Surrounded by secrecy, it is home to the wildest of dreams and darkest of nightmares. Incredible amounts of money have been lavished on it. And somehow, bit by bit, it is claming the Earth's most valuable resource-its children. A brilliant blend of science fiction, fantasy, and technothriller, it is the completion of a rich, multilayered epic of future possibilities.

"There is a place, a black mountain that reaches to the sky - that covers up the stars. You must find it. That is where all your answers are." She brought that message to Paul Jonas in a dream. He knew her so well - her oddly beautiful winged form, her sad eyes - but although the woman who described herself as a "shattered mirror" was achingly familiar, Paul's memories of who she was and what she meant to him had been removed....

James Sherwood, aka "Orlando," has resurrected the old Shadow Dance religion, having his followers dance for days at a time for the promise of an Indian paradise. For Orlando and his followers, nothing must delay the coming of the New World-not even the investigation of Ben Holden's death. Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden and her friend, Father John O'Malley, believe that Orlando has more to do with it than he lets on. But to get the proof they need, they will have to learn his dance.

"The Arapahos of the Wind River Reservation are stunned by the apparent suicide of Duncan Grover, who came to Bear Lake Valley from Denver on a vision quest. Why would someone undertake a spiritual journey in such a revered area in order to die? Now, Vicky and Father O'Malley must uncover what it is about the reservation that people are willing to kill for."

In Margaret Coel's latest Wind River Reservation mystery, an atrocity from the past has resurfaced with a vengeance. Two murders-a century apart-are linked to photographs taken of the Arapahos on the reservation in 1907, currently on display at St. Francis' Mission. As they begin their investigation, Father John O'Malley and Vicky Holden unearth secrets best left buried.

In Margaret Coel's all-new Wind River Reservation mystery, a psychopathic killer has brutally murdered three Shoshone Indians and posed their bodies on a historical battlefield. Is his intent to provoke a civil war between the reservation's Shoshone and Arapaho inhabitants, or is his target actually Father John O'Malley?

Four years ago, LAPD detective Harry Bosch was on a movie set asking questions about the murder of a young production assistant when an armored car arrived with two million dollars cash for use in a heist scene. . . . The part of Bosch that will never back down finds as fatal an opponent as he's ever encountered - and there's no guarantee that Bosch will survive the showdown ahead."

On New Year's Day, a dog finds a bone in the Hollywood Hills--and unearths a murder committed more than twenty years earlier. It's a cold case, but for Detective Harry Bosch, it stirs up memories of his childhood as an orphan. He can't let it go. Suddenly all of L.A. is in an uproar, and Bosch, fighting to keep control, is driven to the brink of an unimaginable decision.

As he leans over the body of an unidentified five-year-old girl shot in the back on a shabby London street, Superintendent Richard Jury knows he’ll be facing one of the saddest investigations of his life. With one of their most serpentine investigations under way, all signs point to the guilt of Viktor Baumann, Mary Scott’s first husband and Flora’s father. But when no one in this case is exactly who he seems, how can Jury be sure?

This is a riveting, fast moving story about a teenager with amnesia who names herself Andi, a girl who befriends her, & their quest to uncover Andi's past.

Richard Jury returns to the back streets and back rooms of London. When an old friend pulls Richard Jury into the investigation of a wealthy bachelor’s murder, Jury’s not sure what’s more perplexing: the circumstances of the fellow’s death, the conflicted stories of the man’s past, or the motivations of the case. What Jury is sure of is that he’s in over his head, both with the inscrutable and challenging Aguilar and the false leads surrounding the once-charismatic Billy Maples, last seen in a club named Dust.

"Author Paul Giverney is between publishers. Despite stratospheric sales of his books and frenzied competition to sign him up, he lives modestly in New York's East Village and nurses a secret ambition of a very different sort. In fact, he has a byzantine plan for accomplishing it: the number-one condition of his proposed contract with the literary giant Mackenzie-Haack. Is the book contract unbreakable? Clive never dreams how a very different kind of contract will force him - and his ambition - into a very foul matter, indeed."

DELUGE InterGal Corporation has long desired to exploit the resource-rich Petaybee. But the planet and its guardians, led by Yana Maddock and Sean Shongili, along with their twin children, Ronan and Murel, have successfully thwarted every attempt by the Corporation to impose its iron-fisted dominion. Until now....

A high-stakes treasure hunt A twisted trail of murder A secret one woman may die to discover

Number one New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen offers a new pulse-pounding thriller that takes suspense writing to an all-new level: deep below the surface, where a ruthless killer strikes without warning, without mercy...and with the deadliest intent.

Returning from Johansen’s New York Times bestselling thriller, Stalemate, forensic sculptor Eve Duncan is still reeling from the disappearance of her daughter, Bonnie. Deciding to take matters into her own hands, she enlists the clairvoyant skills of Dr. Megan Blair to help find her. No strangers to looking for clues where there seem to be none, the two women use their highly specialized talents to hunt down Bonnie’s elusive kidnapper and return her to her mother’s arms.

Father Tim and Cynthia have been at home in Mitford for three years since returning from Whitecap Island. In her seventh novel in the bestselling Mitford Years series, Jan Karon delivers surprises of every kind, including the return of the man in the attic and an ending that no one in Mitford will ever forget.

Now, in their third collaboration, Anne McCaffrey and her son, Todd McCaffrey, spin a tale of a mysterious illness that may succeed in doing what centuries of Threadfall could not: kill every last human on Pern. For with Threadfall scant years away, the Dragonriders dare not expose themselves to infection, and it will fall to Kindan and his fellow apprentices to bravely search for a cure and save humanity. The price of failure is unthinkable. But the price of success may be even harder to bear.

Pern: a beautiful world colonized by humans, terrorized by the deadly spores called Thread, and defended by magnificent flying dragons. Anne McCaffrey's bestselling tales of this planet have yielded a multitude of unforgettable characters. And now, after years of urging by devoted readers, one of the most popular denizens of Pern takes center stage in a novel that chronicles his extraordinary life.

For use in schools and libraries only. With the planet of Pern no longer threatened by Threadfall, its inhabitants are free build new lives for themselves with the help of recently discovered ancient technology, until a terrifying new peril from the sky endangers the planet.

FICTION-SCIENCE FICTION

For use in schools and libraries only. Jaxom, a rebellious youth, and Ruth, his white dragon, fly into another time to retrieve the queen's stolen egg, thereby averting a dragonrider war, and find their planet threatened once again by a Threadfall.

Killashandra Ree, a member of the Heptite Guild, travels to Optheria to replace and tune a famous organ's crystals, but is kidnapped by rebel forces.

All seemed well on Pern. Then, without warning, a runnerbeast fell ill. Soon myriads of holders, craftsmen, and dragonriders were dying; and the mysterious ailment had spread to all but the most inaccessible holds. Pern was in mortal danger. But of all their problems, the most difficult to overcome was time . . .

" Where We Know creates a mosaic of the ultimate mosaic city... these writers illuminate the city's past and the present in a gritty homage fit for natives and foreigners alike. Designed as though Chin Music Press/Broken Levee Books intends to singlehandedly resurrect the art of bookmaking, Where We Know is a book you'll want at your bedside and on your coffee table."

My Life, the classic autobiography first published just after Duncan's death, is a frank and engrossing life account of this remarkable visionary and feminist who took on the world, reinvented dance, and led the way for future great American modernists Ruth St. Denis, Agnes de Mille, and Martha Graham.

"Would you like your paintings to have more visual appeal? More "punch"? No matter what medium you are working in, you can create paintings that are interesting to your viewer, and here popular painter and instructor Tony Couch shows you how."

"Indian Circus is documentary photography at its finest. The photographs are not only compelling portraits of the performers, but also eloquent and poetic narratives about life in the Indian circus."

In 1969, man landed on the moon; the “Miracle Mets” captivated sports fans;students took over college campuses and demonstrators battled police; Americawitnessed the Woodstock music festival; Hollywood produced Easy Rider; KurtVonnegut published Slaughterhouse-Five; punk music was born; and there wasmurder at Altamont Speedway. Compelling, timely, and a blast to read, 1969chronicles the year in culture and society, sports, music, film, politics, and technology.

"The Shia Revival is a historical account of sectarian conflicts in the Muslim world, and how the future rests in finding a peaceful solution to the ancient rivalries between the Shias and the Sunnis.

At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth. The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranhas glide through its waters; boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron.

Step into the perfumed parlors of the Everleigh Club, the most famous brothel in American history–and the catalyst for a culture war that rocked the nation. Operating in Chicago’s notorious Levee district at the dawn of the last century, the Club’s proprietors, two aristocratic sisters named Minna and Ada Everleigh, welcomed moguls and actors, senators and athletes, foreign dignitaries and literary icons, into their stately double mansion, where thirty stunning Everleigh “butterflies” awaited their arrival.

As the 1911 archaeological season begins, Amelia and famille have arrived in Egypt for their annual excavation. While the reappearance of Ramses' dreadful cousin Percy is to be lamented, the marriage of his best friend David to Amelia's niece Lia is a source of joy for everyone. But the bride has barely walked down the aisle before trouble begins stalking the family.

From the bestselling author of the landmark work Rubyfruit Jungle comes an engaging, original new novel that only Rita Mae Brown could have written. In the pristine world of Virginia foxhunting, hunters, horses, hounds, and foxes form a lively community of conflicting loyalties, where the thrill of the chase and the intricacies of human-animal relationships are experienced firsthand--and murder exposes a proud Southern community's unsavory secrets. . . .

When winter hits Crozet, Virginia, it hits hard--and hangs on for months. Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen and her friends root for the University of Virginia’s women’s basketball team at the old stadium affectionately dubbed “The Clam.” But the usual postgame high spirits are laid low when contractor H. H. Donaldson drops dead in the parking lot. And pretty soon word has spread that it wasn’t a heart attack that did him in...

A New York Times BestsellerSpring has come to the Blue Ridge Mountains, and spring fever to the tiny town of Crozet. As the annual Dogwood Festival approaches, postmistress Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen feels her own mating instincts stir. As for tiger cat Mrs. Murphy, her interest in the exploding bird population is intensified by a rare woodpecker, dead but unscathed, near the back porch. Feline intuition tells her more mysteries lie ahead. And they do...

New York Timesbestselling authors Rita Mae Brown and her feline partner, Sneaky Pie Brown, return with a new mystery starring Mary Minor “Harry” Haristeen, the sleuthing cats Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, and corgi Tee Tucker. But are they any match for a killer who’s made an entire town suspect by committing…

A mysterious death in a Virginia farm town has the locals scratching their heads--while frisky feline Mrs. Murphy and her friends, fat-cat Pewter and corgi Tee Tucker, uncover clues as they curl their way around a cold-blooded killer. As usual, Mrs. Murphy and her crew are the first to sniff out the truth. But if they don't find a way to help Harry piece together the puzzle, she could become the killer's next target--and even Mrs. Murphy's slinkiest moves won't be able to save her. From the Hardcover edition.

We return to the Southern chase–and to a hunt on the trail of a murderer. Jane “Sister” Arnold may be in her seventies, but she shows no signs of losing her love for the Hunt. When the skeleton of Nola Bancroft, still wearing an exquisite sapphire ring on her finger, is unearthed, it brings back a twenty-one year old mystery. It’s a tale of Southern small-town manners and rituals, a compelling and intricate murder mystery, and a look at the human/animal relationship in all its complexity and charm.

At the beginning of his junior year at a boys' boarding school, 16-year-old Alex is devastated when he fails to save a drowning friend. When questioned, Alex and his friend Glenn, who was also at the river, begin weaving their web of lies. Plagued by guilt, Alex takes refuge in the library, telling his tale in a journal he hides behind Moby-Dick.

A word game played with four alphabets, each in a different pattern, in which each player makes pairs of words with matching patterns. The game can be used to familiarize young children with the alphabet and word construction.

Object of the game: To make up a story explaining the origin of a phrase that will have other players convinced yours is the correct version.

Features all 118 elements in the periodic table. One element per card appears as a full-size image on the front and fascinating information about the element on the back. The front side of each 127 x 127 mm card shows a full-size photographic image of the element, while the reverse gives scientific information including atomic weight, density, melting and boiling point, valence and the percentage of the element.

When the body of a white man is recovered from a shallow grave in one of the most troubled corners of the Wind River Reservation, Father John O'Malley knows that if the murderer isn't caught quickly, this tragedy will only be the beginning. The victim's widow is already out for revenge. And the one person Father John believes could lead him to the killer is a terrified fifteen-year-old running for her life...

Senator Ashley Butler is a quintessential Southern demagogue whose support of traditional American values includes a knee-jerk reaction against virtually all biotechnologies. When he's called to chair a subcommittee introducing legislation to ban new cloning technology, the senator views his political future in bold relief. Torn from the headlines, Seizureis a cautionary tale for a time where biotechnology pulls us into a promising yet frightening new world.

After a home dye job ruins her hair, Agatha Raisin, the prickly yet lovable amateur sleuth, turns to the wonderful new hairdresser in the neighboring town for help. And as Agatha soon learns, Mr. John is as skilled at repairing her coiffure as he is at romancing her heart. But According to gossip around the salon and the village, some of his former clients seem to be afraid of him. Agatha must discover the truth and the killer's identity before it's too late.

FBI agent Rachel Walling finally gets the call she's dreaded for years, the one that tells her the Poet has surfaced. She has never forgotten the serial killer who wove lines of poetry in his hideous crimes¿and apparently he has not forgotten her.

The dog came back.' ?This is a joke, right? ?No, it isn't. . . . So do you want to hear the rest of it? Dumbly, Jury nodded. The rest of it is told by Harry Johnson, a stranger who sits down next to Richard Jury as he's drinking in a London pub called the Old Wine Shades. Over three successive nights Harry spins this complicated story about a good friend of his whose wife and son (and dog) disappeared one day as they were viewing property in Surrey.

"Chew on this," says Melrose Plant to Richard Jury, who's in the hospital being driven crazy by Hannibal, a nurse who likes to speculate on his chances for survival. Jury could use a good story, preferably one not ending with his own demise. Plant tells Jury of something he overheard in The Grave Maurice, a pub near the hospital. A woman told a story about a girl named Nell Ryder, granddaughter to the owner of the Ryder Stud Farm, who went missing more than a year before and has never been found.

Macalvie and Plant repair to Lamorna's only pub, The Wink, but have barely sampled the local ale before another murder occurs, this one at the hospice.Macalvie's past, Plant's past, and the tragic past of the Bletchleys, converge at the end with Richard Jury, who comes to set things right.

Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough launched a vibrant new science-fiction saga that told the story of a sentient planet, Petaybee, and the humans who fought to protect it from the rapacious designs of an all-powerful interstellar corporation determined to exploit the icy world's natural resources.

Eve Duncan has turned down the job twice already. Her skill and devotion in identifying murder victims and helping bring their killers to justice may be world-renowned. But Eve works exclusively for law enforcement and the families of the innocent, and the man on the other end of the phone is many things—none of them law-abiding or innocent. Now, with everything on the line, Eve Duncan must make the most chilling choice of all. And if she’s wrong…she’s dead.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen turns up the heat in this explosive new psychological thriller. For Kerry Murphy, the inferno is never far away. The flames of that long-ago night still burn in her nightmares: the heat, the choking smoke, the helplessness. She can never run fast enough... Now Kerry works as an arson investigator with her evidence-sniffing dog, Sam.

Here at last is A Common Life, and the long-awaited answers to these deeply probing questions: Will Father Tim fall apart when he takes his vows? Will Cynthia make it to the church on time? Who'll arrange the flowers and bake the wedding cake? And will Uncle Billy's prayers for a great joke be answered in time for the reception?A Common Life is the perfect gift for Mother's Day, Father's Day, anniversaries, and for a bride or groom to give to his or her beloved.

Bringing fresh wonders and dangers to light in the skies of Pern, Anne McCaffrey and her son, Todd, who demonstrated his writing talents in the bestselling novels Dragon’s Kin and Dragonsblood, return with their second collaboration: a thrilling adventure of discovery and fate.

For an overpopulated Earth whose resources are strained to the breaking point, there is only one place to look for relief: straight up. With the successful completion of the Padrugoi Space Station, humanity has at last achieved its first large-scale permanent presence in space. Now, as sabotage and attempted murder strike the Station, it's up to the Talented to save the day. Only who's going to save the Talented?

A new member of the Courier Service of the Central Worlds, Nancia's innocent vision of human nature is shattered on her first voyage. The last thing Nancia needed was a brawn partner, but Forister and Nancia together just might save the galaxy. Expands McCaffrey's The Ship Who Sang.

Bestselling author Anne McCaffrey did the unthinkable: for the first time ever, she invited another writer to join her in the skies of her most famous fictional creation. That writer was her son, Todd McCaffrey. Together, they penned a triumphant new chapter in the annals of the extraordinarily popular Dragonriders of Pern. But as her people struggle to survive, Wind Blossom has neither the time nor the resources to expend on a future that may never arrive–until suddenly she uncovers evidence that her worst fears will come true.

As director of the Jerhattan Parapsychic Center, telepath Rhyssa Owen coordinated the job assignments for psychically gifted Talents. She was always ready to welcome new Talents to the Center. And when two Talented children were discovered to have some very unusual -- and unexpected -- abilities, she realized that she would have to reassess the potential of all Talentkind...

"The bad bills and the dead book salesman lead to the offices of a respected publisher, Wadsworth and Dodds. This is good news for Fat Ollie, because he's working on a police novel - one written by a real cop - and he's sure it's going to be a bestseller."