Monthly Archives: January 2008

Chat

Title: Chat

Author: Archer Mayor

Summary: Chat brings you the 18th book of a series that features Joe Gunther, a member of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation. This series is strong in the local settings and is a delight in its small town characterization. The author brings his experience as an investigator for the chief medical examiner’s office, a deputy, and an EMT to create a believable crime procedural novel.

Joe Gunther’s mother and brother are involved in a suspicious automobile accident. He investigates this accident and then becomes involved in the investigation of two seemingly unrelated deaths that draw him into chat rooms and online predators.

Who will like this book?: Anyone who has ever traveled to Vermont would love the descriptions of the Green Mountain state wrapped in a well-written mystery.

If you like this, try this: We have 17 other mysteries in the series that started with the Open Season in 1988!

Recommended by: Sandy, Technical Services

The Venetian Betrayal

Title: Venetian Betrayal

Author:  Steve Berry

Summary: The third entry in the Cotton Malone series brings us Cotton who has retired from a clandestine U.S. government agency. He is operating a rare book shop in Denmark where he is drawn into a geopolitical game that takes him across Europe and Asia. Cotton narrowly escapes death in a fire that envelopes a Danish museum. His friend, Cassiopoeia Vitt informs him that museums across Europe are being set ablaze to mask the theft of Alexander the Great medallions. These medallions hold clues that reveal the final resting place of Alexander the Great and more importantly the secret of the powerful “draught” that can possibly cure AIDS.

Cotton and company has to beat the bad guys which include the leader of a new nation that has arisen from the ashes of the USSR and an international organization of power brokers that has amassed a secret cache of biological weapons. The first to unlock and possess the secret will control the fate of the world.

Who will like this book?: Fans who like suspenseful thrillers based on historical facts; fans of books like the DaVinci Code. 

If you like this, try this: Read the first two entries in the Cotton Malone series. Templar Legacy is about a lost treasure and the secrets of the Order. Alexandria Link revolves around the Lost Library of Alexandria.

Recommended by: Sandy, Technical Services

Ghost – A Novel

Title: Ghost – a Novel

Author: Alan Lightman

Summary: What happens when an ordinary person experiences something truly extra-ordinary? In the case of David Kurzweil, his life is completely turned upside down. This is a fascinating story about a man struggling with some fairly typical mid-life issues (divorce, career change, etc.), who unexpectedly finds himself in the middle of a scientific and metaphysical controversy after he witnesses something paranormal in the funeral home where he works. David’s effort to understand what he has seen takes him on an emotional journey that will change his relationships, his beliefs, and his place in the world forever.

Author and physicist Alan Lightman writes with sensitivity and compassion, gently suggesting that there just might be a world that exists beyond the material one, a world “felt only in brief, fleeting stabs.”

Who will like this book: Anyone who was a fan of the TV show “Six Feet Under.”

Recommended by: Mary, Reference Librarian

Blasphemy

Title:  Blasphemy

Author:  Douglas Preston

Summary:  Nobel-prizing scientist and merry gang of whiz colleagues go off the deep end, experiment with the world’s largest supercollider computer housed on sacred native land, encounter operational difficulties, and the race to the “end” involves life and death issues.

This book kept me reading as I got caught up in the unfolding drama as computer scientists try to get the super computer to reveal what happened at the moment of creation. Scientist Hazelius and his twelve colleagues force the computer to operate at extreme levels resulting in a remarkable discovery. Or is it? Meanwhile evangelicals get wind of this “dangerous” experiment and build a protest movement against this government-funded project.   Throw in a romance rekindled and you have a nice fast-paced read that grabs and holds the reader’s  interest to the end.

Who will like this book?:  Readers looking for a fast read with some intrigue and an appetite for kirky characters and interesting questions about the beginning of life.

Recommended by: Karen, Administration

The Arsonist’s Guide to Writer’s Homes in New England

Title: The Arsonist’s Guide to Writer’s Homes in New England

Author: Brock Clarke

Summary: Take one part fictional memoir, one part mystery and add as self-confessed bumbler with a sprinkle of literary landmarks and you have this delightful book.

Sam Pulsifer, the narrator, accidentally torches the Emily Dickinson house and kills two people. After serving 10 years in prison, he returns to Amherst to begin his life anew with college, marriage, and fatherhood. His idyllic life goes up in flames as an arsonist begins to torch more writers homes, leaving him as the unlucky suspect. Our bumbler only wishes he had read more mysteries as a guide to help him in his quest for the arsonist instead of literary works of art.

Who will like this book?: Mystery readers who like humor in their books, and readers who wish to take an irreverent literary tour through New England

Recommended by: Sandy, Technical Services

Alexander and the Wonderful, Excellent, Terrific Ninety Days

Title: Alexander and the Wonderful, Excellent, Terrific Ninety Days

Author: Judith Viorst

Summary: Do you remember the classic children’s book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day? Well, Alexander is grown up and has three children of his own, five, three and four months. Their Washington, D.C. house is undergoing renovation, so Grandma (Judith Viorst) invites them to stay for 90 days. “Don’t judge, advise, or criticize” and “accept who they are” becomes her mantra.

An empty nest home with wine velvet upholstery becomes the playpen for an active family. This is a delightful and witty quick read – only 113 pages.

Who will like this book?: Although mothers of any age would enjoy this book, it would especially ring true for grandmothers. Grandfathers might enjoy it also.

Recommended by: Sandy, Technical Services