Park County Library System

A Dark Matter by Peter Straub — A group of teens in Madison, Wisconsin in the late 1960s fall under the spell of a local guru who says he will lead them on a spectacular psychic journey — only one of them ends up dead. Forty years later, four of the participants try to figure out what really happened.

Among Thieves by David Hosp — The latest Scott Finn legal thriller starts with the theft of a $300 million piece of art from a Boston museum and heads from there into the world of crime, possibly by way of the IRA.

Angel Time by Anne Rice — This first in a new series by Anne Rice is being pitched as a sort of religious suspense romance hybrid and has gotten pretty good reviews.

Bloodroot by Amy Greene — Four generations of women in Appalachia suffer, survive, and ultimately endure in this debut novel that Wally Lamb says “has everything I savor in fiction.”

A Friend of the Family by Lauren Grodstein — Pete Dizzinoff’s life was going the way it was supposed to — at least it was until his son dropped out of college, moved into the garage, and took up with an older woman, the daughter of his best friend, and then all the other things that are wrong start to come to the surface.

The Honor of Spies by W.E.B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV — Father and son writing team take us back to WWII — and all over the world — on another rollicking adventure in the Honor Bound series.

Impact by Douglas Preston — A meteor in Maine, weird gemstones in Cambodia, a murdered professor in California — all play into this thrilling sequel to Blasphemy, which welcomes back CIA agent turned independent investigator Wyman Ford.

Lullaby by Claire Seeber — Jess Finnegan goes to the Tate Museum for an afternoon outing with her husband and baby, only to turn her head away for a moment and discover that they are gone. Her husband turns up a few hours later, but their baby is nowhere to be found, and Jess starts to doubt everything she thought she knew.

Nanny Returns by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus — It’s ten years since Nan worked as a nanny for the X family, and her former charge Grayer is now 16 and shows up drunk on the doorstep of Nan and her husband Ryan (yup, the Harvard Hottie), and soon Nan is once again embroiled in the doings of the dark side of the Upper East Side.

The Paris Vendetta by Steve Berry — The latest Cotton Malone adventure begins after a Secret Service agent breaks into his Copenhagen bookstore with the news that his friend has found the man who killed his son — and that the man in question has ties to a group planning to take over the world economy by means of a Coptic manuscript discovered by Napoleon in Egypt and hidden for centuries. Yes, it sounds nutty, but reviewers promise it’s a great ride.

Secrets of Eden by Chris Bohjalian — The morning after her Baptism, a woman and her husband are found dead and assumed to be a murder/suicide. Wracked with guilt, the Reverend Stephen Drew, who performed the baptism and was friends with the woman, leaves town but is drawn back to the tragedy by the people he meets.

Silencer by James W. Hall — Hall’s latest Thorn thriller finds Thorn thrown into a central swamp he’s trying to save by a group of thugs. Rusty and Sugarman, his girlfriend and old friend, are left trying to track him down and avoid a group of contract killers and other complications.

Sizzle by Julie Garwood — Lyra Prescott inadvertently captures a crime on her camera, and that accident propels her into a life and death situation, one that calls for assistance from her friend Sidney and Sidney’s FBI agent friend. The sizzle comes when he and Lyra meet in this latest romantic suspense novel from best-seller Garwood.

The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova — A psychiatrist tries to help an artist who tried to slash a painting at the National Gallery of Art and is soon drawn into the intrigue of the artist’s ex-wife, his current lover, and a mystery involving a 19th century French woman who was an important but forgotten Impressionist painter.

Treasure Hunt by John Lescroat — The latest Hunt Club mystery finds Wyatt Hunt investigating the murder of a prominent member of the San Francisco nonprofit community.

Worst Case by James Patterson — A killer is kidnapping the children of New York’s well-to-do, and Detective Michael Bennett — himself the father of ten — is on the hunt.

The Last Surgeon by Michael Palmer — Jillian Coates, a nurse, can’t believe that her sister would kill herself, and she wants to prove that the police are wrong. Dr. Nick Garrity can’t get over PTSD from serving in Afghanistan. He and Jillian work together to find the killer — who may be involved with a secretive plastic surgery clinic. Booklist calls this Palmer’s best novel in years.

Devils in Exile by Chuck Hogan — Neal Maven is an Iraq war veteran with no real prospects when he’s invited to join a gang of vets who make money by ripping off drug dealers. Neal knows it’s a bad idea to get involved, but it seems like his only option. Find out how he falls in with the gang — and whether he manages to find his way out — in Devils in Exile.

Slow Fire by Ken Mercer — A recovering heroin addict and former LAPD detective whose marriage is suffering due to the death of his son gets a second chance at life as chief of police in a small southern California town. It seems idyllic until the town turns out to have a major methamphetamine problem, one with ties to its most prominent citizen.

Horns by Joe Hill — Everyone has always assumed that Ignatius Perrish raped and murdered his girlfriend Merrin Williams, and he’s never been able to prove them wrong. Then one morning he wakes up with horns coming out of his forehead and a sudden ability to know, instantly, the secrets of anyone he touches. Will he finally be able to find the real killer?

Nonfiction
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande — Gawande teaches at Harvard’s medical school and writes for the New Yorker. Despite coming from such heights, however, his recommendation in this book is very simple: complex work — including aviation and surgery — becomes more successful if its practitioners use a checklist — an actual physical list of all the things that need to be done. Simple steps such as hand-washing can save lives.

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin — A behind-the-scenes look at the 2008 presidential race by two veteran political reporters.

Just Kids by Patti Smith — A memoir by the punk rocker about her long friendship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe and the late 1960s New York City world they started out in when they were young.

Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? by Michael J. Sandel — A book to accompany Sandel’s popular Harvard class, which is being made available for free online.

Native American Clothing: An Illustrated History by Theodore Brasser — Over 300 gorgeous color photographs documenting the history of what Native Americans wore.

Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick — Los Angeles Times reporter Demick spent a decade interviewing defectors from North to South Korea in order to write this book, which traces the lives of six North Koreans and provides an astonishing glimpse into a world most of the world never sees.