She’s back, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar!
NOT IN THE FLESH by Ruth Rendell — When the truffle-hunting dog starts to dig furiously, his master’s first reaction is delight at the size of the clump the dog has unearthed: at the going rate, this one truffle might be worth several hundred pounds. Then the dirt falls away to reveal not a precious mushroom but the bones and tendons of what is clearly a human hand. Chief Inspector Wexford tries to piece together events that took place 11 years earlier, when someone was secretly interred in a secluded patch of English countryside. Now Wexford and his team will need to interrogate everyone who lives nearby to see if they can turn up a match for the dead man among the 85 people in this part of England who have disappeared over the past decade. Then, when a second body is discovered nearby, Wexford experiences a feeling that’s become a rarity for the veteran policeman: surprise.
RESOLUTION by Robert B. Parker — After the bloody confrontation in Appaloosa, Everett Hitch heads into the afternoon sun and ends up in Resolution, an Old West town so new the dust has yet to settle. Hitch takes a job as lookout at Amos Wolfson’s Blackfoot Saloon and quickly establishes his position as protector of the ladies who work the backrooms — as well as a man unafraid to stand up to the enforcer sent down from the O’Malley copper mine. Though Hitch makes short work of hired gun Koy Wickman, tensions continue to mount, so that even the self-assured Hitch is relieved by the arrival in town of his friend Virgil Cole. When greedy mine owner Eamon O’Malley threatens the loose coalition of local ranchers and starts buying up Resolution’s few businesses, Hitch and Cole find themselves in the middle of a makeshift war between O’Malley’s men and the ranchers.
GETTING EVEN: REVENGE STORIES edited by Mitzi Szereto — If you’ve ever been betrayed, this is the book for you: GETTING EVEN: REVENGE STORIES is a collection of tales about passion and the sweetness of revenge. If you need a lesson in love, or the end of love, take a cathartic trip through the murky waters of vengeance with these unsettling stories. Contributors include Vicki Hendricks, Tony Fennelly, Tara Ison, Jean Lamb, Georgiana Nelson, Madeline de Chambrey, Mitzi Szereto, Becky Bradford, Clare Colvin, Stella Duff, Chris Dunning, Niall Griffiths, Rosie Jackson, Josie Kimber, Danuta Reah, Dee Silman and Uma Sinha.
THE NARCISSIST’S DAUGHTER by Craig Holden — From the outside, the Kesslers appear to have it all: Dr. Ted Kessler is a decorated veteran who now runs the lab at a large medical center. He and his wife Joyce live with their daughter Jessi in a beautiful house in the estate section of an Ohio city in the 1970s. Ted is widely respected as a clinician, researcher, manager and businessman. But when he resolves to mentor an ambitious working-class student, this idyllic little world is threatened. Syd Redding, the gruff, streetwise narrator, has no plan in mind for the Kesslers. He’s a bored pre-med student with few prospects, a failure for a stepfather and a sister who seems to be following his example. Soon after he meets Kessler’s wife and daughter, he finds himself ensnared in the secret machinations of this magnetic family on the brink of unraveling.
PREVIOUS CONVICTIONS: ASSIGNMENTS FROM HERE AND THERE by A.A. Gill — Critic, essayist and cultural savant A.A. Gill is probably the most widely read columnist in Britain. His new book of travel essays ranges from Gill’s nearby domestic locales of Glastonbury and the English countryside to Haiti, Guatemala, Pakistan and exotic, dangerous, downtown Manhattan. In this collection of notes from the corners of the globe, and sometimes from the edge of sanity, he confesses about his travels far and wide, “The more I see of the world, the less I think I understand. Familiarity breeds even more astonishment. The world just gets wider and deeper and weirder.” These pieces are wickedly funny, sometimes purposely critical of many cultures and traditions. As an adventurer and as a writer, Gill may take others to task for their customs, habits, idiosyncrasies and plain bad taste, but his own indefatigable curiosity keeps him going back again and again for more.
THE FLASH PRESS: SPORTING MALE WEEKLIES IN 1840S NEW YORK by Patricia Cline Cohen, Timothy J. Gilfoyle and Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz — Obscene, libidinous, loathsome, lascivious. Those were just some of the ways critics described the 19th-century weeklies that covered and publicized New York City’s extensive sexual underworld, distinguished by a captivating brew of lowbrow humor and titillating gossip about prostitutes, theater denizens and sporting events. Including short tales of urban life, editorials on prostitution and moralizing rants against homosexuality, these selections epitomize a distinct form of urban journalism. Here, in addition to providing a thorough overview of this colorful reportage, its editors and its audience, the authors examine 19th-century ideas of sexuality and freedom that mixed Tom Paine’s republicanism with elements of the Marquis de Sade’s sexual ideology. They also trace the evolution of censorship and obscenity law, showing how a string of legal battles ultimately led to the demise of the flash papers. But not before they forever changed the debate over public sexuality and freedom of expression in America’s most important city.
