She’s back, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar!
THE SHADOW PAVILION by Liz Williams — When Detective Inspector Chen’s partner, the demon Seneschal Zhu Irzh, disappears along with Chen’s wife Inari’s guardian badger, Chen must enlist all of his allies and assets in order to locate them. Meanwhile, Zhu Irzh and the badger find themselves trapped in an unfamiliar jungle hell, stalked by a rogue demon lord and his harem of tigress demons, an assassin from between worlds targets Mhara, the new Lord of Heaven, and a beautiful Bollywood starlet holds a deadly secret. From the strange streets of Singapore Three to the rough and tumble world of Bollywood, where money flows fast and emotions flare even faster; from the realms of the Celestial to the haunts of the Infernal and all the spaces in between …
ROBERT LUDLUM’S THE BOURNE SANCTION by Eric Van Lustbader — Jason Bourne returns to Georgetown University and the mild world of his alter ego, David Webb, hoping for normalcy, but finds himself chafing under the quiet life of a linguistics professor. Aware of his frustrations, his academic mentor, Professor Specter, asks for help investigating the murder of a former student by a previously unknown Muslim extremist sect. The young man died carrying information about the group’s terrorist activities, including an immediate plan to attack the United States. The organization, the Black Legion, and its lethal plot have also popped up on the radar of Central Intelligence, where new director Veronica Hart is struggling to assert her authority. Sensing an opportunity to take control of CI by showing Hart’s incompetence, National Security Agency operatives plan to accomplish what CI never could: hunt down and kill Bourne.
THE COURT OF THE AIR by Stephen Hunt — When streetwise Molly Templar witnesses a brutal murder at the brothel she has recently been apprenticed to, her first instinct is to run back to the poorhouse where she grew up. But there she finds her fellow orphans butchered, and it slowly dawns on her that she was the real target of the attack. For Molly is a special little girl, and she carries a secret that marks her out for destruction by enemies of the state. Oliver Brooks has led a sheltered existence in the backwater home of his uncle. But when he is framed for his only relative’s murder, he is forced to flee for his life, accompanied by an agent of the mysterious Court of the Air. Chased across the country, Oliver finds himself in the company of thieves, outlaws and spies, and gradually learns more about the secret that has blighted his life. Soon Molly and Oliver will find themselves battling a grave threat to civilization: an ancient power thought to have been quelled millennia ago.
BLACK SECONDS by Karin Fossum — Ida Joner gets on her brand-new bike and sets off toward town. A good-natured, happy girl, she is looking forward to her 10th birthday. Thirty-five minutes after she should have come home, her mother starts to worry. She phones store owners, Ida’s friends — anyone who could have seen her. But no one has. Suspicion immediately falls on Emil Mork, a local character who lives alone and hasn’t spoken since childhood. His mother insists on cleaning his house weekly — although she’s sometimes afraid of what she might find there. A mother’s worst nightmare in either case: to lose a child or to think a child capable of murder. As Ida’s relatives reach the breaking point and the media frenzy surrounding the case begins, Inspector Konrad Sejer is his usual calm and reassuring self. But he’s puzzled. And disturbed. This is the strangest case he’s seen in years.
THE BURNT HOUSE by Faye Kellerman — LAPD Detective Peter Decker and his wife, Rina, are profoundly shaken by this terrible “accident” that has occurred frighteningly close to their daughter’s school. And an irate call from the unaccounted-for flight attendant’s stepfather further tangles an already twisted mystery. The man insists 28-year-old Roseanne Dresden was never on the doomed flight, but was probably murdered by her abusive, unfaithful husband — a revelation that propels Decker down a path of tragic history and deadly lies toward an unimaginable evil that will challenge his and Rina’s cherished beliefs about guilt and innocence and justice.
THE ROSETTA KEY by William Dietrich — Surviving murderous thieves, a nerve-racking sea voyage and the deadly sands of Egypt with Napoleon’s army, American adventurer Ethan Gage solved a 5,000-year-old riddle with the help of a mysterious medallion. But the danger is only beginning. Gage finds himself hurled into the Holy Land in dogged pursuit of an ancient Egyptian scroll imbued with magic, even as Bonaparte launches his 1799 invasion of Israel, which will climax at the epic siege of Acre. Pursuing Napoleon to France, where the general hopes ancient secrets will catapult him to power, the wily and inventive Gage faces old enemies with unlikely new friends, and must use wit, humor, derring-do, and an archaeological key to prevent dark powers from seizing control of the world.
THE FACE OF DEATH by Cody McFadyen — The girl is 16, at the scene of a grisly triple homicide, and has a gun to her head. She claims “The Stranger” killed her adoptive family, that he’s been following her all her life, killing everyone she ever loved, and that no one believes her. No one has. Until now. Special Agent Smoky Barrett is head of the violent crimes unit in Los Angeles. Her team has been handpicked from among the nation’s elite law enforcement specialists and they are as obsessed and relentless as the psychos they hunt; they’ll have to be to deal with this case. For another vicious double homicide reveals a killer embarked on a dark crusade of trauma and death: an “artist” who’s molding 16-year-old Sarah into the perfect victim — and the ultimate weapon. But Smoky Barrett has another, more personal reason for catching The Stranger: an adopted daughter and a new life that are worth protecting at any cost.
THE LAST ORACLE by James Rollins — In Washington, D.C., a homeless man dies in Commander Gray Pierce’s arms, shot by an assassin’s bullet. But the death leaves behind a greater mystery: a bloody coin found clutched in the dead man’s hand, an ancient relic that can be traced back to the Greek Oracle of Delphi. As ruthless hunters search for the stolen artifact, Gray Pierce discovers that the coin is the key to unlocking a plot that dates back to the Cold War and threatens the very foundation of humanity. An international think tank of scientists known as the Jasons has discovered a way to bioengineer autistic children who show savant talents — mathematical geniuses, statistical masterminds, brilliant conceptual artists — into something far greater and far more frightening, in hopes of creating a world prophet for the new millennium, one to be manipulated to create a new era of global peace … a peace on their own terms.
