She’s back, pimpin’ out notable new releases to place on your radar!
SISTER PELAGIA AND THE BLACK MONK by Boris Akunin — In the middle of the night, a disheveled and badly frightened monk arrives at the doorstep of Bishop Mitrofanii, crying: “Something’s wrong at the Hermitage!” The Hermitage is the centuries-old island monastery of New Ararat, known for its tradition of severely penitent monks, isolated environs and a mental institution founded by a millionaire in self-imposed exile. Hearing the monk’s eerie message, Mitrofanii’s befuddled but sharp-witted ward Sister Pelagia begs to visit New Ararat and uncover the mystery. Traditions prevail — no women are allowed — and the bishop sends other wards to test their fates against the Black Monk that haunts the once-serene locale. But as the Black Monk claims more victims, Pelagia goes undercover to see exactly what person, or what spirit, is at the bottom of it all.
THE IMMORTAL PRINCE by Jennifer Fallon — When a routine hanging goes wrong and a murderer somehow survives the noose, the man announces he is an immortal. And not just any immortal, but Cayal, the Immortal Prince, hero of legend, thought to be only a fictional character. To most, he is a figure out of the Tide Lord Tarot, the only record left on Amyrantha of the mythical beings whom fable tells created the slave race of half-human, half-animal Crasii. Arkady Desean is an expert on the legends of the Tide Lords, so at the request of the King’s Spymaster, she is sent to interrogate this would-be immortal, hoping to prove he is a spy, or at the very least, a madman. Though she is set the task of proving Cayal a liar, Arkady finds herself believing him, against her own good sense. And as she begins to truly believe in the Tide Lords, her own web of lies begins to unravel…
ISLAND OF LOST GIRLS by Jennifer McMahon — While parked at a gas station, Rhonda sees something so incongruously surreal that at first she hardly recognizes it as a crime in progress. She watches, unmoving, as someone dressed in a rabbit costume kidnaps a young girl. Devastated over having done nothing, Rhonda joins the investigation. But the closer she comes to identifying the abductor, the nearer she gets to the troubling truth about another missing child: her best friend, Lizzy, who vanished years before.
EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE by Phillip Margolin — When private detective Dana Cutler is hired by an attorney with powerful political connections, the assignment seems simple enough: follow a pretty college student named Charlotte Walsh and report on where she goes and whom she sees. But one night, Cutler follows Walsh to a secret meeting with Christopher Farrington, the president of the United States. The following morning, Walsh’s dead body shows up and Cutler has to run for her life. In Oregon, Brad Miller, a junior associate in a huge law firm is working on the appeal of a convicted serial killer. Clarence Little, now on death row, claims he was framed for the murder of a teenager who, at the time of her death, worked for the then-governor. Suddenly, a small-time private eye and a fledgling lawyer find themselves in possession of evidence that suggests that someone in the White House is a murderer.
THE FRONT by Patricia Cornwell — Massachusetts state investigator Win Garano, a shrewd man of mixed-race background and a notinconsiderable chip on his shoulder. District Attorney Monique Lamont, a hard-charging woman with powerful ambitions and a troubling willingness to cut corners. Garano’s grandmother, who has certain unpredictable talents that you ignore at your peril … and peril is what comes to them all. D.A. Lamont has a special job for Garano: As part of a new PR campaign about the dangers of declining neighborhoods, she’s sending him to Watertown to “come up with a drama,” and she thinks she knows just the case that will serve. Garano is very skeptical, because he knows that Watertown is also the home base for a loose association of municipal police departments called the FRONT, set up in order that they don’t have to be so dependent on the state — much to Lamont’s anger. In the days that follow, he’ll find that Lamont’s task, and the places it leads him, will resemble a house of mirrors — everywhere he turns, he’s not quite sure if what he’s seeing is true.
THE NUMBER 121 TO PENNSYLVANIA & OTHERS by Kealan Patrick Burke — The lonesome sound of a long forgotten train draws an old man to memories of a horrific past… A journalist makes the mistake of visiting a website where real-life executions are the order of the day… At the foot of an old tree, an insidious evil awaits two boys digging for treasure… A browbeaten salesman finds hope and a possible escape from the banality of his world when he returns home to find a fairytale beanstalk sprouting from his garden… A man resists the social pressure to quit smoking and puts himself at an unimaginable risk… A high school student accepts a dare to ask out the ugliest girl in school and enters a world of pain and violence… A bunch of barflies doomed to murder sinners get together for one last drink in a dying town… These are some of the passengers, headed for a ride through the dark uncharted regions of the heart and mind, on a train unbound by any law but its own. All aboard The Number 121 to Pennsylvania. There will be no stops.
