Fiction Follies: August 2007

Fiction Follies is a monthly newsletter containing a selection of NEW fiction added to the collection of the Sutherland Shire Libraries. Click on the book title to reserve your copy.

New Mysteries

The return by Hakan Nesser
Nesser's latest contemporary police procedural, set in his Swedish homeland, is an excellent puzzler that will remind many of the Inspector Morse series. Publishers Weekly

A treasury of regrets by Susanne Alleyn
Freelance police investigator Aristide Ravel comes to the aid of Jeannette Moineau, an illiterate servant girl accused of poisoning the master of the house where she works, but his case is complicated by a household brimming with suspects and motives and by the deaths of additional family members, in a mystery set against the backdrop of revolutionary Paris.

Into the shadows by Shirley Wells
When a man wrongfully arrested for murder hangs himself, forensic psychologist Jill Kennedy, who helped put him away, moves to a sleepy village. But when the vicar’s wife is murdered, Jill discovers that village life isn’t the retreat she’d hoped for.

Murder on the dancefloor by Susan Kelly
A dangerous new drug has emerged into the nightclubs around Newbury. Entrium Trilenium, otherwise known as Entry, is easy to manufacture, looks deceptively like ecstasy, but is incredibly lethal. After the deaths of two young girls at a local nightclub, Superintendent Gregory Summers and his team believe that they’re after a small time drug dealer on a probable manslaughter charge. However, their investigations take a devastating turn when tragedy strikes close to home.

New Fiction

After dark by Haruki Murakami
A short, sleek novel of encounters set in the witching hours of Tokyo between midnight and dawn, and every bit as gripping as Haruki Murakami's masterworks The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and Kafka on the Shore.

Salt by Jeremy Page
A haunting, evocative portrait of three generations of a family by an exciting and inspired new voice in fiction. Salt is a family saga that explores the relationship between people and the landscape in which they live. Atmospheric and lyrical, Jeremy Page's debut novel is revelatory in its use of language. For fans of John Banville and Marilynne Robinson, Salt signals the introduction of a significant writer.

Tales from the town of widows by James Canon
The women of Mariquita – made widows when their men are swept away by the army or rebel forces – learn hard lessons about love and survival. Forced to grow in extraordinary ways, they challenge the tenets of male–dominated society, discover power with all its pitfalls and strive to create an entirely new social order, an all–female utopia.

Seizure by Erica Wagner
Janet grew up with her father; her mother, she was always told, died when she was three. But now she discovers she has inherited a house from her mother—who, she learns, died only recently. In a state of shock she travels north with the key: and finds an old stone cottage at the sea’s edge.

New Thrillers

Stalin’s ghost by Martin Cruz Smith
Moscow-based Senior Investigator Arkady Renko, in his outstanding sixth outing (after Wolves Eat Dogs), investigates a murder-for-hire scheme that leads him to suspect two fellow police detectives, Nikolai Isakov and Marat Urman, both former members of Russia's elite Black Berets, who served in Chechnya. This masterful suspense novel casts a searing light on contemporary Russia. Publishers Weekly

Never fear by Scott Frost
Set in the suburbs of simmering Los Angeles, NEVER FEAR is a fast-paced thriller featuring Alex Delillo, detective and single mother. Seventeen years ago, three young women were murdered; their bodies dumped in the wasteland of the Los Angeles River. The serial killer was never found. Now, Lieutenant Alex Delillo, is forced to re-open the case after the brother she never knew existed, a private investigator, is found murdered. As Alex gets closer to the truth behind her brother's murder, alarming flashbacks from her childhood start to plague her and she realises that the truth may lie closer to her life than she could have ever imagined.

Truth catcher by Anna Salter
Breeze Copens is a forensic psychologist with paranormal abilities. When she must recommend that Daryl Collins be released from prison because on paper he is not a threat, she knows it’s a dangerous mistake.

New Family Sagas

Rough justice by Gilda O’Neill
The Flanagans, Tanners and Lovells all live on the top floor of a crumbling Victorian tenement in the heart of London's East End. It's 1936 and Britain is in the grip of the Depression. Nell Flanagan is a decent, hardworking woman, married to Stephen, a tough, heavy-drinking brute of a man, who works as a casual in the docks — when there's work available. Nell has hidden the abuse she has suffered at his hands from her young children, although most of the neighbours realise what's going on.

A step in the dark by Judith Lennox
A powerful family drama set in India and Scotland, from 1915 to the 1960s. It's 1915 when young Bess Ravenhart, recently widowed, leaves her baby son Frazer with her mother-in-law, Cora, while she sails from India to Britain to set up a home. But Cora has no intention of returning Frazer to his mother's care.

New Chic Lit

Falling out of fashion by Karen Yampolsky
In the bestselling tradition of The Devil Wears Prada, Karen Yampolsky's hilarious and disarmingly candid debut goes deep inside the glossy, glamorous, and completely ruthless world of magazine publishing, where bitchiness and betrayal are always in vogue, and this month's hotshots are just one dud issue away from a pink slip and a one-line career obit on Page Six.

The two Mrs Robinsons by Donna Hay
Anna lives with Oliver Robinson and their 3-year-old son Charlie. They met when she worked as a waitress at his restaurant; he had recently separated and she was a shoulder to cry on. But friendship turned to love. Now she juggles motherhood with part-time work and she couldn't be happier. Or perhaps she could? Oliver has never divorced his first wife Eve who is everything Anna is not.

* Note, many descriptions of books are taken from the publishers synopsis and websites.

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