Preview Shelf -- Halloween Calls For Mystery

Here is the latest arrival of books requested by patrons. Over half are mysteries.

Perfect for Halloween. Find one about a place that interests you by authors who make plots come alive. "Justice Denied" by J. A. Jance is an A.J.P. Beaumont story that begins with what looks like just another case of turf warfare in Seattle. In "Dry Ice" by Stephen White a determined murderer who has left the Colorado State Mental Hospital returns with psychological page-turner terror. "Sweet Revenge" by Diane Davidson has a chocolate cupcake on the cover because the plot begins at a catered holiday feast for the staff of the Aspen Meadow Library. "The Tenderness of Wolves" is a 2006 Costa (formerly Whitbread) Book of the Year winner by Stef Penney set in 1867 in a Northern Canada Territory settlement. Elizabeth Lowell's "Innocent as Sin" identifies a private banker in Arizona who while painting landscapes in the Pacific Northwest is accused of a shocking crime. "My Summer of Southern Discomfort" by Stephanie Gayle finds a recent Harvard Law graduate working in Macon, Georgia, where she welcomes a new experience. "In the Woods" by Tana French is a psychological suspense story set in a Dublin suburb in the summer of 1984. "Play Dirty" by Sandra Brown involves a secret agreement between a Cowboys quarterback just released from prison and a golden couple owning a Texas airline. "Invisible Prey" by John Sandford opens in the richest neighborhood of Minneapolis where two elderly women lie murdered in their home. "Citizen Vince" by Jess Waltere paints early November of 1980 just before Ronald Reagan's victory over Jimmy Carter; from Spokane, Washington east to New York City, the story moves with dark humor as a charming crook chases his second chance. "The Good Husband of Zebra Drive" is Alexander Smith's new novel in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency Series in Botswana with a few tricky cases, a series of deaths, and pertinent office supplies missing from a local printing company. "Vineyard Stalker" by Philip Craig takes us to the "Martha" island where there is pressure to sell precious real estate, and a body turns up nearby complicating property disputes. James Benn's "The First Wave" is a Billy Doyle World War II mystery when in November 1942 Eisenhower's personal investigator goes to shore with the first troops at Beer Green Beach near Algiers. By contrast "Ham Bones" is Carolyn Haines' Southern Belle Mystery about Broadway coming to the Delta and how the star's lipstick is laced with cyanide. "The Night Ferry" by Michael Robotham involves a London neighborhood and a high school reunion that leads to a terrible crime and to action in Amsterdam. "The Broken Shore" by Peter Temple shows us a big-city detective posted in a quiet town on the South Australian coast and a crime blamed on three aboriginal boys. Here are other fiction requests. In "Her Royal Spyness" Rhys Bowen turns her attention to mischief by stylish minor English royalty circa 1930. "The Bourne Betrayal" by Eric Van Lustbader again features the rogue secret agent who has lost his memory, this time learning that his last friend in the world has gone missing after having been seen in Ethiopia tracking shipments of atomic bomb weaponry. To mention briefly a few more requests, try "The Maytrees" by Annie Dillard, "The Penny" by Joyce Meyer, "Sheer Abandon" by Penny Vincenzi, Fern Michaels' "Up Cose and Personal", Johanna Lindsey's "The Devil Who Tamed Her" and Linda Miller's Stone Creek novel "A Wanted Man".