Paths of Glory
by Jeffrey Archer
Published 2009 by St. Martin's Press

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780312539511

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Jacket Notes:

Archer's new epic tells the story of George Mallory, who once told a reporter that he wanted to climb Mt. Everest, "because it is there." Not until the last page of Archer's extraordinary novel will readers find out what happened to Mallory. Some people have dreams that are so magnificent that if they were to achieve them, their place in history would be guaranteed. Francis Drake, Robert Scott, Charles Lindbergh, Amy Johnson, Edmund Hilary, Neil Armstrong, and Lewis and Clark are among such individuals.

But what if one man had such a dream, and once he'd fulfilled it, there was no proof that he had achieved his ambition?

Jeffrey Archer's latest book, "Paths of Glory," is the story of such a man---George Mallory. Mallory once told an American reporter that he wanted to climb Mt. Everest, "because it's there." On his third attempt in 1924, at age thirty-seven, he was last seen six hundred feet from the top. His body was found in 1999, and it still remains a mystery whether he ever reached the summit.

But only after you've turned the last page of this extraordinary novel, inspired by a true story, will you be able to decide if George Mallory's name should be added to the list of legends, in which case another name would have to be removed. "Paths of Glory" is truly a triumph.

Publishers Weekly 12/01/2008

In July 1984, Thompson-Cannino, a white college student in Burlington, N.C., was raped by a black intruder. She identified her assailant in a lineup as Cotton; he was sentenced to life plus 50 years. When he secured a new trial in 1987, he found himself charged with a second attack and sentenced to two life sentences plus 54 years. DNA evidence at a new trial, eight years later, exonerated him of both charges. Authors Thompson-Cannino and Cotton offer this riveting account of their separate, yet connected, lives through those years. The first two parts describe their dreadful experiences: for her, in the [s]aliva swabs, vaginal swabs, pubic hair combings of the rape kit; for him, being sprayed like a dog getting defleaed at the prison. Thompson-Cannino describes the invasive procedures following a rape, unsettling police procedures (the lineup), unfamiliar legal stages (such as a probable cause hearing) and the disturbing trial. Cotton leads readers through the events following a conviction (the several prisons, adjustments to the prison norm, the alternating hope and despair of the judicial stages). Redemption is the subject of the third part, where Thompson-Cannino and Cotton forge a path to genuine friendship in advocating for the wrongfully convicted. Together they have produced a well-modulated and generously balanced memoirat once a devastating and uplifting crash course in the criminal justice system. "(Mar.)" Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.

Revenge of the Spellmans
by Lisa Lutz
Published 2009 by Simon & Schuster

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9781416593386

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Jacket Notes:

The author of the "New York Times" bestseller "The Spellman Files" and "Curse of the Spellmans" returns with the third installment in the series that features the zany, dysfunctional Spellman family. YOU THOUGHT "YOUR" LIFE WAS COMPLICATEDPrivate investigator Isabel Spellman is back on the case and back on the couch -- in court-ordered therapy after getting a little too close to her previous subject.As the book opens, Izzy is on hiatus from Spellman Inc. But when her boss, Milo, simultaneously cuts her bartending hours and introduces her to a "friend" looking for a private eye, Izzy reluctantly finds herself with a new client. She assures herself that the case -- a suspicious husband who wants his wife tailed -- will be short and sweet, and will involve nothing more than the most boring of PI rituals: surveillance. But with each passing hour, Izzy finds herself with more questions than hard evidence.Meanwhile, Spellmania continues. Izzy's brother, David, the family's most upright member, has adopted an uncharacteristically unkempt appearance and attitude toward work, life, and Izzy. And their wayward youngest sister, Rae, a historic academic underachiever, aces the PSATs and subsequently offends her study partner and object of obsession, Detective Henry Stone, to the point of excommunication. The only unsurprising behavior comes from her parents, whose visits to Milo's bar amount to thinly veiled surveillance and artful attempts (read: blackmail) at getting Izzy to return to the Spellman Inc. fold.As the case of the wayward wife continues to vex her, Izzy's personal life -- and mental health -- seem to be disintegrating. Facing a housing crisis, she can't sleep, she can't remember where she parked her car, and, despite her shrinks' persistence, she can't seem to break through in her appointments. She certainly can't explain why she forgets dates with her lawyer's grandson, or fails to interpret the come-ons issued in an Irish brogue by Milo's new bartender. Nor can she explain exactly how she feels about Detective Henry Stone and his plans to move in with his new Assistant DA girlfriend...Filled with the signature side-splitting Spellman antics, "Revenge of the Spellmans" is an ingenious, hilarious, and disarmingly tender installment in the Spellman series.

Publishers Weekly 01/12/2009

San Francisco PI Isabel Izzy Spellman endures court-ordered therapy sessions as well as blackmail in Lutz's wacky crime novel, the third entry (after "Curse of the Spellmans") in a series that keeps getting better and better. Albert and Olivia Spellman, Izzy's parents, want her to return to work for the family PI firm; otherwise, they may have to sell it. While Izzy contemplates their offer, she secretly moves into her brother's guest apartment; helps her elderly lawyer friend, Mort Schilling, accept his upcoming move to Florida; and mourns the loss of her bartending job. Will she rediscover her yen for snooping when she takes on the Case of Ernie Black's Not Terribly Suspicious Wife Who Probably Wasn't Cheating on Him? Or say sayonara to snooping? Hyper spy girl Rae, Izzy's teenage sister (who may have cheated on her PSAT), provides dizzy distractions. Punctuating the rapid-fire plot are amusing therapy session transcripts and footnotes. "(Mar.)" Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

All Other Nights
by Dara Horn
Published 2009 by W. W. Norton & Company

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780393064926

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On Passover in 1862, Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union army, is ordered to murder his own uncle, who is plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. After that night, will Jacob ever speak for himself? How is tonight different from all other nights? For Jacob Rappaport, a Jewish soldier in the Union army, it is a question his commanders have answered for him: on Passover in 1862 he is ordered to murder his own uncle, who is plotting to assassinate President Lincoln. After that night, will Jacob ever speak for himself? The answer comes when his commanders send him on another mission-this time not to murder a spy but to marry one. A page-turner rich with romance and the history of America (North and South), this is a book only Dara Horn could have written. Full of insight and surprise, layered with meaning, it is a brilliant parable of the moral divide that still haunts us: between those who value family first and those dedicated, at any cost, to social and racial justice for all.

Publishers Weekly 02/02/2009

A Civil War spy page-turner meets an exploration of race and religion in 19th-century America in Horn's enthralling latest. Jacob Rappaport, the 19-year-old scion of a wealthy Jewish import-export family, flees home and enlists in the Union army to avoid an arranged marriage. When his superiors discover his unique connections, he is sent on espionage missions that reveal an American Jewish population divided by the Mason-Dixon line, but united by business, religious and family ties. After being sent to assassinate his uncle in New Orleans on Passover, Jacob's next assignment proves even more daunting: marry the feisty Confederate spy Eugenia Levy. What starts out as a dangerous game for both Jacob and Eugenia ends up being a genuine romance, fraught with the potential for peril, betrayal, tragedy and redemption. Horn propels the love story at a thriller's pace; the mix of love and loyalty played out in a divided America is sublime. "(Apr.)" Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.

All the Living
by C E Morgan
Published 2009 by Farrar Straus Giroux

Hardcover, English. ISBN: 9780374103620

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Jacket Notes:

"All the Living" has the timeless quality of a parable, but it is also a perfect evocation of a time and place, a portrait of both age-old conflicts and modern life. This lyrical and moving debut novel is an ode to the starve-acre southern farm, the mountain landscape, and difficult love--an unforgettable book from a major new voice. One summer, a young woman travels with her lover to the isolated tobacco farm he has inherited after his family dies in a terrible accident. As Orren works to save his family farm from drought, Aloma struggles with the loneliness of farm life and must find her way in a combative, erotically-charged relationship with a grieving, taciturn man. A budding friendship with a handsome and dynamic young preacher further complicates her growing sense of dissatisfaction. As she considers whether to stay with Orren or to leave, she grapples with the finality of loss and death, and the eternal question of whether it is better to fight for freedom or submit to love."All the Living "has the timeless quality of a parable, but is also a perfect evocation of a time and place, a portrait of both age-old conflicts and modern life. It is an ode to the starve-acre Southern farm, the mountain landscape, and difficult love. In her lyrical and moving debut novel, C.E. Morgan recalls both the serenity of Marilynne Robinson and the shifting emotional currents and unashamed eroticism of James Salter. It is an unforgettable book from a major new voice.

Publishers Weekly 10/20/2008

Morgan's enchanting debut follows the travails of a young woman who moves to Kentucky with her bereaved lover in 1984. Aloma, herself an orphan from a young age, leaves her job at the mission school where she was raised to help her taciturn boyfriend, Orren, with his family farm after his family is killed in a car accident. Once at the farm, he retreats into himself and working the land, leaving Aloma to wrestle with her desire to pursue her dream of being a concert pianist. As her relationship with Orren becomes more collision than cohabitation, Aloma finds in a local preacher a deep friendship that complicates her feelings for Orren, who drags his feet on marrying her. Young Aloma's growing understanding of love and devotion in the midst of deep despair is delicately and persuasively rendered through the lens of beliefbe it in religion, relationships or music. Morgan's prose holds the rhythm of the local dialect beautifully, evoking the land, the farming lifestyle and Aloma's awakening with stirring clarity. "(Apr.)" Copyright 2008 Reed Business Information.