Book of the Week: Real or false isn’t clear
The Burn PalaceBy Stephen Dobyns(464 pages, fiction, 2013)The Burn Palace sets up a great mystery right from the beginning – a baby disappears from it’s hospital crib, replaced by a large snake. The setting is a small Rhode Island town, where nothing so extraordinary has happened since the town’s namesake was attacked and killed by wolves decades earlier.The tension builds to a violent crescendo as increasingly strange – possibly...
Book of the Week: Coyote Waits
Coyote Waits By Tony Hillerman (292 pages, mystery, 1990) One night on patrol tribal officer Jim Chee calls fellow officer Delbert Nez to arrange a break at a gas station for coffee. Nez is on the track of someone who has been painting the rocks on the hills nearby. But Nez doesn’t show up. When Chee goes to find him, he finds the car Nez was driving in flames. Chee pulls Nez out of his burning car. But Nez has been shot dead. Chee...
Book of the Week: Mysteries pile up
The Old Success By Martha Grimes (243 pages, mystery, 2019) Brian Macalvie of the Devon-Cornwall police is called when the body of a woman is found by two young girls, washed up on Hell’s Bay, on an island off the Cornish coast. Around the same time, Richard Jury from Scotland Yard is at Land’s End, in The Old Success pub talking to Tom Brownell. Brownell is a legend in the London Metropolitan Police for solving nearly all of his...
Book of the Week: Important lessons
City of the Beasts By Isabelle Allende (406, young adult fiction, 2002, available on Hoopla in English translated from Spanish) A fast-paced adventure, this is a difficult book to put down, once begun! Fifteen year old Alex Cold is sent to live with his grandmother, still an active travel writer, when his mother falls seriously ill. His grandmother takes him on assignment to the Amazon in pursuit of an illusive “Beast,”...
Book of the Week: Renown writer celebrates art
Art Matters By Neil Gaiman (100 pages, nonfiction, 2018) Psst. Guys, Neil Gaiman loves libraries. Let him tell you about his love affair with books. Let him tell you about the journey he has taken to get where he is. The advice he wished he had listened to. Why is he telling you this? Because “Art matters.” But don’t worry, he may have a lot of experience and stories, but this book is 100 tiny pages with lots of pictures. If...