Anatomy of a disappearance : a novel

 by Hisham Matar. The author of In the Country of Men (2007) limns a boy's complex relationship with his father. Nuri El-Alfi is 10 when his mother dies, leaving him in the care of his remote father, Kamal, a former minister in an unnamed Arab country's regime who is now a dissident living in exile in Cairo. It is Nuri who first catches sight of Mona, a beautiful young woman who captivates him when he is 12. Kamal romances and then marries Mona, inciting deep jealousy in Nuri, who is sent off to boarding school soon after. Two years later, Nuri travels to Geneva to meet Mona and his father for a holiday. Mona arrives first, but his father never shows up, and the pair discovers in the newspaper that Kamal has been abducted from a Swiss woman's apartment. Over the next decade, Nuri is left to patch together the truth about his father's political and amorous activities, leading him to a startling revelation. A subtle and graceful character study. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Precious objects : a story of diamonds, family and a way of life

 by Alicia Oltuski. Oltuski's fascinating look at the diamond industry weaves together an intricate, comprehensive study of the origins and future of the trade and a family narrative. Oltuski's father is a veteran jeweler in New York's Forty-Seventh Street Diamond District, one of the major centers of the industry. Here deals based on reputation and connection are haggled over, and transactions closed by spoken word. Oltuski explores the intricacy of such negotiations as well as the nature of the industry, from its deep history to such more current controversies as those concerning conflict or blood diamonds and the effect of list pricing in the marketplace. Oltuski also covers basic diamond science and how emerging technologies are changing the way the precious gems are manufactured. Throughout, she highlights a variety of persons who rely on diamonds for income, including her father, and how the ever-changing industry, rooted in old traditions, poses threats to their livelihoods. An inclusive, intimate account of a complex business. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

The accident : a novel

 by Linwood Barclay. Building contractor Glen Barber is shattered to learn that his wife, Sheila, has died in an automobile accident that she caused, apparently the result of drinking and driving. Desperately searching for answers (his wife, he knows, would never have driven if she had been drinking, and she was not a habitual drinker), he soon discovers that the mother of his young daughter was not the woman he believed she was. Thematically, the novel is similar to Barclay's Never Look Away (in which a man also discovers that his wife has a hidden past), but this one is not a retread but rather an exploration of the theme from a different angle. Fans of the author's previous novels will find The Accident just as tightly plotted and economically written as its predecessors. Barclay definitely belongs in the company of Harlan Coben, Lisa Gardner, and Gregg Hurwitz. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

The takedown : a suburban mom, a coal miner's son, and the unlikely demise of Colombia's brutal Norte Valle Cartel

 by Jeffrey Robinson. Organized crime expert Robinson (The Sink) tells the dramatic saga of an assistant U.S. attorney and a federal agent who bring down the violent drug lords of the largest drug empire since the heady days of Pablo Escobar. Bonnie Klapper, a hard-nosed prosecutor (not your run-of-the-mill "suburban mom"), with Agent Romedio "Rooney" Viola, plows ahead with her dogged 12-year campaign against the Colombian bosses and couriers, isolating their U.S.-based operatives and turning them to provide state's evidence against their superiors. Robinson writes candidly of the national appetite for illegal drugs: "Organized crime is the planet's biggest business and North America is its most lucrative market." Klapper and Viola wage war with the corrupt Colombian authorities and the joint American law enforcement agencies, trapping the top killers Guzman, Monsalve, and Bustamente, into snitching on the overlords of the Norte Valle Cartel. Impressive from start to finish, the book is a tribute to Robinson's storytelling and the courage of the crime-fighting duo. 8 pages of b&w photos. --Publishers Weekly (Check Catalog)

The lantern : a novel

 by Deborah Lawrenson.  Eve and Dom meet and instantly fall deeply in love. So when Dom decides to move to Provence to a ramshackle farmhouse, Les Genevriers, Eve can do nothing but follow. Once there, mysterious scents waft through the house, a party guest raises disturbing questions about Dom's former wife, Rachel, and Dom vehemently refuses to talk about her. Add to that the isolation of the house and mysterious bones found under an old concrete pool, and you have all the makings of a modern gothic novel with plenty of shadows, figures in the night, and a ghostly lantern that appears on the path to the house. The story unfolds in Eve's modern voice and the diary of Benedicte, former owner of Les Genevriers. The two stories move slowly together, revealing just enough to keep the reader on edge. Lawrenson builds characters and suspense with a deft hand, creating an atmospheric and moody story, with the beauty of Provence and its culture, past and present, as backdrop. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Incognito : the secret lives of the brain

 by David Eagleman. Neuroscientist Eagleman wants us to take a look inside our own heads. We know there's a brain there, and we know some things about what it does, but there's a lot of unexplored territory, too. We know we think and imagine, but how do we do these things? Why will we perceive things photographs, say, or events one way under a certain set of circumstances but a different way in different circumstances? What is the unconscious mind, and how does it work? You might as well know up front that there aren't any concrete answers here; this is one of those books where the exploration is the adventure and the journey its own reward. Written in clear, precise language (even when the author is tackling some seriously complicated stuff), the book is sure to appeal to readers with an interest in psychology and the human mind, but it will also please people who just want to know, with a little more clarity, what is going on inside their own skulls. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Sex on the Moon

A promising NASA recruit throws everything away for a girl, illustrating the fascinating consequences when science, ambition, and starry-eyed love collide. In bestselling author Mezrich's telling, Thad Roberts, while at the University of Utah, became determined to be an astronaut and threw himself into science courses, He left his wife behind when he was accepted to the elite Johnson Space Center Cooperative Program in Houston, the training ground for NASA scientists. Despite his lack of an engineering background, Roberts excelled in the life sciences department. While cataloguing samples, he noticed the moon rocks NASA categorized as "trash"samples returned after experiments. Then Roberts met and fell in love with a new recruit, Rebecca, and planned to give her the moon, or at least its profits, by stealing the "used" moon rocks. Roberts devised the heist and arranged an online sale with a mineral collector in Belgium. The suspicious buyer alerted the FBI, which set up a sting, and Roberts was sentenced to eight years in federal prison. Mezrich (The Accidental Billionaires, from which The Social Network was adapted) has perfected his intensely readable brand of nonfiction: talented, often unscrupulous, young people skyrocketing to the top only to tumble back to earth. (July) Copyright 2011 Reed Business Information. - Publisher's Weekly (Check Catalog)

Fallen

Still more proof, if any were needed, that the most monstrous demons in Grant County, Ga., are lurking in the master bedroom.
Faith Mitchell, of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, returns home late from a training seminar to find her house trashed, her baby daughter locked in the shed, a man lying dead on the laundry-room floor—Faith herself will kill two other intruders before they can escape, and a third corpse will turn up in the trunk of the family car—and her mother gone. Capt. Evelyn Mitchell was eased into retirement from the Atlanta PD years ago after her narcotics squad was implicated in a web of corruption. Two of her former colleagues are doing time; a third, former Det. Boyd Spivey, is on death row for murder. So it's not all that surprising that gang-bangers would have broken into her house looking for a big score. But why are their surviving colleagues in Los Texicanos and the Yellow Rebels suddenly so determined to annihilate each other, and how does Evelyn's abduction fit into the picture? "I think we must be caught in the middle of some kind of war," Faith's boss, GBI deputy director Amanda Wagner, tells Faith's partner, endlessly troubled Will Trent. The mounting body count, however, pales beside the ferocious conflicts among regulars in this high-octane series (Broken, 2010, etc.). Faith's brother Zeke, returning from an Air Force posting, instantly resumes his long feud with her. Will is alternately abused by Amanda Wagner and his spiteful wife Angie. And Faith's climactic showdown with her mother's abductor will reveal far more personal motives for the runaway mayhem than she ever could have imagined.
Ex–County Coroner Dr. Sara Linton does seem to be managing a break from her own Job-like sufferings, at least for this installment. - Kirkus Reviews (Check Catalog)

Absolute Monarchs

From the disciple Peter to the reigning Benedict, accomplished British historian Norwich (The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean, 2006, etc.) fashions a spirited, concise chronicle of the accomplishments of the most noteworthy popes.
The author is comfortable navigating this vast terrain, which is essentially the history of Christianity—and he even manages to make the numbing litany of events palatable. Moreover, Norwich is not above questioning historical interpretation, such as over the controversy over John Paul I's death in 1978—was he murdered? With Jesus' pronouncement to his disciple Simon, that "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church," the leaders of the fledgling Christian church began to organize themselves. Norwich doesn't dwell on St. Paul, but subsequent church elders in the first two centuries CE were Levantines—centered in the Greek-speaking world of the eastern Mediterranean—working to establish churches despite Roman persecution and mostly in Asia. The emperor Constantine's adoption of Christianity in the fourth century, and construction of a basilica dedicated to St. Peter on the Vatican Hill, boosted Christianity's profile enormously. However, marauding hordes laid waste to Rome over the centuries, and early popes had to solidify doctrine and orthodoxy, notably in the time of Gregory the Great and Leo II (who crowned Charlemagne). Norwich lingers over the schism between the Western and Eastern churches, the leaders of the Crusades, the seven popes who resided in Avignon, the rebuilding of the Roman Church during the Renaissance beginning under Nicholas V, the "monsters" (Alexander, Julius), the patrons of the arts (Leo X) and the rulers during the Counter-Reformation, who checked the tide of Protestantism. The author gracefully navigates through the challenges of the Age of Reason, revolution, the Risorgimento and the World Wars, examining the papal responses—e.g., Pius XII's silence in the face of the persecution of the Jews.
Norwich doesn't skirt controversies, ancient and present, in this broad, clear-eyed assessment. - Kirkus Reviews (Check Catalog)