The affair : a Reacher novel

 by Lee Child. *Starred Review* Jack Reacher fans know the basics about their hero career army MP suddenly transformed into the ultimate lone wolf (Have Toothbrush Will Travel) but they don't know the backstory. Finally, Child fills us in on what drove Reacher, a good soldier above all, out of the army. The basic structure resembles most Reacher novels: Jack turns up in an out-of-the-way locale (small-town Mississippi here), confronts a clutch of evildoers, takes them down, packs his toothbrush, and hits the road. But this time hitting the road means leaving the army, which becomes necessary because certain of the evildoers are soldiers, too, and to bring them down, Reacher must discard the MP's manual altogether. For fans of the series, much of the fun comes in spotting Reacher's now-familiar idiosyncrasies at the moments they were born (the habit, for example, of owning only one set of clothes, wearing them until they get dirty, and then buying replacements). The plot itself involves a serial killer possibly a soldier wreaking havoc among the locals living near an army base. Teaming up both professionally and romantically with the town sheriff, a comely former marine, Reacher simultaneously attempts to find the truth and protect the army. As usual, plenty of eggs get broken in spectacular style on the way to making a Reacher omelet. Child's mastery of high-octane plotting remains remarkable, as does his ability to inject what, in other hands, might have been cartoon characters with all the sinews that power human beings. --Booklist (Check catalog)

Public parts : how sharing in the digital age improves the way we work and live

 by Jeff Jarvis. The author of What Would Google Do? (2009) returns with another thoughtful look at the Internet age. A welcome and well-reasoned counterpoint to the arguments that social-networking sites and the easy availability of personal information online are undermining our society and putting our safety at risk, the book shows how instruments of connectivity like Facebook, Wikipedia, and Twitter can be, if used constructively, major contributors to society. (Recall, for example, how early news out of Egypt during the recent revolution came via Twitter.) Jarvis doesn't ignore the downsides of online connectivity, of course, but he puts them in what appears to be a more objective context. With the recent publicity surrounding the Rupert Murdoch media empire and the cellphone-hacking scandal, the book's theme that the Internet is a valuable tool for social change might strike some readers as a bit ill-timed, but the argument is highly persuasive (especially when Jarvis shows how the printing press, like the Internet, also came with predictions of misuse, invasion of privacy, and disaster). A must-read for anyone interested in the issue of connectivity versus privacy. --Booklist (Check catalog)

Lethal

 Sandra Brown. Lee Coburn is lethal. A trained killer suspected of murdering seven men in a trucking company warehouse in coastal Louisiana, he is the object of an area-wide manhunt when he feigns injury to get into the home of widow Honor Gillette and her four-year-old, Emily. The Gillette house isn't just a refuge for Coburn. He's after something valuable left by Honor's late husband, Eddie, a cop who died in an apparent accident two years ago. As the terrorized Honor fears for Emily's safety and expects to be raped or murdered, it becomes clear that things aren't what they seem. Everything revolves around the Bookkeeper, shadowy head of a scheme for illegally trafficking guns, drugs, and girls, who brooks no deviation from orders given. Though it's fairly obvious early on that Honor is drawn to Coburn's laser blue eyes, Brown keeps the plot twisting and turning, the body count rising, and the action accelerating to a satisfying climax. Brown knows how to write romantic suspense and once again has produced a satisfying page-turner. --Booklist Review (Check Catalog)

Deadline artists : America's greatest newspaper columns

 "It is the great American art form, read by millions every day." When these eloquent, compassionate newspaper columns were first delivered, they were treated as individual works of art, almanacs to suit any disposition. Well-catalogued and categorized, this exultant retrospective of American journalism seems ideal for today's attention spans and travel schedules. In the most memorable modern excerpt from the section "Wars and Other Foreign Affairs," Pete Hamill stands in a "pale gray wilderness" following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and tells readers: "As I write, it remains present tense." In other sections, Hunter S. Thompson and O. Henry reveal a raw, emotional, and entertaining style of journalism; a formula that Jimmy Breslin's surreal "'Are You John Lennon?'" piece surely encapsulates. Avlon, Angelo, and Louis's glorious compilation "is a chance to be there at moments when America changes, for better or for worse." Free-flowing to the very end, lasting drops of pure wisdom come in the form of Mary Schmich's infamous "sunscreen" composition, while Benjamin Franklin's 1757 sermon of advice literally offers words to live by. "Well done is better than well said," Franklin writes, but as far as this essential anthology goes, it's so well done, there's nothing left to say. --Library journal (Check catalog)

Shadow in Serenity

 by Terri Blackstock. There's a shadow in Serenity, TX, and his name is Logan Brisco. Having grown up in a traveling circus, Carny Sullivan had her fill of scam artists. The last thing she wants is to see someone con the people she has come to love. Logan has promised the town a portion of the proceeds of an amusement park he wants to build, but Carny thinks there's something behind his dazzling smile. Is she right, or can Logan prove that he is sincere? VERDICT Christy Award winner Blackstock is known for her Christian romantic suspense stories, with over six million books sold worldwide. That alone should demand purchase, but the crisp prose and multi-dimensional characters will be a hit with readers wanting a fast-paced story. --Library Journal (Check Catalog)

Death in the city of light : the serial killer of Nazi-occupied Paris

 by David King. *Starred Review* Just about every nonfiction book about a serial killer on the loose in a big city published since 2004 has been hailed as another Devil in the White City. Erik Larson's tour de force of narrative nonfiction hasn't been matched until now. European-history scholar King, author of the acclaimed Vienna, 1814 (2008), has found a villain who, like businessman H. H. Holmes in White City, was admired and trusted and thrived in an atmosphere of genteel chaos. For Holmes, the Columbian Exposition of 1893 provided young female victims. King's subject, respected doctor Marcel Petiot, tortured and dismembered at least a score of victims during the WWII Nazi occupation of Paris. Many of those were Jews, who came to Petiot seeking refuge from the Gestapo. King deftly adopts a Poe-like, thoroughly eerie tone in his opening depiction of the contents of the basement of a town home in a still-fashionable Paris neighborhood in 1944 and maintains it throughout. He follows the investigation led by Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu of the French homicide squad through the search for Petiot and his trial. The French Prefecture de Police allowed King access to the entire Petiot dossier, which had been classified since his trial. While painstaking in its research, the book has a top-notch thriller's immediacy and power to make one gasp. True-crime at its best. --Booklist (Check catalog)

Lost memory of skin

 by Russell Banks. *Starred Review* Banks is in top form in his seventeenth work of fiction, a cyclonic novel of arresting observations, muscular beauty, and disquieting concerns. An unloved runt of 22, the Kid thinks he might b. slightly retarded. but his narrational voice evinces a smart, sensitive, and witty, if dangerously uneducated, mind. With only a pet iguana for a friend, the Kid became addicted to online pornography, which leads to his becoming a virginal convicted sex offender on parole, camping out beneath a causeway at the water's edge in a city much like Miami. The Kid joins a veritable leper colony of sex offenders rendered homeless due to a law forbidding them to live within 2,500 feet of any place children may gather. Enter the Professor, a sociologist whose gargantuan mental powers are matched by his astonishing bulk. Humongous, arrogant, generous, brash, and secretive, the Professor, a character of startling and magnetic originality, latches onto the Kid first as a case study, then as an ally, until things go catastrophically wrong. Banks dramatically contrasts the soulless cybersexual carnival with the thorny complexity of flesh-and-blood encounters and our inner lives, the fecund wildness of a vast primeval swamp, and the fury of a hurricane to create a commanding, intrepidly inquisitive, magnificently compassionate, and darkly funny novel of private and societal illusions, maladies, and truths. . HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Banks is among our living literary giants, and promotion for this daring novel includes a print, television, radio, and online campaign and a coast-to-coast tour. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

American anthrax : fear, crime, and the investigation of the nation's deadliest bioterror attack

 by Jeanne Guillemin. In July 2008, Bruce Ivins took his own life. He had been a highly respected bioweapons researcher, working for the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID). He was also the prime suspect in the post-9/11 anthrax attacks that took several lives and caused a nationwide panic. In this gripping account, Guillemin, author of two previous books about biological weapons, chronicles the FBI investigation into the attacks, showing how the authorities came to focus on Ivins and also how the investigation was hampered by procedural confusion and outside influences, such as erroneous reports that escalated the public's sense of panic. Although marketed as a science book, this work, in tone and structure, more closely resembles true crime. There's science in the book, naturally, but the primary interest here arises from how investigators solved the mystery of who was behind the attacks. Highly recommended to readers of science, true crime, and even thrillers. --Booklist (Check Catalog)

Winning the war on war : the decline of armed conflict worldwide

 by Joshua S. Goldstein. American University professor and international relations expert Goldstein argues that military conflicts are on the retreat globally. Using analysis and statistics, he rebuts the claim that the 20th century was among the bloodiest in human history, that civilian casualties in warfare have been increasing as a proportion of total casualties, along with violence against women, and that the number of wars being fought has been increasing since World War II. Goldstein contends that peace is a worthwhile objective for its own sake, even without other causes, such as social justice or economic reform. Goldstein reviews the history and development of U.N. peace keeping operations from their inception under Ralph Bunche and Count Bernadotte in Palestine, and while surveying the world's ongoing armed struggles, he presents leading peace research institutes (such as the one in Uppsala, Sweden) and researchers (such as the late Randy Forsberg on nuclear weapons). In addition, he reveals the flawed nature of casualty estimates based on epidemiological models that were employed for the Congo and Iraq. The result is an optimistic, if controversial, assessment by a respected anti-war advocate. --Publishers Weekly (Check Catalog)