On the shelves - March 3

The following are available for checkout at:

Clovis-Carver Public Library

“The Hunting Party” by Lucy Foley tells a murder mystery full of suspense, secrets and surprise. This well-written page-turner is reminiscent of Agatha Christie as the story’s plot is full of twist and turns and it is not until the final pages that the mystery is solved. A group of longtime friends get together on a trip to the Scottish Highlands, a tradition they have had for over 10 years. A horrible blizzard forces them to stay inside the lodge for several days but ends as one of the friends is found dead. Keep your friends close, as the old saying goes. This book is a readable mystery by a professor of English literature at Durham University in London.

“Rock Art: The Meanings and Myths Behind Ancient Ruins in the Southwest and Beyond” by Stewart M. Green explores the fascinating history of ancient human-made stone markings. This book, complete with colorful and description pictures, explains pre-histories and histories of the cultures who created these images, provides descriptive details of the tools, techniques and methods used to create rock art, and instructs rock hounds in best practices for photographing these rock images. This book is a readable and informative guide to discovering rock art in the southwest.

“What to Eat When” by Michael R. Roizen and Michael Crupain show us that when you eat is just as important as what you eat. This book reveals the right foods for life’s toughest circumstances and reveals the biology of timing and eating that will help you eat the way your body really wants to. Through clear, precise, and readable text, Drs. Roizen and Crupain explain why “The When Way” might just be the best approach to eating.

“A Case of Bier” by Mary Daheim is another cozy bed and breakfast mystery by the Seattle sleuth who is known for weaving a great mystery and story. In this story, the amateur sleuth and innkeeper Judith McMonigle Flynn travels to the Canadian Rockies for what she hopes will be a relaxing vacation, only to find that her fellow guests have a different kind of getaway in their devious minds. This book is a delightful read from a well-established American mystery writer.

“Stories of the Old West: 44 Great Tales of the American Frontier” edited and with an introduction by Steven D. Price and Thomas P. McCarthy combines tales of 100 years of American Wild West history from rough-hewn frontier days to gunslingers, to the hard life on the expanding Western border that forged the American character. Contributors to this definitive collection of stories include Zane Grey, Buffalo Bill Cody, Deadwood Dick and Mark Twain.

Portales Public Library

“As Long As We Both Shall Live” by JoAnn Chaney

While Matt and Marie Evans are on a romantic getaway in the Rockies, Marie slips and falls off of a cliff into the river below, leaving Matt distraught and rushing to the park rangers for help. They search for her body but when they find nothing she is presumed dead, with her death believed to be a tragic accident and Matt having to go home to their two daughters to explain what happened to their mother. Later, when Denver police detectives Loren and Spengler pull a dead body out of the river, coupled with the discovery that Matt’s first wife Janice also died under strange circumstances 20 years earlier, they question whether the two deaths are purely coincidental, or if they are linked and Matt’s grief is a mask for something far more sinister. Upon further investigation, they find that Janice’s death happened shortly after Janice discovered that Matt had been having an affair. Her death was reportedly at the hands of an intruder who set the house on fire, with Matt barely escaping with his life but unable to save his wife from burning. As the suspicious evidence starts to pile up, Loren and Spengler try to uncover the truth of who Matt Evans really is: a devoted but unlucky husband or a calculated wife killer.

“Pet Sematary” by Stephen King

Coming soon to theaters in its second film adaptation, “Pet Sematary” is one of Stephen King’s most iconic, beloved and most terrifying novels, as well as one of his most personal. When Dr. Louis Creed gets a new job in the rural Maine town of Ludlow, he and his wife Rachel are looking forward to a change of pace and an idyllic place to raise their children Ellie and Gage. However, the farmhouse they buy just so happens to be set right on a busy and dangerous highway, where trucks are known to run over pets that hazard to cross the road. Dozens of pet casualties have ended up buried in the pet cemetery in the woods nearby and Louis soon hears the local legend of the ancient burial grounds behind the “pet sematary” from neighbor Jud Crandall, a legend that says the dead buried there will come back to life, be it animal or human. Chalking it up to suspicion and tall tales, Louis doesn’t believe Jud until Ellie’s cat Church is run over, and after burying him behind the cemetery, Church does in fact come back to life … but not as the same cat. When a tragic accident soon follows, Louis faces the temptation of using the cemetery to save his family, setting off a horrifying chain of events that he will be unable to stop.

“The Fall of Gondolin” by J.R.R. Tolkien

In the latest novel edited by J.R.R. Tolkien's son, Christopher Tolkien, the tale of the great Elvish kingdom of Gondolin is finally fleshed out from Tolkien’s original unfinished stories and notes. Built by the Noldor, the Elves who rebelled against the Valar and left Valinor for Middle-earth, Gondolin is not only beautiful but hidden, its location kept secret from both men and Morgoth, the corrupt Vala who desires to take over all of Middle-earth and destroy Gondolin for his own purposes. As Morgoth strives to find the city, the rest of the Valar, the gods of both Valinor and Middle-earth, do not wish to intercede on the behalf of the Noldor, save for Ulmo, the Lord of Waters, who secretly works to help when and how he can, supporting Turgon, King of Gondolin and highest of the Noldor, Morgoth’s greatest and most feared foe. Into the story comes the man Tuor, who is unknowingly guided by Ulmo on the dangerous journey to Gondolin, where he is received by the Elves as a friend and ally, eventually marrying Turgon's daughter Idril. When Morgoth ultimately learns of Gondolin's location through an act of betrayal, he descends on the kingdom with a full force of Balrogs, dragons and orcs, causing the inevitable “fall” of the city, and ending one Tolkien’s three “Great Tales” of the Elder Days in Middle-earth history.

— Summaries by library staff