On the shelves - Oct. 13

These books are available at the Clovis-Carver Public Library:

“Whiskers in the Dark” by Rita Mae Brown: Mary Minor “Harry” Harristeen joins groundskeeping efforts at the National Beagle Club at Aldie as the date for its springtime Hounds for Heroes veterans' benefit approaches. Things take a sinister turn when a foreign services officer is found dead. Soon, another murder convinces Harry that the killer is familiar with the Club. The intrigue extends to the grounds of Harry's local church, where the identity of an eighteenth-century skeleton wearing precious pearls remains a mystery.

“Beautiful Exiles” by Meg Waite Clayton: Key West, 1936. Journalist Martha Gellhorn meets disheveled literary titan Ernest Hemingway in a dive bar. Their friendship flourishes into something undeniable in Madrid while they're covering the Spanish Civil War. The very married Hemingway is taken with Martha. With their romance unfolding as they travel the globe, Martha establishes herself as one of the world's foremost war correspondents, and Hemingway begins the novel that will win him the Nobel Prize for Literature.

“American Saint” by Sean Gandert: Raised in a poor neighborhood in Albuquerque, Gabriel Romero grows up fervently religious, privately conflicted, and consumed by what he's certain is the true will of God. A radical activist determined to enlighten the consciousness of a country losing its way, Gabriel starts his own church. His protests make him either a hero or an anarchist in a polarized America, and his miracles cast him as either a charlatan or a saint. But Gabriel knows that to ensure lasting faith he must do something truly memorable.

“We Are All Shipwrecks” by Kelly Grey Carlisle: Kelly always knew her family was different. She knew that most children didn't live with their grandparents and that most of her classmates knew more about their moms than their cause of death. What Kelly didn't know was if she would become part of the dysfunction that surrounded her. As an adult, Kelly decides to goes back to the beginning_to a mother she never knew, a thirty-year-old cold case, and two of Los Angeles's most notorious murderers.

“The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff & Jonathan Haidt: Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education.

“Forbidden Hollywood” by Mark A. Vieira: Eavesdrop on production conferences, read nervous telegrams from executives to censors, and hear Americans argue about "immoral" movies. You will see how these films caused a grass-roots movement to gain control of Hollywood-and why they were "forbidden" for fifty years.

These books are available at the Portales Public Library:

“The Institute” by Stephen King: During one dark night in a suburban neighborhood in Minneapolis, intruders silently enter twelve-year-old Luke Ellis's house, murder both of his parents, and kidnap him by shoving him into a black SUV. Luke later wakes up in his own room-or so he thinks, because when he opens the door of the windowless room that has been made to look exactly like his bedroom in Minneapolis, he finds a long hallway full of other doors housing other kids, and he discovers that he is now living in The Institute, a secret facility that experiments on children between the ages of 10 and 16 who, like Luke, have special abilities, such as telekinesis and telepathy. He meets and befriends Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and Avery, and he learns that all of them reside in the “Front Half” of The Institute, where tests are carried out in order for the director, Mrs. Sigsby, and her staff to find and remove the source of the kids' gifts. Failure to comply with the tests results in punishment and torture, and the fear of being sent to the “Back Half”, from which, Luke is told, no one returns. Over time, Luke and his friends become more and more desperate to escape, in a psychological thriller reminiscent of King's early novel Firestarter.

“Vendetta in Death” by J.D. Robb: When wealthy businessman Nigel McEnroy is found brutally murdered, no one had any idea that his inappropriate workplace behavior went beyond his sexual harassment of young coworkers, or how deep it ran. The first of a series of male victims who are targeted for their own predatory behavior, Eve Dallas and her husband Roarke investigate McEnroy's murder and find that he was killed by a woman who comes to be called “Lady Justice”, a predator of predators who turns herself into anything she needs to be to attract her victims and lure them into her snare. However, Lady Justice's true identity continues to evade Eve and Roarke, who become increasingly more disturbed by the evidence they find of McEnroy's crimes, while McEnroy's widow remains in denial and angrily threatens them for investigating her late husband's private life at all, and Lady Justice continues her spree of killings. As the murders escalate and Eve and Roarke interview suspects who may or may not be Lady Justice, Eve struggles to save more blood from being spilled, even though the victims are anything but innocent.

“The Shape of Night” by Tess Gerritsent: Fleeing from Boston after going through a personal tragedy, Ava Collette removes herself to a small, remote village in Maine, renting an old seaside mansion named Brodie's Watch. Completely alone, Ava finally begins to feel at peace and strives to come to terms with the broken pieces of her life, until she sees a man in the house, and realizes that the man is not alive, but the ghost of Captain Jeremiah Brodie, the original owner of the house. Talk in the village reveals that Jeremiah has haunted his mansion for well over a century, and when Ava finally summons the courage to confront his ghost on one of the nights he appears, she finds herself shockingly attracted to him. Despite wondering whether Jeremiah is truly real or if she is merely losing her mind and seeing things due to her own terrible grief, she begins to look forward to each encounter with the captain, growing ever more attached to him. However, when she learns that every single woman who has lived in Brodie's Watch has died in the house, and Ava must discover whether Jeremiah is the one who killed them, or if a living murderer is responsible, before she becomes the next victim.

— Summaries provided by library staff