Books-By-Mail Use the postcard to select books May/June 2011 Large Print Best-sellers/Best-selling Authors — Fiction Atkinson, Kate Started Early, Took my Dog Semi-retired detective Jackson Brodie is touring the ruined abbeys of northern England trying to track down the biological parents of a woman who was adopted as a child. How that case intersects with a series of crimes committed in Leeds in the 1970s is just one of the many strands seamlessly woven together in a plot driven by coincidence and recognition of man’s darker nature. Meanwhile, lonely retired police detective Tracy Waterhouse, witnesses a prostitute abusing a child and, in a moment of madness, offers her cash for the kid. Her odyssey as a new parent to a waif dressed in a ragged fairy costume, relayed with both tenderness and wry wit, must be one of the grandest love affairs in crime fiction, even as it leads her to a startling realization that no good deed goes unpunished. In this literary mystery on the theme of missing children, nothing is innocent or simple, but the wonder of Atkinson's novels has been their joie de vivre. An irrepressible exuberance shines throughout, as well as resistance to neat resolution. Barclay, Robert If Wishes were Horses Devastated by the senseless deaths of his wife and son at the hands of a drunk driver, Wyatt Blaine remains unable to forgive or love again. Searching for a sense of peace, he decides to revive his late wife's equine therapy program for troubled teens. By honoring her memory, he hopes to find closure. But then Wyatt's pastor asks for the impossible: for Wyatt to meet with Gabby Powers, the widow of the man responsible for Wyatt's sorrow. Wyatt knows Gabby is not to blame for the tragedy, so when she begs him to accept her troubled teenage son, Trevor, into the program, he reluctantly agrees. To Wyatt’s great surprise, he finds himself drawn to Gabby's warmth, tenderness, and ability to soothe his troubled soul. Day after day, their mutual attraction becomes more impossible to ignore. But to heal completely, Wyatt and Gabby must first overcome the tragedy that separates them and learn the true nature of forgiveness. Bass, Jefferson The Bone Yard The onset of summer brings Dr. Bill Brockton more heat than he bargained for when a former student asks him to help prove her sister's death was murder. Brockton's consulting trip takes a long, harrowing detour to the Florida panhandle ruins of a notorious juvenile detention facility that met a fiery end more than 40 years ago. Guided by the discovery of a diary kept by one of the school's young students, he finds a cluster of shallow graves containing the bones of boys who met violent deaths. As Brockton and his team close in on the truth, they find skeletons in some surprisingly prominent closets — and they learn that the ghosts of the past pose perilous consequences in the present. Child, Lee Tripwire Hulking ex-soldier Jack Reacher is living the life of a drifter and digging swimming pools in Key West when a PI comes looking for him and shortly turns up dead. Reacher discovers that the instigator of the search is Leon Garber, his former army commanding officer. Flying north he learns of Garber’s death from Jodie Jacob, Garber's beautiful attorney daughter and discovers Garber was helping an elderly couple locate their son. Pursuing the search together, Reacher and Jacob narrowly escape murder by an evil corporate loan shark named "Hook" Hobie. Hobie is harboring a terrible secret linking him to the couple's vanished son, and he'll kill anyone who tries to discover his diabolical past. Clancy, Tom Dead or Alive For years, Jack Ryan, Jr. and his colleagues at the Campus have waged an unofficial, highly effective campaign against the terrorists who threaten western civilization. The most dangerous is the Emir, who has masterminded the most vicious attacks and eluded capture by the world’s law enforcement agencies. Now the Campus is on his trail. Determined to catch the Emir, they will bring him in ... dead or alive. Cleave, Chris Little Bee This astonishing, flawless novel is about what happens when ordinary, mundane Western lives are thrown into stark contrast against the terrifying realities of war-torn Africa. With their marriage in crisis, Andrew and Sarah O'Rourke impulsively accept a junket to a Nigerian beach resort as a last-ditch attempt to reconcile. When machete-wielding soldiers appear out of the jungle and force them to determine the fate of two African girls (in a truly horrific scene), everyone's lives are irrevocably shattered. Two years later in a London suburb, one of the girls now a refugee, reconnects with Sarah. Together they face wrenching tests of a friendship forged under extreme duress, and somehow, remarkably, find salvation. Little Bee, both the name of the Nigerian refugee, and this surprising and satisfying, if also heart-rending novel, is a wonderful mix of wisdom, strength, sorrow, determination, and humor. But mostly, it is the embodiment of hope. Coben, Harlan Caught Wendy Tynes is a reporter on a mission: finding and exposing sexual predators on television. Her big break comes when she prompts the arrest of a child advocate who works with abused children. Three months later, Wendy, has moved on to the story of a missing girl, Erin, in a nearby suburb. The whole country is obsessed with finding this child, and Wendy should be well on her way to journalistic superstardom. Then all comes unhinged: Wendy gets a phone call that changes everything. A group of local fathers, out of work and not above vigilante justice, begins to take matters into their own hands on Erin's behalf. Secrets long-buried rise to the surface and Wendy begins to wonder if her assumptions that fateful night three months ago were based on solid investigative journalism — or if she has unwittingly been part of a grand manipulation aiming to destroy an innocent man. Connelly, Michael The Fifth Witness Lisa Trammel never met Mitchell Bondurant, but had every reason to loathe him. As senior vice president at WestLand National Bank, Bondurant made the call to foreclose on Trammel's house after her husband left her and their nine-year-old son and her mortgage went underwater. Nothing daunted, Trammel started a grassroots organization called Foreclosure Litigants against Greed (FLAG) to fight WestLand, and hired Mickey Haller to fight WestLand in court. Both the legal battle and the media circus take a dramatic new turn when Bondurant is found bashed to death with a hammer in a parking garage and a witness places Trammel half a block away within a few minutes of the attack. Though a ton of evidence points to Trammel, Haller crafts an impressive defense that includes "the fifth witness" of the title. Cornwell, Patricia Port Mortuary As the chief of the new Cambridge Forensic Center in Massachusetts, a joint venture of the federal government and MIT, Scarpetta is confronted with a case that could ruin her personally and professionally. A young man drops dead, apparently from a cardiac arrhythmia, but when his body is examined the next morning, there are stunning indications he may have been alive when he was zipped inside a pouch and locked inside the Center's cooler. Various 3-D radiology scans reveal more shocking details about internal injuries unlike any Scarpetta has ever seen, suggesting the possibility of a conspiracy to cause mass casualties. She is in a race to catch a cunning and cruel enemy before more people die. Crais, Robert The Sentry It’s a routine Southern California day when former cop Joe Pike intervenes to break up the gang shakedown of a sandwich shop run by Dru Rayne and her uncle, Wilson, two refugees from Katrina intent on starting a new life. The chemistry between Pike and Dru is immediate, prompting him to keep an eye on the store, as he is certain the gang leader will return to deliver revenge. As the level of violence escalates, Pike and his sidekick, private detective Elvis Cole, learn Dru and her uncle are not who they seem, and everything Pike thought he knew about them has been a lie. A vengeful and murderous force from their past is now catching up to them … and only Pike and Cole stand in the way. Cussler, Clive Crescent Dawn NUMA director Dirk Pitt searches for the connections among newly discovered Roman artifacts, the rise of an Islamic fundamentalist movement, and the existence of a mysterious long-lost ship manifest, which, if discovered again, may change the history of the world. Davidson, Dianne Mott Crunch Time Caterer Goldy Schulz cooks up big trouble as she tries to help her longtime friend, chef Yolanda Garcia. After the rental house shared by Yolanda and her irrepressible aunt Ferdinanda is destroyed by arson, the pair moves in with P.I. Ernest McLeod. But then Ernest is shot dead and his house is set on fire, nearly killing Goldy, Yolanda, Ferdinanda, and nine beagle puppies that Ernest recently rescued from a puppy mill. A concerned Goldy invites them to stay with her while the sheriff's department investigates. After a failed break-in by an unknown intruder, a policeman is assigned to keep an eye on things. Goldy turns detective, but she's got to move fast. It's crunch time to close in on a killer, before he can close in on her. Deaver, Jeffery Edge Behind the well-known U.S.