Recently received

India Black and the Shadows of Anarchy (A Madam of Espionage Mystery) by Carol K. Carr ((Berkley Prime Crime trade paperback, 5 February 2013).

India Black, full-time madam and occasional secret agent is feeling restless when Prime Minister Disraeli sends word that he wants to meet wit her -- alone.  Even though all her previous meetings have been organized by the rakishly handsome spy French, it's been decided that this is a mission India must attempt on her own.

Anarchists have begun assassinating lords and earls, one by one.  India must infiltrate the ranks of the Dark Legion, the  underground group responsible for the attacks.  To stop their deadly plot, India will go from the murkiest slums of London to the highest levels of society, uncovering secrets that threaten her very existence...



Me Before You by Jojo Moyes (Pamela Dorman hardcover, 31 December 2012).

Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is.

Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living.




The Backyard Parables: lessons on gardening, and life by Margaret Roach (Grand Central Publishing hardcover, 15 January 2013).

Margaret Roach has been harvesting thirty years of backyard parables-deceptively simple, instructive stories from a life spent digging ever deeper-and has distilled them in this memoir along with her best tips for garden making, discouraging all manner of animal and insect opponents, at-home pickling, and more.
After ruminating on the bigger picture in her memoir And I Shall Have Some Peace There, Margaret Roach has returned to the garden, insisting as ever that we must garden with both our head and heart, or as she expresses it, with "horticultural how-to and woo-woo." In THE BACKYARD PARABLES, Roach uses her fundamental understanding of the natural world, philosophy, and life to explore the ways that gardening saved and instructed her, and meditates on the science and spirituality of nature, reminding her readers and herself to keep on digging.

Ghana Must Go by Tiaye Selasi (The Penguin Press hardcover, 5 March 2013).

Kweku Sai is dead. A renowned surgeon and failed husband, he succumbs suddenly at dawn outside his home in suburban Accra. The news of Kweku’s death sends a ripple around the world, bringing together the family he abandoned years before.

In the wake of Kweku’s death, his children gather in Ghana at their enigmatic mother’s new home. The eldest son and his wife; the mysterious, beautiful twins; the baby sister, now a young woman: each carries secrets of their own. What is revealed in their coming together is the story of how they came apart: the hearts broken, the lies told, the crimes committed in the name of love. Splintered, alone, each navigates his pain, believing that what has been lost can never be recovered—until, in Ghana, a new way forward, a new family, begins to emerge.



Helsinki White (An Inspector Vaara Mystery) by James Thompson (Berkley Prime Crime trade paperback, 5 February 2013).

Inspector Kari Vaara, recovering from brain surgery, is back to doing police work—under circumstances most cops only dream of. Reporting directly to the national chief of police, Kari and his partners Milo and Sulo have been granted secrecy and autonomy for their new black-ops unit, and plenty of cash to work with, including whatever they can steal from Helsinki’s mobsters.

 

But Kari's team is too good, and their actions have unintended consequences...The president of Finland wants the team on a new case: the vicious assassination of a prominent immigrants' rights activist. Against a backdrop of simmering hatred spreading across the country, Kari must solve a case that involves the kidnapping of a billionaire’s children, a Faustian bargain with a former French Legionnaire—and his own wife.