One Shot

Author:     Lee Child

Category:     Fiction     

Reviewer:     Jan Woodcock

Department/Position:     Library/Media

Summary: In the book's gripping opening, five people are killed when a shooter opens fire in a small unnamed Indiana city. But when ex-infantry specialist James Barr is apprehended, he refuses to talk, saying only, "Get Jack Reacher for me." But Reacher's already en route; having seen a news story on the shooting, he heads to the scene with disturbing news of his own: "[Barr's] done this before. And once was enough." Nothing is what it seems in the riveting puzzle, as vivid set pieces and rapid-fire dialogue culminate in a slam-bang showdown in the villains' lair,: a quintet of Russian émigrés, the stuff of everybody's worst nightmares, led by a wily 80-year-old who makes Freddy Krueger look like Little Lord Fauntleroy.    

Recommended Audience:     Young adult and adults who enjoy mysteries and suspense stories.     

Rating:     5

5th Horseman

Author:     James Patterson

Category:     Fiction     

Reviewer:     Jan Woodcock

Department/Position:     Library/Media

Summary: A young mother is recuperating in a San Francisco hospital when she is suddenly gasping for breath. The call button fails to bring help in time. The hospital's doctors, some of the best in the nation, are completely mystified by her death. How did this happen? This is not the first such case at the hospital. Just as patients are about to be released with a clean bill of health, their conditions take a devastating turn for the worse. Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer probes deeper into the incidents. Could these cases just be appalling coincidences? Or is a maniac playing God with people's lives? When someone close to the Women's Murder Club begins to exhibit the same frightening symptoms, Lindsay fears no one is safe. Lindsay's investigation reveals a hospital administration determined to shield its reputation at all costs. And while the hospital wages an explosive court battle that grips the entire nation, Lindsay and the Women's Murder Club hunt for a merciless killer among its esteemed medical staff.
    

Recommended Audience:     Young adult and adults who enjoy a good suspenseful novel.     

Rating:          4

The Tenth Circle

5th Horseman    

Author:     Jodi Picoult

Category:     Fiction     

Reviewer:     Jan Woodcock

Department/Position:     Library/Meida

Summary Comic book artist Daniel Stone is like the character in his graphic novel with the same title as this book—once a violent youth and the only white boy in an Alaskan Inuit village, now a loving, stay-at-home dad in Bethel, Maine—traveling figuratively through Dante's circles of hell to save his 14-year-old teenage daughter, Trixie. After she accuses her ex-boyfriend of rape, Trixie and Daniel unravel in the aftermath of the allegation. At the same time, wife and mother Laura, a Dante scholar, tries to mend their marriage after ending her affair with one of her students. Picoult has collaborated with graphic artist Dustin Weaver to illustrate her deft, complex exploration of Daniel and his beast within. Laura and Daniel follow their runaway daughter to Alaska. This story of a flawed family on the brink of destruction grips from start to finish.

Recommended Audience:     Young adults and adults. If you are familiar with Dante’s Inferno, this will be especially interesting to you.

Rating:     4

Templar Legacy

Author: Steve Berry

Category: Fiction

Reviewer: Jan Woodcock

Department/Position: Library/Media

Summary The Knights Templar, a small monastic military order formed in the early 1100s to protect travelers to the Holy Land, eventually grew and became wealthy beyond imagination. In 1307, the French king, feeling jealous and greedy, killed off the Templars, and by 1311, the last master, Jacques de Molay, was burned at the stake. The whereabouts of the Templars' treasure--and their secrets--have been the subject of legend ever since. Ex-U.S. Justice Department agent Cotton Malone is intrigued when he sees a purse snatcher fling himself from a Copenhagen tower to avoid capture. Further snooping introduces him to the medieval religious order of the Knights Templar and the fervid subculture searching for the Great Devise, an ancient Templar.. The trail leads to a French village replete with arcane clues to the archive's whereabouts, and to an oddball cast of scholar-sleuths. Code-inspired anagrams, dead language inscriptions and art symbolism, debate inconsistencies in the Gospels and regale each other with Templar lore. Lively characters and action set pieces make this a readable version of the typical gnostic occult thriller.:

Recommended Audience: Older young adults and adults who enjoyed The DaVinci Code.

Rating: 4