 The Empty Chair By Jeffrey Deaver |
The Empty Chair is the third - or, if you count a guest appearance in the millennial thriller The Devil's Teardrop, the fourth - novel to feature Lincoln Rhyme, the forensic genius who became a quadriplegic when a cave-in at a crime scene damaged his spinal cord beyond repair. The series began in 1997 with The Bone Collector, which was recently made into a film starring Denzel Washington.
Every Rhyme novel to date has been characterized by authentic forensic detail and wild, even extravagant plotting, and the latest entry is no exception. The Empty Chair may, in fact, be the single trickiest suspense novel published so far this year.
Unlike earlier volumes, The Empty Chair takes place outside of New York City in the bucolic but sinister environs of Paquenoke County, North Carolina. Rhyme - accompanied by his long-suffering physical therapist, Thom, and his beloved forensic assistant, Amelia Sachs - has just been accepted as a patient at the Medical Center of the University of North Carolina, where he is scheduled to undergo an experimental procedure that might increase the range of his mobility but might, on the other hand, result in his death.
Shortly after his arrival, Lincoln's plans are disrupted by an unforeseen emergency. Jim Bell, Paquenoke County sheriff, has trouble on his hands and needs Lincoln's expertise. According to Bell, a disturbed teenager - known, for reasons that become graphically clear, as the Insect Boy - has murdered a local football hero and abducted two young women. Convinced that the women have only hours to live, Bell asks Lincoln to examine the trace evidence found at the abduction site in the faint hope of pinpointing the kidnapper's location. |
 On The Street Where You Live by Mary Higgins Clark |
| Spring Lake, New Jersey, a beautiful seaside community with a very dark and deadly past. It was here in the late 19th century that three young women disappeared, each new occurrence taking place several years after the one before. While all the women were presumably murdered, the responsible party was never found. More than 100 years later, a new threat to Spring Lake emerges after someone stumbles upon the original killer's gruesome diary: A copycat has been born, and two more innocents have vanished. |
 The Last Time They Met by Anita Shreve |
| In The Last Time They Met, Anita Shreve, author of Fortune's Rocks and the bestselling Oprah pick The Pilot's Wife, shows how the decisions we make can affect the course of our lives. It is with mixed emotions that poet Linda Fallon greets her old lover, fellow poet Thomas Janes, when they bump into each other at a literary festival. Devastated by their breakup years before, Janes chose this moment to reconnect and, if possible, reignite their romance. |
 Scarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy |
| Following the international success of Tara Road, Maeve Binchy offers Scarlet Feather, an enchanting and richly plotted new tale of family, friendship, honesty, and deception. This time out, the beloved author sets her story against the dynamic social and economic whirl of modern Ireland, tracing the interconnected destinies of an engaging cast of Dubliners over the course of a single unforgettable year. |
 Bridget Jone's Diary by Helen Fielding |
| Here is the laugh-out-loud daily chronicle of a hilarious year in the life of the devastatingly self-aware Bridget Jones; a year in which she resolves to: reduce the circumference of each thigh by 1 1/2 inches, visit the gym three times a week not merely to buy a sandwich, and form a functional relationship with a responsible adult. Bridget struggles to keep her life on an even keel - or at least afloat. Whenever her plans meet with disaster, she manages to pick herself up, go out on the town, and tell herself it will be all right in the morning. Bridget Jones's Diary will make you like yourself for precisely those things you're most ashamed of. And through it all, Bridget Jones will have you helpless with laughter, and shouting, "Bridget Jones is me!" |
 Net Force: Point of Impact created by Tom Clancy |
| In the year 2010, computers are the new superpowers. Those who control them, control the world. To enforce the Net Laws, Congress creates the ultimate computer security agency within the FBI: The Net Force. It's the rich man's drug of choice - and it's being sold on the internet for a thousand dollars a capsule. A potent mixture of smart drugs, psychedelics, angel dust, and steroids, it can turn a fifty-year-old into a raging beast of aggression. Now, it's up to the Net Force to find the source of this dangerous designer drug. Before another murder. Before another rape. Before every user self-destructs. |
 Stolen Lives: Twenty Years in a Desert Jail by Malika Oufkir and Michele Fitoussi |
| On August 15th, 1972, Malika Oufkir was probably the most privileged teenager in all Morocco. The eldest daughter of King Hassan II's top aide, she had been raised in the opulent seclusion of the monarch's harem. But within 24 hours, her father would be tried and summarily executed for treason, and she and her entire family would be arrested and imprisoned in a remote desert penal colony. For the next 15 years, her accommodations would only grow worse. Malika Oufkir's memories of her 15-year incarceration -- most of it in vermin-infested solitary confinement -- rivets your attention and educates your senses. |
 Zim: A Baseball Life by Don Zimmer and Bill Madden |
| Zimmer has spent 53 years in baseball, and though he'll never make the Hall of Fame, he has become something of a national treasure. He began his career with the fabled Brooklyn Dodgers alongside Jackie Robinson. He has managed and coached many of the game's greats and has lately gained fame as Joe Torre's right-hand man. Ever since his recent dugout beaning by a foul ball, Zim has been seen in a New York Yankee army helmet, symbolic of his true grit. Readers nationwide will love this tale. |
 The Blue Nowhere by Jeffery Deaver |
| Jeffery Deaver's The Blue Nowhere is a carefully researched, cutting-edge thriller set in the brave new world of information technology. In Deaver's version of this world, outlaw hackers dominate the landscape, and the most significant events take place in "the blue nowhere," the endless plane of pure data and electronic impulses commonly referred to as "cyberspace." Deaver's hero is Wyatt Gillette, a legendary hacker currently imprisoned for successfully cracking security codes employed by Department of Defense computers. Wyatt is entering his third year in prison when relief comes from an unexpected direction: the California State Computer Crimes Unit. The leader of that unit, Lt. Thomas Anderson, has just encountered a whole new species of criminal, and finds himself in need of Wyatt Gillette's peculiar expertise. |
 Code Zero by Ken Follett |
| It's early in 1958. Reeling from the Soviet Union's Sputnik success, the United States struggles desperately to catch up. Thus far, those efforts have resulted in a series of spectacular failures. Now the hopes of a nation, and the future of the U.S. space program, hinge on the successful launch of Explorer I, scheduled to lift off on January 29th. The odds against a successful launch, however, are even more formidable than anyone anticipated. Technical obstacles were to be expected. Internal problems were not. A Soviet mole, his role until now limited to passing American technology to Moscow, has been instructed to sabotage the launch. |
 Pop Goes The Weasel by James Patterson |
| A serial killer called the Weasel is slaughtering women in the slums of D.C. And family man Geoffrey Shafer is much more than he appears. Not only is Shafer a diplomat with the British Embassy - and so has diplomatic immunity - but he also takes himself to the edge of sanity with hallucinogenic drugs, disguises himself as a black cab driver, and rolls the dice to decide the life-or-death fates of his black female fares. Soon Alex Cross and his partner, John Sampson, are hunting the elusive killer, but before they are even able to properly begin their investigation, their racist police chief forces them to look into the by-the-numbers murder of a rich white man instead. When the Weasel, who is also a former MI-6 agent, begins sending email messages to three of his former cohorts concerning a demented online role-playing game, the situation grows even more deranged. |
 Dr. Death by John Kellerman |
| Who killed the killer? In his brilliant and startling new novel, Jonathan Kellerman, perennial bestselling author and premier proprietor of the psychological thriller, gives a sharp and timely twist to homicide's central question. |
 Great Ghost Stories - Philip Smith (Editor) |
| Aficionados of supernatural fiction will take perverse pleasure in the hair-raising horrors recounted in these outstanding examples of the genre. Featuring a gallery of ghostly characters, forbidding landscapes, gloomy country manors and occult occurrences, this spine-tingling collection features works by such masters of the macabre as Bram Stoker (the creator of Dracula), J.S. LeFanu, Ambrose Bierce and M. R. James. |
 The New Twilight Zone: 21 Tales by the Greatest Sci-Fi and Dark Fantasy Writers of Our Time - Martin Harry Greenberg (Editor) |
| Each of the 21 tales in this collection is a brilliant flight of imagination, authored by such masters of the genre as Harlan Ellison, Arthur C. Clarke, Ray Bradbury, Phyllis Eisenstein, Robert Silverberg, Henry Slesar, Alan Brennert, and others. Join these extraordinary writers on an astonishing odyssey of dreams and nightmares that begins in this world and ends in the shadowy realm of The Twilight Zone. |
 Science-Fiction Classics: The Stories That Morphed into Movies by Forrest James Ackerman |
| This collection includes 15 classic science fiction stories that grew up to be movies, including "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "The Thing From Another World". |
 Dragons of a Fallen Sun (The War of Souls Series #1) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman |
| The people of Krynn have known war in past ages. Some are still alive who remember the triumph of good at the conclusion of the War of the Lance. Still more remember the devastation of the Chaos War, which ended the Fourth Age of the world. But now a new war is about to begin, more terrible than any have known. This war is one for the very heart and soul of the world itself. |
 Dragons of a Lost Star (The War of Souls Series #2) by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman |
| Usurpers are afoot. A mystical woman named Mina overruns the countryside with her army of fierce knights, and the great dragon Overlord Beryl devastates the population of her own realm. The elves of Qualinesti must choose between exile and death by dragon. Sure as a spell, a battle looms. |
 DragonLance Draconian Measures, Vol. 2 by Don Perrin and Margaret Weis |
| The regiment of draconian engineers featured in The Doom Brigade seeks a safe haven for their precious cargo of young draconians. All they have to do is stay alive. Surely that shouldn't be too hard. |
Before I Say Goodbye by Mary Higgins Clark
