Because I work in the children’s section, I like to joke that I haven’t read an adult book in over a year. While this is not true, as I loved Don Delillo’s last book Point Omega last February, it often feels like it. To get back in touch with the adult world, I decided to pick up Steve Berry’s new book The Emperor’s Tomb.

Berry has been a favorite of mine since I read The Romanov Prophecy during my obsession with Anastasia, and the mystery around her disappearance and her family’s demise back in ’04. Since then, as Berry developed his books around the recurring character of Cotton Malone, I have enjoyed getting to know the former Justice Department operative. When we first met Malone he was living in Copenhagen trying to run a bookstore. I say trying because, for six books, Malone has been dragged back into the world of historic mystery and theft, whether it was to help a friend or because it was the right thing to do.

In Berry’s newest book, Malone must come to the aid of his long time friend Cassiopeia Vitt. When Malone gets a message that leads to a video of Cassiopeia being tortured, he is at a loss of what to do to help. He has no idea what she has gotten herself into, but he knows that Cassiopeia needs his help. This novel is filled with old and new mysteries and a battle between countries that feels much older than this story.

One reason I find myself coming back to Berry’s works is the history he includes in his novels. Much of this book involves China’s historical background and how it has influenced their current situation. If you have never read Steve Berry’s works, this novel would be a great place to start. And better yet, come out tonight to hear Steve talk about his novels. Steve Berry will be here tonight to sign at 5:00, with a reading at 5:30.

Steve and I have gotten some ‘smart phones’…we went with the HTC Desire.  Let me tell you this phone is definitely smarter than me! I absolutely love it but it has really taken up a lot of my time the past week between just plain trying to learn how to use it and challenging friends to Wordfeud and just looking at all the apps available to download.  It is just amazing.  Anyway I walked in work and realized it was my turn to blog and that I have hardly been reading this past week.  So here are a couple of suggestions that are on my to-read-pile.

Fall of Giants by Ken Follett

I am actually reading this one right now but I just haven’t gotten as far as I should be.  Fall of Giants is the first of  three historical novels called The Century Trilogy.  This novel follows five families from the beginning of World War I through the early 1920s.  The characters are mixed with actual historical figures from Britain, the U.S., Russia and Germany and you go on the journey through war, love and the social issues of the times with them and will enjoy every minute of it.  This is a book that when you get to the end you will think that 984 pages is not enough and then be thrilled to remember that two more books are coming soon.

Dark Prophecy : A Level 26 Thriller by Anthony E. Zuiker

This is the second book in the Level 26 Trilogy by Anthony E. Zuiker, the creator and executive producer of the CSI television series.  Steve Dark is a special kind of person.  He has the ability to hunt down and capture the type of serial killer that exceed law enforcements official scale of evil.  They are Level 26.

The first Level 26 book Dark Origins is now out in paperback and I just loved it when I read it.  It has one of the creepiest serial killer characters I have ever read.  Last night I was watching CSI and thought it was a rerun until I realized that they had turned the novel into an episode of CSI.  It was great!  You can just read these books cover to cover but about every 40 pages or so there is a code and you can log into a website, www.Level26.com, and watch a digital cyber-bridge–a short motion picture scene that will continue the Steve Dark story line.  You will be surprised at which celebrities you will see.  If you are a fan of the slice and dice then I highly recommend starting Level 26!

I met Karin Slaughter when she was on tour for her first book, Blindsighted. Here was a Southern writer (she is from Georgia) that is my age and she is writing some of the best “slice and dice” thrillers I have read in a long time.  I was so excited to meet her and of course one of the first questions to pop out of my mouth was… “Slaughter — is that your real name?” Of course, she rolled her eyes and smiled and said yes and introduced me to her Dad as proof!!  And speaking of her Dad, check out Karin Slaughter’s writing cabin he built for her.  I have read all of Karin Slaughter’s books and I am just so concerned about the Linton Family I just don’t know what else could happen to them!

Well anyway, Broken came out on June 22 and it is fantastic.  Sara Linton has come back to Grant County for Thanksgiving.  It’s her first trip back in 3 1/2 years since moving to Atlanta after losing  the love of her life which she still blames Detective Lena Adams.  The morning she pulls into town, a girl is found dead, a cop is injured and the suspect dies in police custody.  Sara sees this as a way to get revenge on Lena and calls her friend in GBI who sends Will Trent to Grant County.  Will gets to Grant County and soon realizes he is caught in more than a murder case…he doesn’t understand why Lena is keeping secrets from him and why Sara is so obsessed with ruining Lena’s career and reputation.  While investigating the police force and the murders he soon realizes that the secrets he uncovers could be devastating to the small town and everyone who lives there.

If you haven’t read Karin Slaughter I suggest you come pick some up but if you are already a fan trust me you will not be disappointed with Broken.  She has done a great job combining her Grant County and Atlanta characters and I hope that she continues to do so!!!

It has really been unintentional…this ignoring of my husband but it really couldn’t be helped.  I was completely engrossed in Justin Cronin’s, The Passage, which is coming out on June 8.  Joe mentioned in his blog about BEA that he was reading this and had actually met Justin Cronin and that sparked my memory that I had this book in my stack.  I picked the book up and thought to myself…”do I really want to invest my time in this 704 page novel by an author I have never read that is about the end of civilization as I know it and a little girl who is the key to saving it?”  Well after investing my time the past two weeks I’m now saying to myself….”I’m so glad I did and cannot wait for my customers to read this!”

I will start by saying that I have not really jumped on the “vampire bandwagon” so I was very wary that I would not like this book but as I continued to turn the page I realized that this novel is so much more than that.  The “virals” as they are called are not your hipster, gelled hair, angst driven vampires of today nor are they the Count Dracula type.  These creatures are the result of a government experiment to create  “super soldiers” that have escaped from the underground lab where they were created.  At the center of the story is Amy–a six year old girl who is totally connected to “The Twelve” and maybe the key to bringing civilization back to the way that we know it, or close anyway.

Dan Chaon (one of my favorites)  author of  Among the Missing and Await Your Reply wrote a great review of The Passage and what he said is exactly how I felt about this book:

“There is a particular kind of reading experience–the feeling you get when you can’t wait to find out what happens next, you can’t turn the pages fast enough, and yet at the same time you are so engaged in the world of the story and the characters, you don’t want it to end. It’s a rare and complex feeling–that plot urgency pulling you forward, that yearning for more holding you back. We say that we are swept up, that we are taken away. Perhaps this effect is one of the true magic tricks that literature can offer to us, and yet it doesn’t happen very often. Mostly, I think, we remember this experience from a few of the beloved books of our childhood.

About three-quarters of the way through The Passage, I found myself in the grip of that peculiar and intense readerly emotion. One part of my brain couldn’t wait to get to the next big revelation, and I found myself wanting to leapfrog from paragraph to paragraph, hurtling toward each looming climax. Meanwhile, another part of my brain was watching the dwindling final pages with dread, knowing that things would be over soon, and wishing to linger with each sentence and character a little while longer.”

Believe the hype…is really all I can say about this one!!!  It’s just that good especially if you are wanting a page turner that you just can’t stop reading!!  The best thing is that The Passage is just the beginning!  This is the first of a trilogy and I can tell you that I’m already on the list to get the ARC of the second book!!

My poor husband . . .

Lee Child is coming to Lemuria on May 19, 2010 to sign his new Jack Reacher novel, 61 Hours.  This will be Mr. Child’s first trip to the bookstore and we are all very excited to meet him.  This is an interview I found in January Magazine that came out when Mr. Child’s novel, Persuader, was published in 2003.  I thought that you might find it as interesting as I did. (Note that I have chosen excerpts from the interview; please follow the link for the full interview.)

“Creating a fictional character is a real luxury, because you get to choose everything. And you get to react to what has been done before. In that regard, I didn’t want another drunk, alcoholic, miserable, traumatized hero. I didn’t want him to have shot a kid, or his partner, or whatever. I just wanted a decent, normal, uncomplicated guy.”

Lee Child’s best-known character, ex-military policeman Jack Reacher, comes out of the heroic-altruism tradition in British crime fiction exemplified early on by Leslie Charteris’ Simon “The Saint” Templar and Peter Cheyney’s Lemmy Caution: A mysterious benefactor arrives on the scene to help out when the law no longer can. As this tradition evolved, the enigmatic champion took an antiheroic turn in the hands of Dornford Yates, Hammond Innes, Alistair MacLean and Eric Ambler. More recently, the character darkened considerably under John Le Carré, Adam Hall (aka Elleston Trevor), Len Deighton and Ian Fleming. Indeed, it became difficult to distinguish the bad guys from the good at times, especially with Fleming’s works, in which James Bond’s adversaries were made into grotesque parodies to contrast them with the dark side of 007.

What was the source of this character who’s become such a linchpin of the mystery genre? Is there much wish fulfillment for you in Jack Reacher?

Creating a fictional character is a real luxury, because you get to choose everything. And you get to react to what has been done before. In that regard, I didn’t want another drunk, alcoholic, miserable, traumatized hero. I didn’t want him to have shot a kid, or his partner, or whatever. I just wanted a decent, normal, uncomplicated guy. Or, as I realized in retrospect he actually was, I wanted him to have flaws and faults and edges, but to be personally unaware of them. Thus he’s interesting, but he’s not always gazing at his own navel. He thinks he’s completely normal. Only we readers know different. Wish fulfillment? Maybe a little, but really more of a throwback to the way I was as a kid. I was a tough guy in a tough neighborhood, and I grew big very early, so I ruled the yard — never scared, never intimidated. At elementary school I was a paid bodyguard. Kids gave me cookies and lunch money to watch their backs. Some bully stepped out of line, I was waiting for him on his way home. I never started a fight, but I was in plenty. I broke arms, did damage. But I felt I was on the side of the angels. I wanted to recapture that feeling and update it into adulthood.

Is it true that your wife, Jane, came up with the name “Reacher” while she was out shopping?

She was naturally interested in how I was going to replace my monthly paycheck, and I told her I was going to be a novelist. She took it very well, really. Killing Floor, that first book, was a first-person narrative, and as it happened the main character didn’t need to be named until somebody interrogated him, about 20 or so pages in. So I had started the book and I hadn’t come up with a name I liked. We went out shopping to the supermarket and — like you probably, Ali, because you’re tall, too — every time I’m in a supermarket, a little old lady comes up to me and says, “You’re a nice tall chap, could you reach me that can?” So Jane said, “Hey, if this writing thing doesn’t pan out, you could always be a reacher in a supermarket.” I thought, Reacher — good name.

Have you been surprised at the global success of the Jack Reacher books? Where does that appeal come from?

I’ve been very pleasantly surprised, yes. Obviously I hoped people all over the world would like them, but as I said before, you can’t guarantee anything where public taste is concerned. The reason? I think you hit on it before: Reacher is part of the knight-errant, altruistic loner paradigm, and the interesting thing is that every culture has its own version of that same myth. We mentioned Robin Hood, for instance … Most people think that’s a semi-historical, part-real, part-fable legend about medieval England, but in fact it’s a universal myth, based in the human need for justice and fairness. I once read an academic book about it … There are three completely separate Robin Hood narratives in England alone, and every other country in the world with a narrative or literary tradition has its own versions of the exact same story. So Reacher as a character hits the same nerve with readers everywhere … Germans can think he’s a German type of guy, same for Japanese or Australians or anybody. Everybody recognizes the noble loner.

Ali Karim is an industrial chemist and freelance journalist living in England. He contributes to Shots magazine and the Deadly Pleasures Web site, and is currently working on Wreaths, a techno-thriller set in the world of plant viruses and out-of-work espionage agents.

Click here for a full list of the Reacher novels. Note that they can be read in any order.

We were honored last night to have Harlan Coben come and sign his new book, Caught, for us.  In the four months I’ve been at Lemuria I’ve never witnessed an event quite like this one.  Dotcom was packed!!   It was one of those happy occasions where everybody walks away feeling great and warm about the weather and people in general and pleasurable reading experiences.

Coben neglected to speak about his newest book, choosing instead to talk to us about things he claims writers are always asked: how do they get their ideas? when did they realize they’d ‘made it’?  how tall are they?

It’s always nice to encounter people who love what they do for a living, and of course authors are no exception to that.  It’s clear Coben loves what he does.  I should note, however, that when he spoke about the ever-present, nagging fear of one day having to turn to something other than writing for a living, I couldn’t help but think that his second career option is pretty obvious: stand-up comedian.  I’d try to relay some of the jokes he told but I’m afraid I just won’t have the same effect.  Suffice it to say he had us all in stitches throughout the evening, the high point for me personally involving a joke about ‘bye-sexuals’.  In fact, Coben seemed so comfortable and friendly that I just had to double-check that he hasn’t visited Lemuria before.  And he hasn’t.  You just never would’ve known.

For those of you who missed out last night, here’s a clip of Coben on the Today Show, as well as an excerpt of Caught.  We’ve got loads of signed copies now – come and get one!!

Susie

Hey folks this is Justin, and this is my first blog here at Lemuria.  I can’t say that I’m up on a lot of current mystery novels, but I still love the old harboiled detective stories of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. It probably comes from growing up watching lots of 40’s and 50’s noir films on the public tv station.

I am currently reading The High Window by Raymond Chandler. While Hammet had the iconic Sam Spade as his sleuth, Chandler had the equally iconic Phillip Marlowe. Chandler was a true student of the pulp detective genre, but these books step beyond the stereotypes of noir.  The characters are well built and diverse. Mr. Marlowe is a character with callous and sensitivity, realism that was not typical of the masses of pulp novels produced at the time. His quick wit is as much a form of self defense as his colt 45. Chandler’s attention to detail builds a believable world of dingy offices, peeling paint, hot streets, and smoke filled rooms. His writing style is very lyrical, and figurative, but to the point-as much a character as those in the books. It was pulp for thinking readers.

One thing I appreciate about Chandler’s brand of mystery is that he doesn’t reveal the culprit secretly, early in the story, letting the reader play detective. You are forced to question the motives of every character-no one can be trusted. You can, in a strange way, count on Marlowe’s self determined moral compass.  So if you’re in the mood, put on your fedora, light a cigarette, and enjoy one of the great masters of crime fiction.

-Justin

“Lisbeth Salander—the heart of Larsson’s two previous novels—lies in critical condition, a bullet wound to her head, in the intensive care unit of a Swedish city hospital. She’s fighting for her life in more ways than one: if and when she recovers, she’ll be taken back to Stockholm to stand trial for three murders. With the help of her friend, journalist Mikael Blomkvist, she will not only have to prove her innocence, but also identify and denounce those in authority who have allowed the vulnerable, like herself, to suffer abuse and violence. And, on her own, she will plot revenge—against the man who tried to kill her, and the corrupt government institutions that very nearly destroyed her life.”

“Once upon a time, she was a victim. Now Salander is fighting back.”

After reading that I don’t know if I can wait until May 2010 and I know many of you feel the same way.  Everyday someone comes in the bookstore and asks “When is the third book coming out?”  Stieg Larsson’s final book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest is almost here.  We are taking advanced orders for the book now so give us a call and get on the list or reserve a copy on our website.  We will call you or ship the book to you the minute we unpack the box!!!

I absolutely loved The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and then I thought that The Girl Who Played with Fire was even better.  The reviews for The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest have been fantastic.   Of course, the book is already out in UK so here are a few reviews….

“Fans will not be disappointed: this is another roller-coaster ride that keeps you reading far too late into the night. Intricate but flawlessly plotted, it has complex characters as well as a satisfying, clear moral thrust.”
—Evening Standard

“Salander is a magnificent creation: a feminist avenging angel . . . I cannot think of another modern writer who so successfully turns his politics away from a preachy manifesto and into a dynamic narrative device. Larsson’s hatred of injustice will drive readers across the world through a three-volume novel and leave them regretting the final page; and regretting, even more, the early death of a mastery storyteller just as he was entering his prime.”
—Observer

“Larsson has produced a coup de foudre, a novel that is complex, satisfying, clever, moral . . . This is a grown-up novel for grown-up readers, who want something more than a quick fix and a car chase. And it’s why the Millennium trilogy is rightly a publishing phenomenon all over the world.”
—Guardian

Get on this list! Don’t miss out! If you haven’t read any of these books come by Lemuria and pick one up!