AHML Staff Choices

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This book will make you think twice about opening any e-mail attachment! At the heart of this intriguing novel is identity theft and the seemingly unrelated lives of three people that unwittingly become involved in it. Miles Cheshire longs to get on with his life, but feels he can never fully accomplish this until he finds his twin brother Hayden, the “evil” twin. Hayden, who has been missing for ten years, does not want to be found. He has covertly moved from place to place, deftly covering his tracks along the way, and taking on new identities and new lives as he goes.

Recent high school graduate and newly orphaned, Lucy Lattimore escapes her small hometown with her charming former history teacher George Orson. They arrive in Nebraska, in the middle of nowhere, at a long-deserted motel next to a dried-up reservoir, to figure out the next move on their path to a new life. But Lucy soon finds herself involved in a dangerous embezzling scheme.

My whole life is a lie, thinks Ryan Schuyler, who has recently learned the man he thought was his uncle Jay is actually his birth father. In response, he walks off the Northwestern University campus, hops on a bus, and breaks loose from his meaningless existence. Presumed dead, Ryan decides to hook up with the man he thinks is his father and ends up helping him run identity-theft scams.

The author deftly intertwines these story lines until you start to pick up on subtle connections between the three characters, the shedding of the identities they once had and the surreal identities and existences they take on. The real villain of the book is pursued by dangerous Russians who he has stolen credit card numbers and large sums of money from, and another very angry individual who did three years in jail for being wrongfully accused of embezzling money from his employer. By the end of the book, the reader is not sure who is real and who is fake because what you assumed was a sequential timeline becomes very blurred. Chaon has the gift of giving his novel a thriller quality with haunting undertones that leaves his characters ghost-like.

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“Your house’s emblem should not be the white rose but the old sign of eternity . . . the snake which eats itself. The sons of York will destroy each other, one brother destroying another, uncles devouring nephews, fathers beheading sons. They are a house which has to have blood, and they will shed their own if they have no other enemy.” So it was said of the House of York, whose family crest bore the white rose, waging war against their cousins, the House of Lancaster of the red rose, for the crown of England. So it was said of the War of the Roses.

And at the center of the storm was a commoner, whose mother was born of royalty, Elizabeth Woodville. She was a woman of extraordinary beauty, rumored to be a sorceress, who supposedly cast a spell over young King Edward IV to become his wife and Queen of England. While her husband constantly took up arms to defend his crown to usurper cousins from the North, Elizabeth rose to the demands of her lofty position, promoting the fortunes and advancement of her ambitious relatives. But the prediction of the snake which eats itself became true as rivalry between the Yorks and the Lancasters never was laid to rest. Violence, betrayal and murder dominated Elizabeth’s life as Queen of England, passionate wife of Edward IV and devoted mother of their children.

Elizabeth and Edward IV had seven children, five daughters and two sons. The oldest son, Edward V, was never crowned King of England after his father’s sudden death. He and his brother Richard were imprisoned in the Tower of London by their uncle, the youngest York brother, Richard. In one broad stoke of blind ambition, he declared the children of Elizabeth and Edward IV illegitimate and declared himself King Richard III. The fate of the two young princes has confounded British historians for centuries. But Philippa Gregory, master historian and storyteller, puts her own unique spin on this royal mystery, thus setting up the storyline for the next book in this new Plantagenet’s series, “The Cousins’ War.”

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On July 16, 1942, thousands of Jewish families who were Paris residents were rounded up by French police. They were locked up in the Velodrome d’Hiver, an indoor stadium, for several days under appallingly inhuman conditions. From there, they were sent to Auschwitz where they were gassed. Ten-year-old Sarah Starzynski and her parents were one of those families. With the police pounding on their door in the middle of the night, Sarah was desperate to save her little brother.  So she locked him in a bedroom cupboard and promised to return for him.

Sarah’s story intertwines with that of Julia Jarmond, an American journalist living in Paris in 2002, who is investigating the 1942 roundup at “Vel d’Hive.” Julia’s research leads her to a trail of long-hidden family secrets that link her to Sarah, compelling her to delve deeper to find out what happened to Sarah. Probing into Sarah’s past adds some serious uncertainties to her own future, causing Julia to question her own place in France, and to reevaluate her marriage and her life.

Tatiana de Rosnay offers us a vivid and compelling snapshot of France under occupation and reveals painful details that surround this episode in France’s history.

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The setting is the Mississippi Delta, post – WWII. Laura McAllan has had to leave the mannerly, gentile life in which she was raised to move to a miserable, primitive, “mudbound” cotton farm her land-loving husband has purchased in the Mississippi Delta. Not only does she have to endure these primitive, brutal living conditions, but her mean-spirited, nasty, Ku Klux Klan card-carrying member of a father-in-law has also moved in with them. The only bright spots in Laura’s life are her two daughters, and her charming, handsome, but troubled brother-in-law Jamie who has recently returned from the war.

This is also the story of the Jackson family, sharecroppers on the McAllan farm. The Jackson’s oldest son, Ronsel, has also just returned from the war in Europe. In spite of Ronsel’s bravery in defending his country, he is still considered an inferior black man in the “Jim Crow South.” In an effort to try to come to terms with the horrible memories of combat, Ronsel and Jamie McAllan form an unlikely and forbidden friendship. It is this friendship that is at the heart of the book, inviting catastrophe from those KKK members who live in the nearby town.

The story is well-constructed and convincingly narrated by the men and women from the two families. The reader sees the story from all sides as well as the hardship of life in 1940’s Mississippi and the terror of racism at that time.

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This is not just another book about the Japanese American internment in 1942 to War Relocation camps. Jamie Ford tells this heartfelt story from the point of view of young Henry Lee, a 13-year-old Chinese boy, and Keiko Okabe, an adolescent Japanese/American girl who are the only non-whites in an exclusive prep school in Seattle. The book delves deeply into the close friendship of the two teenagers and the bullying they have to endure at their school, their unique and very different relationships they have with their fathers, and their forced separation when Keiko and her family are sent to an internment camp.

Alternating between the story of young Henry and Keiko is the adult perspective in 1986 of middle-aged Henry who has just lost his wife to cancer. In the opening pages, Henry comes upon a crowd gathered outside the Panama Hotel, a National Historic Landmark in Seattle’s Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has made an incredible discovery: the belongings of several Japanese families, left in the hotel basement when they were sent to the internment camps. Henry investigates the suitcases himself and finds Keiko’s sketchbooks and her parasol covered with 40 years of dust. This discovery forces Henry to try to come to terms with the actions of his Chinese nationalist father, and decisions that he himself made decades ago with regard to Keiko.

This is Ford’s first novel, and it’s a great first effort. Jamie Ford is the great-grandson of a Chinese mining pioneer, and grew up near Seattle’s Chinatown. He gives us an intimate look at a very ugly period of U.S. history, when Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor caused such widespread panic and hatred that the president himself rubber-stamped the authorization of the internment camps. 62% of those sent to the camps were U.S. citizens.

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Haunting, elegant, mysterious, intricate, passionate, a bit gothic and demonic, at times slapstick, a work of art. This international best-seller by Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafon is all of these and more. Need I say more?

This mystery book is about a mystery book and its mysterious author. The setting is 1940s and 50s Barcelona, a city slowly healing from the war. Daniel Sempere, the son of a rare books dealer, narrates how he came into possession of The Shadow of the Wind, a bewitching book that took over his young life. Not yet 11 years old, Daniel’s father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a huge book repository for books forgotten by the world but waiting for someone to care about them again. Daniel’s father tells him to pick out one book in the massive labyrinth of shelves and rooms, a book that will have a special meaning for him.

Daniel so loves The Shadow of the Wind that he sets out to find the other books written by the author, Julian Carax. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact, he may have the last one in existence. Before Daniel knows it his seemingly innocent quest opens a door into one of Barcelona’s darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, madness and doomed love. At every turn, he is haunted by a mysterious man who appears to be the devil personified, and threatened by an evil, corrupt police captain who made his bones as a hit man during the war. Over the course of several years, in pursuit of his mystery author, Daniel falls in love a couple times, and befriends a hilarious homeless man who lends great comic relief to the dark story. After many twists, turns and dead ends to the mystery, Daniel must find out the truth about Julian Carax, or he and those closest to him will suffer horribly.

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Two reporters have been murdered.  On the eve of the publication of their scandalous sex-trafficking exposé, the two are brutally slain.  In addition, a well-respected lawyer has also been murdered with the same gun on the same night.  How are these murders connected?  All the evidence, including fingerprints on the murder weapon, point to Lisbeth Salander.  To the police, it is an open and shut case.  Salander’s visit to the two reporters’ apartment just before the murders, the fact that the now-dead lawyer was her legal guardian, and her previous history of mental illness, instability and violence, are all nails in her coffin.  The only problem is that she has disappeared.

To Mikail Blomkvist, friend and former lover of Salander’s, it is obvious that the murders had everything to do with the sex-trafficking story.  He is determined to find Salander and prove her innocence, even if it means withholding evidence from the police.

 In this second installment of Larsson’s Swedish trilogy, Salander, “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” returns as the antisocial but brilliant computer hacker, who is also blessed with a photographic memory.  Readers learn about her troubled upbringing in which she was placed in a children’s psychiatric facility for her violent behavior at the age of twelve.  The pieces of the puzzle fall into place as her secrets reveal her as the improbable central character in the sex-trafficking scandal and the murders.   

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The year is 1916 in Russia. Rasputin, the “Mad Monk” whom Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Alexandra viewed as a saintly mystic, visionary, healer and prophet, has prophesied his own murder, the downfall of the Romanov dynasty and the coming of the Bolshevik Revolution. But there were also visions of hope – “There will be salvation. The blood of our body will resurrect itself. Only a raven and an eagle can succeed where all fail and that the innocence of beasts will guard and lead the way. God will provide a way to be sure of righteousness.”

Fast forward to present-day Moscow where Miles Lord, an Atlanta lawyer, fluent in Russian and it’s history, is thrilled to be there on the eve of such a momentous event. After the fall of Communism and a succession of weak governments, the Russian people have voted to bring back the monarchy. The new tsar will be chosen from among the distant relatives of Nicholas II by a specially appointed commision, and Miles’ job is to perform a background check on the tsarist candidate favored by a powerful group of Western businessmen. But in his research Lord stumbles on letters and evidence long-buried that reveal the strong possibility that two of the royal children survived the Romanov masacre – Alexei and Anastasia. This knowledge puts his life in danger. Running for his life leads him to a Russian history professor and a Russian circus performer, Akilina Petrovna. The history professor reveals to Lord Rasputin’s cryptic message, convincing him that he is the “raven” of the prophecy, and that he and Akilina, whose name means “eagle” in old Russian, are to be the team that will succeed in finding the lost heirs of the Romanov dynasty. The search takes them across continents to find the meaning of clues hidden a century ago by the protectors of this secret.

If you like Dan Brown’s books, you will love this and all Steve Berry’s novels. They are rich with history and suspense, a great combo for a great read.

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The “Camel Club” is a group of four aging, downtrodden and eccentric men who exist on the fringes of Washington, D.C. They have deemed it their responsibility to keep a vigilant watch over our nation’s leaders, studying wild conspiracy theories, current events and government plots in order to hold U.S. leaders accountable to its citizens. The leader of the Camel Club, a semi-homeless man who often sleeps in a tent in a cemetery and calls himself “Oliver Stone”, has a secret past full of danger and intrigue as a CIA operative.

In this first installment of the Camel Club series, the President of the United States, surrounded by Secret Servicemen at a political rally, has been kidnapped! Who is responsible? The Taliban, Arab terrorists or possibly North Korean Nationalists? How can a ragtag band of has-beens save the President and prevent the U.S. from launching a nuclear warhead on Syria? Only the Camel Club, using their unique resources, talents and network of allies can save avert World War III!

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There are two central characters in this gripping mystery written by Swedish journalist Stieg Larsson. At the beginning of the story, crusading financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist finds himself on the losing end of a libel suit, and has been sentenced to three months in jail and a sizable fine that will hurt his already floundering financial journal Millennium. To help bail him out of this bad situation he reluctantly accepts the offer of wealthy Swedish industrialist Henrik Vanger to move to a remote island in Northern Sweden for a year to solve the mystery of his beloved great-niece’s disappearance forty years ago.

Lisbeth Salander, the real star of the novel, is a troubled, anorexic-looking 24-year-old woman chock-full of tattoos, body piercings and attitude. Most are fooled by her looks and often she is mistaken as being mentally deficient. But behind her twisted persona lies a brilliant computer hacker with the intelligence and wisdom of someone twice her age, and a terrifying potential for cold-hearted revenge targeted at men who hate women (the original title of the book).

This unlikely duo are thrown together to solve the mystery and, in doing so, unearth a plethora of Vanger family dysfunction and sleaze, with a couple serial killers thrown in for good measure. Solving Harriet Vanger’s disappearance seems to be an impossible task, since the 40 year’s worth of evidence has been examined many times with a fine-toothed comb. But Blomkvist’s journalistic talents for unearthing obscure evidence, and Salander’s photographic calculating mind lead them right into the killer’s lair. A great mystery, hard to put down.