On the shelves - Feb. 16

These books are available at the Clovis-Carver Public Library:

“The Body Lies” by Jo Baker: When a young writer accepts a job at a university in the remote English countryside, it's meant to be a fresh start, away from the bustle of London and the scene of a violent assault she is desperate to forget. A vicious debate about violence against women inflames the tensions and mounting rivalries in her creative-writing class. When a troubled student starts turning in chapters that blur the lines between fiction and reality, the professor recognizes herself as the main character in his book - and he has written her a horrific fate. Will she be able to stop life imitating art before it's too late?

“Beating About the Bush” by M.C. Beaton: Private detective Agatha Raisin comes across a severed leg in a roadside hedge and it looks like she is about to become involved in a particularly gruesome murder. Looks, however, can be deceiving, as Agatha finds when she is employed to investigate a case of industrial espionage at a factory where nothing is quite what it seems. As a possible solution to the factory murder unfolds, her own life is thrown into deadly peril.

“Mumbo Gumbo Murder” by Laura Childs: It's Jazz Fest in New Orleans, and as the parade proceeds, Carmela Bertrand and her best friend, Ava, follow behind, down Royal Street and past the food booths. Suddenly, they hear a terrible crash from Devon Dowling's antiques shop. They rush inside to find Devon collapsed with blood streaming down the side of his face. After the police examine Devon's body, they tell Carmela and Ava that their friend was murdered with an icepick. Carmela and Ava are determined to catch the murderer, but the list of suspects is long. How long do they have before they find themselves on the killer's list?

“Rosa Parks: In Her Own Words” by Susan Reyburn: In this compelling new book from the Library of Congress, the civil rights icon is revealed for the first time in print through her own private manuscripts and handwritten notes. Parks' inner thoughts, ongoing struggles, and how she came to be the person who stood up by sitting down are illuminated along with precise descriptions of her arrest, the segregated South, and recollections of childhood resistance to white supremacy, documenting a lifetime of battling inequality.

“Hidden Persuasion” by Marc Andrews: Visual messages are omnipresent in our daily life. They are constantly attempting to persuade us to buy, learn and act. Andrews analyzes advertising beyond the persuasive power of the imagery itself and explains the psychology behind 33 effective influence techniques in visual persuasion and how to apply them.

“The Baseball Game I'll Never Forget” by Steve Milton: Fifty of baseball's best recount their most memorable game. With careers that often span decades, and with more than 160 games in each season, baseball players have a lot to consider when choosing the one game that stands out -- but there is always at least one that leaps to mind for the "boys of summer".

These books are available at the Portales Public Library:

“Hindsight” by Iris Johansen and Roy Johansen: Dr. Kendra Michaels in a renowned investigator with skills above and beyond the ordinary, as she spent the first twenty years of her life blind before gaining sight after undergoing a cutting edge surgical procedure, which only enhanced her other five senses after being in the dark for so long. Known for her sharp observational talent and uncanny ability to rely on more than just her eyes, Kendra is often sought out to solve difficult cases, but her newest case hits a bit too close to home, a case so personal that she cannot turn it down. At the school for the blind that Kendra herself once attended, two staff members have been murdered, although the ways in which they were killed are not similar at all, with one employee stabbed to death and the other shot in the head. With both murders so different, Kendra wonders if there is more than one killer on the loose who is targeting the school, but if the killings are in fact related, is there a conspiracy linked to the place where Kendra once felt so safe while she was learning to cope with her blindness, and more frightening, are the killings linked to Kendra herself?

“The Shining” by Stephen King: With the movie adaptation of The Shining's sequel Doctor Sleep now out for fans to watch again and again, readers may want to discover or revisit the original novel that inspired not only Stanley Kubrick's horror classic (which is infamously narratively different from King's Shining), but both the book and film versions of Doctor Sleep, the continuing story of Danny Torrance. We first meet Danny in The Shining when he is five years old, the only child of his parents Jack and Wendy, when the small family moves to the Overlook Hotel in the Colorado Rockies during one winter where Jack, a struggling writer, newly sober alcoholic, and previous teacher, has been hired as the offseason caretaker. Having been fired from his last job, which in turn forced him to finally give up drinking, Jack is intent on being the best caretaker he can be as well as becoming a better husband and father, but the Overlook Hotel is anything but a welcome retreat for Danny, whose “shining” gives him the ability to see the ghosts that are trapped in the hotel, whose evil essence drives people mad and causes them to do unspeakable things. As the hotel works its will on Jack in order to feed off of Danny's shining, Jack slowly devolves into a man who will do anything to stay, even at the risk of hurting the wife and son he loves so much.

“When You See Me” by Lisa Gardner: In Lisa Gardner's newest thriller and the latest installment in her D.D. Warrant series, Gardner unites Boston PD Detective D. D. Warren, vigilante Flora Dane, and FBI Special Agent Kimberly Quincy as they investigate the crimes of a dead man. After the death of notorious serial kidnapper and killer Jacob Ness, Quincy and D. D. have been tasked with wrapping up any loose ends he may have left behind, when bones are discovered by hikers in the hills of Georgia. When more bones are discovered upon investigation of the area, D. D. and Quincy call on the aid of both Flora Dane and true-crime expert Keith Edgar to help with the case, set in a small town that, under the surface, seems to be deeply wrong. As evidence points to Ness and the realization that no matter how many of his crimes in life were discovered, more of his sins, and possibly his most sinister, have yet to be revealed, D. D., Quincy, and Keith work to unravel the darkest case any of them have yet to face, while Flora must confront the darkness in her own past.

— Summaries provided by library staff