On the shelves - May 21

The books listed below are now available for checkout at the Clovis-Carver Public Library. The library is open to the public, but patrons can still visit the online catalog at cloviscarverpl.booksys.net/opac/ccpl or call 575-769-7840 to request a specific item for curbside pickup.

“Murder on the Poet’s Walk” by Ellery Adams. As Jane Steward eagerly anticipates the wedding of her best friend Eloise Alcott, Storyton Hall is overrun with poets in town to compete for a coveted greeting card contract. They’re everywhere, scrawling verses on cocktail napkins in the reading rooms or seeking inspiration strolling the Poet’s Walk, a series of trails named after famous authors. But the Tennyson Trail leads to a grim surprise: a woman’s corpse drifting in a rowboat on a lake, posed as if she were “The Lady of Shallot.” When a second body is discovered, also posed as a poetic character, a recurring MO emerges. Fortunately, Jane is well versed in sleuthing and won’t rest until she gives the killer a taste of poetic justice.

“Lone Women” by Victor Lavalle. Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear. The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. But the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

“Downfall” by Mark Rubinstein. When Rick Shepherd, a physician, approaches his office on a busy Manhattan street, he finds police cars, an ambulance, and crime scene technicians. He soon learns a passerby was shot three times in the back, murdered at the front door to Rick’s office. Later that evening while watching the local news, Rick and his fiancee, Jackie, see a photo of the victim—to their horror, the deceased looks identical to Rick. Two nights later, while making a house call in a Brooklyn apartment building, Rick’s 64-year-old father is shot and killed in the exact same way. There are no clues leading to the perpetrator. Even more ominously, someone has been calling Rick and Jackie’s apartment and hanging up. Whoever is targeting Rick must have murdered his father, and they now have Rick in their crosshairs. Can he make it out before he meets the same fate as his father?

“Mid-Century Modern Furniture” by Dominic Bradbury. Each item of furniture is presented in detail: illuminated with vibrant illustrations and profiled via in-depth descriptive text. The book’s substantial reference section includes essays on materials and a directory of designers.

“The Daughter of Auschwitz” by Tova Friedman and Malcolm Brabant. Tova Friedman was one of the youngest people to emerge from Auschwitz. After surviving the liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in Central Poland where she lived as a toddler, Tova was four when she and her parents were sent to a Nazi labor camp, and almost six when she and her mother were forced into a packed cattle truck and sent to Auschwitz II, also known as the Birkenau extermination camp. In “The Daughter of Auschwitz,” Tova immortalizes what she saw, to keep the story of the Holocaust alive, at a time when it’s in danger of fading from memory.

“The Dark Queens” by Shelley Puhak. Brunhild was a foreign princess, raised to be married off for the sake of alliance-building. Her sister-in-law Fredegund started out as a lowly palace slave. The two queens commanded armies and negotiated with kings and popes. They formed coalitions and broke them, mothered children and lost them. They fought a decades-long civil war-against each other. Yet after the queens’ deaths-one gentle, the other horrific-their stories were rewritten, their names consigned to slander and legend.

— Summaries provided library staff