The Lewis Man is a novel by Peter May. On the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, police find the mummified body of a man in a peat bog. The man’s body is punctured by several stab wounds and it is initially believed that he is more than two thousand years old—until someone spots the Elvis tattoo on the man’s right arm. Obviously, the corpse is a murder victim from the latter half of the twentieth century. Fin Macleod is a native islander who has recently left his job as a detective inspector in Edinburgh. He is intent on repairing past relationships and restoring his parents’ run-down croft on Lewis. The DNA test on the corpse reveals a familial match to the father of Fin’s childhood sweetheart. The former DI finds himself once again chasing answers across the beautifully rugged Outer Hebrides.
•
Summer of the Dead is by Julia Keller. Acker’s Gap is a small town in the picturesque, but poverty stricken West Virginia mountains. No one is enjoying the beauty of these high summer days, however—not while there is a killer stalking the town and its downtrodden residents. County prosecutor Bell Elkins and her best friend, Sheriff Nick Fogelsong, are at a stand-still in the investigation. This murderer seems to come and go like a ghost in the mist. On top of all this, Bell must deal with the return of her sister, Shirley, from prison. Both women carry deep wounds from their violent past. Adding to the violence of the murders are the dark secrets of Lindy Crabtree, a coal miner’s daughter. All of the pressure on this small town threatens to explode into even more violence. Can Bell and Nick find a killer and smooth ruffled feathers before that happens?
•
Back Channel is a novel by Stephen L. Carter. The author uses an amalgam of fact and fiction in a retelling of the Cuban Missile Crisis, in which the fate of the world rests on the shoulders of a young female college student. October 1962 is a harrowing time for both the United States and the Soviet Union. The two superpowers are on the brink of war because the Soviet Union has smuggled missiles into Cuba. Kennedy and Krushchev are in a military face-off and are in desperate need of a “back channel” of communication to avert a nuclear holocaust. On the island of Curacao, a visiting Soviet chess champion gives state secrets to his American acquaintance. A freighter struggles in a squall on the Atlantic Ocean while trying to avoid detection from warships and submarines. In Ithaca, New York, Margo Jensen, one of the few black women at Cornell University, is asked to go to Eastern Europe to babysit a madman. While there, Margo is pursued by agents from both sides and has nothing to protect her save her own courage and ingenuity. As she is drawn deeper into the escalating conflict, she will learn more than she wants to know about her own family’s hidden past.
•
The Devil’s Workshop is a novel of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad by Alex Grecian. In 1890’s London, a small group of the city’s most prominent citizens have become fed up with the murder rate and have taken it upon themselves to capture violent criminals and mete out their own gruesome brand of retribution. They are now taking it to the next level by arranging for four murderers to escape from prison and right into the group’s hands. Like all plans for revenge, however, things go awry and the murderers elude the group. Now, Walter Day, Nevil Hammersmith, and the rest of Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad must hunt down the convicts before they can begin another bloody spree. These killers also have retribution on their minds, and one of them is heading straight for a member of the Murder Squad and his family. That’s not all, however. During their escape, one of the killers learns the location of another notorious murderer thought long gone. This time, Jack is prepared to join forces with the escapees and try some of the new tricks he has learned while he has been away.
•
Bagmen is a thriller by William Lashner. Victor Carl finds himself going through a particularly rough patch in his very lowly legal career. In order to make some quick cash he takes a job prowling the streets of Philadelphia carrying a bag full of money for an extremely ambitious politician. It’s not the most noble or legal job, but Victor finds himself rubbing elbows with the most elite members of Philadelphia society all the while fattening his bank account. Victor thinks that, perhaps, he has a future in the political game, until one of his payouts winds up in the possession of a dead woman. Victor goes from being a bag man to being on the hook for murder. His only way out may be with a shady brotherhood of characters that carry sacks full of cash, sport bad fedoras, and make their own twisted set of rules.
•
Warburg in Rome is a novel by James Carroll. David Warburg arrives in Rome at war’s end determined to bring aid to the destitute Jews of Europe. As the newly minted director of the U. S. War Refugee Board, Warburg, along with a French-Italian Red Cross worker and an American Catholic priest, want nothing more than to helping the refugees streaming into the country find the help that they need. The city is a maze of desperate fugitives, runaway Nazis, Jewish resisters, and criminal Church officials. At the center of this convoluted web Warburg discovers one of history’s greatest scandals—the Vatican’s involvement in providing scores of Nazi war criminals with secret passage to Argentina. Warburg is further disillusioned when he learns that the American intelligence complex knows what is going on, but remains silent. How can he continue his work knowing that those he trusts may betray him at any moment?
•
Evangeline Cessna is a history librarian at the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library.