This column was submitted by Evangeline Cessna, Local History Librarian at the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library.

This week we are featuring new titles from serial fiction. These are located in our New Adult Fiction section.

The 18th book in the Jason Bourne series is “The Bourne Defiance” by Brian Freeman. From the pristine waters of Alaska to the hot nightclubs of the Bahamas, someone is hunting down and killing Treadstone agents. Jason Bourne may be next on the list if he can’t figure out who in the U.S. government is trying to silence the members of a past mission known as Defiance. As he closes in on the truth, he realizes that the one man who holds the key is his archnemesis, the assassin known as Lennon. The Russian hitman has been at the center of Defiance from the start, and he’ll stop at nothing to get to Bourne, even if he has to go through his loved ones to get
there. As Bourne races to stop the conspiracy behind Defiance, he will come face to face with Lennon one more time. Could this be their last showdown?

“Secrets in the Dark” is the second book in the Blackbird Trilogy by Heather Graham. More than a century after Jack the Ripper terrorized Whitechapel, a new Ripper is stalking the streets of London. The self-proclaimed Ripper King strikes at night and leaves his eviscerated victims in his wake. FBI agents Della Hamilton and Mason Carter are all too familiar with this killer, who holds the public hostage in fear. Though the killer’s modus operandi is nothing new, his desire to be the most infamous killer in history makes him all the more dangerous. Della and Mason know they are in a race against time to keep more women from falling victim to this killer. Now that the heat is on, Della and Mason commit a grave error and wind up in a deadly trap that they don’t see coming. Who will win this struggle, the cat or the mouse? And which one is the cat?

The 15th entry in James Patterson’s Michael Bennett series is called “Obsessed.” A superstitious killer is targeting young women in each of the boroughs of New York City. Detective Michael Bennett is aboard the police boat and finds one of them floating in the Hudson River, still wearing her sparkling party dress. Though the father in Bennett is filled with dread, he knows that the more bodies that turn up will help them catch this psychopath. Unfortunately, Bennett’s oldest daughter fits this killer’s type. When the killer hones in on his daughter, Bennett becomes obsessed with keeping his family safe and making sure no one else becomes the object of this fiend’s obsession.

“The Collector” is the 23rd title of Daniel Silva’s series featuring Gabriel Allon. Legendary art restorer and spy Gabriel Allon joins forces with a smart, savvy, and beautiful thief to track down the world’s most valuable missing painting. He ends up in a desperate race to prevent war between Russia and the West. It all begins on the Amalfi coast where General Ferrari asks Allon to authenticate a van Gogh painting and to track down a work by Vermeer that has been missing for decades. The chase of this painting leads him through Paris and on to Denmark. There he meets the thief who stole the Vermeer in Italy and Allon knows he needs to make her his ally. Unfortunately, the Russian tsar has decided that Russia needs to conquer Ukraine at all costs. Allon and his allies must race against time to stop the biggest tragedy since World War II.

The 22nd entry in Brad Thor’s Scot Harvath series is called “Dead Fall.” A Russian mercenary unit full of conscripts from the worst prisons and mental asylums in the country has gone rogue on the borderlands of Ukraine. With all of the focus on the frontlines, these brutal combatants have pushed deeper into the interior to wage a horrific campaign of barbarity in every village they come across. Their actions amount to war crimes, and they meet little resistance as every able-bodied man is fighting elsewhere. When several American aid workers are killed, Scot Harvath is sent to settle the score. In such a large country, will Harvath be able to find and stop these brutes before they can kill again?

Colson Whitehead’s second entry in his Ray Carney series is called “Crook Manifesto.” New York City, 1971. There is trash piled in the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is heading headlong for bankruptcy and a shooting war has started between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. In the middle of all this, furniture store owner and former fence Ray Carney tries to keep his head down and his business thriving. He’s decided to stay on the straight-and-narrow — until his daughter May decides she wants Jackson 5 tickets. He decides to hit up his old police contact Munson, but his old friend has his own favors to ask of Carney. In 1973, the next generation has decided to overthrow the old ways, even in the crime world. Carney can always count on his endearingly violent partner in crime, Pepper. It’s harder than ever to put together a reliable crew for hijackings, heists and assorted felonies, so Pepper takes a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation film shoot in Harlem. He finds himself in a freaky world where Hollywood stars, up-and-coming comedians and celebrity drug dealers mingle with hustlers, mobsters, and hitmen. Sometimes the lines between the straight-and-narrow blur into that seedy criminal underbelly, making for a twisty good time.