New Library Books - 10/21/09

Fiction
The good guy / Dean Koontz
Tim Carrier, an unassuming stone mason, is mistaken for a hit man. A stranger slips him an envelope containing $10,000 and a photo of the intended victim and leaves. Moments later, the real hit man arrives and assumes Tim is his client. Tim pays the hit man for his trouble but tells him he’s changed his mind. This ploy buys Tim enough time to warn the victim and help her flee for her life.

Gym candy / Carl Deuker
High-school football player Mick Johnson is determined not to follow the path of his father’s failed NFL career. Mick discards his vitamin supplements in favor of steroids, but while turning in record-breaking performances, he also suffers dangerous side-effects.

The haunting of Alaizabel Cray / Chris Wooding
“In Victorian London, a new plague is underway: an infestation of demonic creatures known as wych-kin. Thaniel Fox, a 17-year-old wych-hunter who calls forth both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Indiana Jones, spends his time reducing wych-kin populations with methods that combine magic, superstition, and good old-fashioned gunslinging. After stumbling upon an obviously traumatized young woman on one of his expeditions, he swiftly discovers that she has escaped from the clutches of a powerful cult called the Fraternity. The connections between Alaizabel's plight, rising numbers of wych-kin, and the Fraternity's plans are revealed by tantalizing degrees, as Thaniel; Alaizabel; Thaniel's guardian, Cathaline; and several colorful allies join forces to combat evil on a terrifying scale.” (Amazon.com ; 10/21/09)

Leaving paradise / Simone Elkeles
Maggie has just been released from the hospital where doctors repaired her leg; Caleb has just been released from the prison after serving nine months for the car accident that injured Maggie. The two narrate alternate chapters, relating stories of psychological and physical trauma, harassment and social rejection, and their bittersweet love story.

900
The good soldiers / David Finkel
David Finkel chronicles the surge in Iraq as a Washington Post correspondent imbedded with 2-16 Infantry Battalion in Baghdad. The “waning violence still meant wild firefights, nerve-wracking patrols through hostile neighborhoods where every trash pile could hide an IED, and dozens of comrades killed and maimed. At the fraught center of the story is Col. Ralph Kauzlarich, whose dogged can-do optimism—his motto is “It’s all good”—pits itself against declining morale and whispers of mutiny.”
(Amazon.com ; 10/21/09)