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New Books & DVD's at the
Winifred Knox
Memorial Library
New
Books for February
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The Pendleton stands on the
summit of Shadow Hill at the highest point of an old heartland city, a
Gilded Age palace built in the late 1800s as a tycoon’s dream home.
Almost from the beginning, its grandeur has been scarred by episodes of
madness, suicide, mass murder, and whispers of things far worse. But
since its rechristening in the 1970s as a luxury apartment building, the
Pendleton has been at peace. For its fortunate residents—among them a
successful songwriter and her young son, a disgraced ex-senator, a
widowed attorney, and a driven money manager—the Pendleton’s magnificent
quarters are a sanctuary, its dark past all but forgotten.
But now inexplicable shadows caper across walls, security cameras relay
impossible images, phantom voices mutter in strange tongues,
not-quite-human figures lurk in the basement, elevators plunge into
unknown depths. With each passing hour, a terrifying certainty grows:
Whatever drove the Pendleton’s past occupants to their unspeakable fates
is at work again. Soon, all those within its boundaries will be engulfed
by a dark tide from which few have escaped.
Dean Koontz transcends all expectations as he takes readers on a
gripping journey to a place where nightmare visions become real—and
where a group of singular individuals hold the key to humanity’s
destiny. Welcome to 77 Shadow Street. |
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It’s not that Micayla Lange is afraid of
the clinking she hears on the first floor of the empty mansion where she’s
housesitting for her Uncle Nicco. She’s a cop, after all. But she’s alone on New
Year’s Eve, wearing pajamas and wielding a Glock 22 as she zeroes in on the
source of the sound: Nicco’s private office.
Jason Davis steals things for a living,
so unexpected developments are a natural part of the job. Getting caught
red-handed by a hot police officer in a gangster’s deserted house is just one
more twist in the game. Like finding incriminating photos in Nicco Marino’s
safe, only to discover the cop has gotten a good look at his face. Unfortunately
for Mick, she also got a good look at the pictures. Her “uncle” might love her
like family, but she doesn’t like her chances if he knows she’s seen evidence
that implicates him in the murder of a city councilman. Which is why she’s
having a hard time reconciling her professional instincts with what has become
an inescapable fact: She’s about to help a criminal get away with a suitcase
full of stolen money. And she’s going with him. As their adventure heats up and
their enemies close in, Mick is torn between her duty to the force and the
combustible passion engulfing her and her unlikely partner in crime. She’ll have
to turn Jason in sooner or later…if they survive. But will they ever get a
second chance at love?
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In this formulaic medical thriller from bestseller Cook
(Coma), Pia Grazdani, a 26-year-old Columbia Medical School
student who’s overcome a difficult childhood to emerge as a
brilliant, beautiful, if still troubled adult, attracts the
interest of Nobel Prize–winning molecular geneticist Tobias
Rothman. Rothman, who has worked with virulent strains of
typhoid-causing salmonella, is focusing on a revolutionary
program of growing entire organs from stem cells. Meanwhile,
greedy Edmund Mathews, the chairman of LifeDeals Inc., is
using the company to buy up life insurance policies cheaply
based on current actuarial data. Facing devastating financial
losses if organ transplants were to become much cheaper,
Mathews and his partners scheme to end the threat posed by
Rothman’s organogenesis work. Grazdani ends up squarely in
the villains’ crosshairs, but fortunately, smitten fellow
Columbia med student George Wilson is there for support.
Cook’s deft handling of medical science helps lift an
otherwise pedestrian plot.
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It is eighty-three years after
the last of the thinking machines were destroyed in the Battle of Corrin,
after Faykan Butler took the name of Corrino and established himself as
the first Emperor of a new Imperium. Great changes are brewing that will
shape and twist all of humankind.
The war hero Vorian Atreides has
turned his back on politics and Salusa Secundus. The descendants of
Abulurd Harkonnen Griffen and Valya have sworn vengeance against Vor,
blaming him for the downfall of their fortunes. Raquella Berto-Anirul
has formed the Bene Gesserit School on the jungle planet Rossak as the
first Reverend Mother. The descendants of Aurelius Venport and Norma
Cenva have built Venport Holdings, using mutated, spice-saturated
Navigators who fly precursors of Heighliners. Gilbertus Albans, the ward
of the hated Erasmus, is teaching humans to become Mentats…and hiding an
unbelievable secret.
The Butlerian movement, rabidly
opposed to all forms of “dangerous technology,” is led by Manford
Torondo and his devoted Swordmaster, Anari Idaho. And it is this group,
so many decades after the defeat of the thinking machines, which begins
to sweep across the known universe in mobs, millions strong, destroying
everything in its path.
Every one of these characters,
and all of these groups, will become enmeshed in the contest between
Reason and Faith. All of them will be forced to choose sides in the
inevitable crusade that could destroy humankind forever…. |
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Raised by loving adoptive
parents, San Francisco private investigator Wyatt Hunt never had an
interest in finding his birth family-until he gets a chilling text
message from an unknown number: "How did ur mother die?"
The answer is murder, and urged
on by curiosity and the mysterious texter, Hunt takes on a case he never
knew existed, one that has lain unsolved for decades. His family's dark
past unfurls in dead ends. Child Protective Services, who suspected but
could never prove that Hunt was being neglected, is uninformed; his
birth father, twice tried but never convicted of the murder, is in
hiding; Evie, his mother's drug-addicted religious fanatic of a friend,
is untraceable. And who is the texter, and how are they connected to
Hunt?
Yet in the present, time is
running out. The texter, who insists the killer is out there, refuses to
be identified. The cat-and-mouse game leads Hunt across the country and
eventually to places far more exotic-and far more dangerous. As the
chase escalates, so does the threat, for the killer has a secret that
can only be trusted to the grave. Thriller master John Lescroart weaves
a shocking, suspenseful tale about the skeletons inside family closets .
. . and the mortal danger outside the front door.
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Dr. Jake Ross, a university
astronomer, wants nothing more than to teach a few classes each semester
a nd continue on his research. However, he is being aggressively
recruited to be the science advisor to Frank Tomlinson, an ambitious
politician with his eye on the U.S. Senate.
Tomlinson is in need of an edge
that will allow him to defeat his opponent at the polls, and Dr. Ross
can contribute just that: MHD.
MHD, or magnetohydrodynamics, is
a new innovation that will allow electricity to be generated efficiently
and cheaply. The senate is essentially guaranteed if Tomlinson can
deliver unlimited energy to voters at less than half the price of
nuclear power. But MHD is still in its infancy, and although the outlook
is extremely promising there are great—and deadly—risks.
The incumbent senator will not
give up his seat without a fight, and as Dr. Ross discovers, the world
of politics carries its own dangers. Nothing has prepared Dr. Ross for
the extreme tactics that desperate and powerful people are willing to
use. |
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A top nuclear scientist goes mad and takes an innocent
family hostage at gunpoint, killing one and causing a
massive standoff.
A plume of radiation above New York City leads to a
warehouse where, it seems, a powerful nuclear bomb was
assembled just hours before.
Sifting through the evidence, authorities determine that the
unthinkable is about to happen: in ten days, a major
American city will be vaporized by a terrorist attack.
Ten days. And Gideon Crew, tracking the mysterious terrorist
cell from the suburbs of New York to the mountains of New
Mexico, learns the end may be something worse--far
worse--than mere Armageddon.
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Darth Plagueis: one of the most
brilliant Sith Lords who ever lived. Possessing power is all he desires.
Losing it is the only thing he fears. As an apprentice, he embraces the
ruthless ways of the Sith. And when the time is right, he destroys his
Master—but vows never to suffer the same fate. For like no other
disciple of the dark side, Darth Plagueis learns to command the ultimate
power . . . over life and death.
Darth Sidious: Plagueis’s chosen apprentice. Under the guidance of his
Master, he secretly studies the ways of the Sith, while publicly rising
to power in the galactic government, first as Senator, then as
Chancellor, and eventually as Emperor.
Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious, Master and acolyte, target the galaxy
for domination—and the Jedi Order for annihilation. But can they defy
the merciless Sith tradition? Or will the desire of one to rule supreme,
and the dream of the other to live forever, sow the seeds of their
destruction? |
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In The Rope, the
latest in Nevada Barr’s bestselling novels featuring Anna
Pigeon, Nevada Barr gathers together the many strings of
Anna’s past and finally reveals the story that her many fans
have been long asking for. In 1995 and 35 years old, fresh
off the bus from New York City and nursing a broken heart,
Anna Pigeon takes a decidedly unglamorous job as a seasonal
employee of the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area. On
her day off, Anna goes hiking into the park never to return.
Her co-workers think she’s simply moved on—her cabin is
cleaned out and her things gone. But Anna herself wakes up,
trapped at the bottom of a dry natural well, naked, without
supplies and no clear memory of how she found herself in
this situation.
As she slowly pieces
together her memory, it soon becomes clear that someone has
trapped her there, in an inescapable prison, and no one
knows that she is even missing. Plunged into a landscape and
a plot she is unfit and untrained to handle, Anna Pigeon
must muster the courage, determination and will to live that
she didn’t even know she still possessed to survive, outwit
and triumph.
For those legions of
readers who have been entranced over the years by Park
Ranger Anna Pigeon’s strength and determination and those
who are new to Nevada Barr’s captivating, compelling novels,
this is where it all starts.
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New
DVD's for February
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A modest bachelor brunch
devolves into a wild weekend in Bangkok when the gang travels to
Thailand to see Stu get married. Still traumatized by memories of the
Las Vegas fiasco, Stu (Ed Helms) vows to keep his pre-wedding partying
to the bare minimum. But when Phil (Bradley Cooper), Doug (Justin
Bartha), and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) show up, Stu's low-key brunch
makes their previous Vegas fiasco look like a family trip to
Disneyland. The Hangover Part II features cameos by Bill
Clinton and Paul Giamatti. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi All Movie Guide
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Ranking with Dan Curtis'
Trilogy of Terror as one of
the spookiest made-for-TV horror films of the 1970's, this atmospheric
monster chiller stars Kim Darby and Jim Hutton as a comfortable,
reasonably happy young couple who inherit the archetypal "Old Dark
House" from the wife Sally's deceased aunt. While renovating the
creepy mansion, they enter a previously-sealed room, which features a
securely bricked-up fireplace. Despite the insistence of a local
contractor (My Three Sons' William Demarest) that they leave
the room undisturbed, Sally's husband manages to open the flue,
releasing a horde of shriveled mini-monsters imprisoned there for
decades. The little demons immediately fixate their malevolent
attention on Sally in an effort to claim her soul, a mission which can
only be averted by the love of her husband -- which, in light of his
self-centered careerism, means poor Sally's pretty much on her own.
Director John Newland manages to pull off this one-note premise with
some effective, frightening scenes -- especially when he chooses to
show as little of the goofy-looking monsters as possible -- but it's
hard to sustain this level of suspense for a full 90 minutes. ~ Cavett
Binion, Rovi All Movie Guide
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NASA's canceled trip to the moon
in the 1970s is the basis for this found-footage-style picture
exploring the urban legend surrounding that mission -- what if Apollo
18 actually did occur and the proof of extraterrestrial life exists on
film? Wanted's Timur
Bekmambetov produces the film, with Spanish director Gonzalo Lopez-Gallego
taking on helming duties. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi All Movie Guide
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Bennett Miller's adaptation of
Michael Lewis' non-fiction best seller Moneyball stars Brad
Pitt as Billy Beane, a one-time phenom who flamed out in the big
leagues and now works as the GM for the Oakland Athletics, a franchise
that's about to lose their three best players to free agency. Because
the team isn't in a financial position to spend as much as perennial
favorites like the Yankees and the Red Sox, Beane realizes he needs to
radically change how he evaluates what players can bring to the squad.
After he meets Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), an Ivy League economics major
working as an executive assistant for scouting on another team, Beane
realizes he's found the man who understands how to subvert the system
of assessing players that's been in place for nearly a century.
However, as the duo begin to acquire players that seem too old,
injured, or inept to play major-league baseball, they face stiff
resistance from both the A's longtime scouts and the team's manager
Art Howe (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who outright refuses to allow
Beane's more-nontraditional acquisitions to play. Moneyball
screened at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Perry
Seibert, Rovi All Movie Guide
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Steven Soderbergh presents this
look at what happens when an infectious disease threatens humanity
through varied viewpoints from an ensemble cast, including Marion
Cotillard, Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne,
and Kate Winslet. The Informant's
Scott Z. Burns provides the script. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi
All Movie Guide
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George Clooney goes behind the
camera for the fourth time to direct
The Ides of March, an
adaptation of Beau Willimon's play
Farragut North. The movie
stars Ryan Gosling as Stephen Meyers, an idealistic deputy campaign
manager for Governor Mike Morris (Clooney), who is in a major
political battle in Ohio that could be the key to winning the
Democratic presidential nomination. When the opposing candidate's
campaign manager (Paul Giamatti) offers Stephen a job on his staff,
Stephen neglects to inform his boss (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Just as
that omission is revealed, Stephen uncovers a dirty personal secret
that could sink Morris' political career.
The Ides of March screened at
the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi
All Movie Guide
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A rare book. An ancient code. An all-new novel from the New York Times-bestselling master of passion and the paranormal.
Within the pages of very rare books some centuries old lie the secrets of the paranormal. Abby Radwell's unusual psychic talent has made her an expert in such volumes-and sometimes taken her into dangerous territory. After a deadly incident in the private library of an obsessive collector, Abby receives a blackmail threat, and rumors swirl that an old alchemical text known as The Key has reappeared on the black market.
Convinced that she needs an investigator who can also play bodyguard, she hires Sam Coppersmith, a specialist in paranormal crystals and amber-"hot rocks." Passion flares immediately between them, but neither entirely trusts the other. When it comes to dealing with a killer who has paranormal abilities, and a blackmailer who will stop at nothing to obtain an ancient alchemical code, no one is safe.