Book Talk
with Smiffs book & card store, Nerja
Jack Reacher is back. Lee
Child’s novel Past Tense (l)
picks up with Reacher
planning an epic, autumn
road trip across America. But
not long into the journey, on
a country road deep in the
New England woods, he sees
a sign to a place he has never
been. It is the town where his
father was born. Thinking it
will take only a day of his
time, he detours and, next
morning in the city clerk’s
office, asks about the old
family home. He is told no-
one named Reacher ever
lived in the town. He knows
his father never went back,
but now wonders if Reacher Snr. was ever there in the first
place. Thus begins another action-packed adventure: the
present can be tense, but the past can be worse.
Pine’s twin sister Mercy was
taken from the room they
shared as young children.
Notorious serial killer Daniel
James Tor, was caught and
convicted of other murders,
and while lacking proof, Atlee
believes he knows what
happened to Mercy. Tor still
resides in a high-security
prison. Now, assigned to the
remote wilds of the western
US, Atlee is investigating a
case in the Grand Canyon
when a mule is found dead
with strange carvings on its
body. Its rider is missing. It
seems that Atlee will now
have to confront a new
monster and face the one of her nightmares.
Past Tense leads off this
month’s Soltalk Hotlist of
titles, some entirely new,
others moving into small
paperback format for the
first time or being reissued,
sometimes after years out of
print. All are due for
publication on dates in
November, with availability
in print this month or in
early December. The Hotlist
helps readers to plan and
budget for book ordering. Fire And Blood (l), by George RR Martin, is set 300 years
before the events in A Song
Of Ice And Fire, which
inspired the television series,
Game Of Thrones. Fire And
Blood is the definitive history
of the Targaryens in
Westeros as told by
Archmaester Gyldayn. It
chronicles the conquest that
united the Seven Kingdoms
under Targaryen rule
through to the Dance of the
Dragons, the Targaryen civil
war that nearly ended their
dynasty forever.
In Target Alex Cross (l), by
James Patterson, a US leader
has fallen, and the procession
route to the White House is
lined with thousands of mourners. None feels the loss of a
President more than Alex Cross, who has devoted his life to the
public good. A sniper’s bullet strikes a target in the heart of
Washington DC. Alex’s wife,
Bree Stone, newly elevated
chief of DC detectives, faces
an ultimatum: solve the case,
or lose her hard-won
position. The US Secret
Service and the FBI are also
in the race to find the
shooter. Alex is tasked by the
new President to take a
personal role with the FBI,
leading an investigation
unprecedented in scale and
scope. The Blue Salt Road (l), by
Joanne M Harris of ‘Chocolat’
fame, is a stunning fantasy
tale of love, loss and revenge,
set against a powerful
backdrop of adventure on the high seas and drama on the land.
It balances passion and loss, love and violence and draws on
nature and folklore to weave a modern mythology around a
nameless, wild young man. Passion drew him to a new world,
and trickery has kept him
there, without his memories
and separated from his own
people. But as he finds his
way in this dangerous new
life, so he learns that his
notions of home, and people,
might not be as fixed as he
believed. Illustrated by
Bonnie Helen Hawkins, this
is an original modern fairy
tale.
Long Road to Mercy (l), is
David Baldacci’s latest
blockbuster. It is 30 years
since FBI special agent Atlee If you are looking to gift a
book to a child, four new
titles could appeal.
Child of St Kilda (p), by Beth
52