When a preacher who has lost his faith suddenly discovers that he possesses the ability to heal and perform miracles, he becomes a reluctant participant in the battle against evil as he sets out to save a teenage girl and stop the occupants--who may be demons--of a mysterious car.

Symphony (Book One of the Milennium Quartet)

Literature & Fiction

GRANT, CHARLES L.

United States

Forge / Tom Doherty

1862. On an ordinary day in Mormon Utah, Asie Taylor is swept away by a flash flood. Under the raging waters he hears mysterious and celestial music. He is surprised to regain consciousness at all, and astonished to wake up in the arms of an Asian woman. Have I died? Have I been transported to China? Soon he realizes his old life has been swept utterly away, and he must go exploring in this strange new world. Asie journeys with unlikely companions. Sun Moon is a Tibetan Buddhist nun, abducted and brought to the United States for purposes of prostitution. Sir Richard Burton is the famous British explorer of Africa, an addict and a madman. The new friends go adventuring in a world that is an exhilarating fusion of fiction, reality, and historical characters: As they dash from Salt Lake City across the deserts and mountains to the mining camps of the Comstock Lode and to California, Brigham Young protects them, Samuel Clemens befriends them, and the Destroying Angel of the Mormon Church, Porter Rockwell, does his best to kill them. On his great journey, Asie seeks to discover why he was named the Rock Child, what it means to be a man of color in America, what spiritual path will suit him, who his people are, and how to find his true home.

The Rock Child, A Novel of a Journey

Win, Blevins

When Judge Isaac Parker first arrived in Fort Smith, Arkansas, the town had thirty saloons and one bank. Inheriting a corrupt court and a lawless territory roughly the size of Great Britain, he immediately put the residents on notice by publicly hanging six convicted felons at one time. For the next two decades, his stern and implacable justice brought law and order to the West . . . and made him plenty of enemies. As the sole law on the untamed frontier, Parker tried civil and criminal cases throughout the Western District of Arkansas and the Indian Nations. Only God and the president had the power to challenge Parker. His severe judgments scandalized Washington and the Eastern press, and took an onerous toll on his private life, but the “Hanging Judge of the Border” never flinched from his duty. Over the years, he and his marshals, dubbed “Parker’s Men,” ran up against some of the most colorful and dangerous outlaws the West had to offer, including the notorious Dalton Gang; Belle Star, the Bandit Queen; the murderous Cherokee Bill; and Ned Christie, a vengeful Indian who carried on a private war against the U.S. government for seven years. The Branch and the Scaffold is a fascinating depiction of Judge Parker’s life and times, as told by a five-time winner of the Spur Award.

The Branch and the Scaffold: The True Story of the West's Hanging Judge

Estleman, Loren D.

Genre Fiction

Midnight Louie, alley-cat extraordinaire and Las Vegas's hairiest, hard-boiled PI, finds himself literally walking a tightrope when a fabulous museum opening at one of Sin City's swankiest casinos is marred by a little thing like death. 
Louie's loyal roommate, feisty PR freelancer Temple Barr, has snagged the commission of her career: repping the opening exhibition of the Russian Czars' priceless treasures at the New Millennium Hotel, the apex of which is the Czar Alexander Scepter, a priceless jewel-encrusted artifact. 
Trouble is, the hotel has booked an aerial magic act right above the exhibition. 
Temple works at a breakneck pace to coordinate this logistical nightmare. Tragedy ensues when a performer dies right above where the collection will be displayed and the police threaten to shut everything down. But the word "no" isn't one heard often in Las Vegas when money is involved and the show (or shows) must go on. Just as things seem to be working perfectly, another performer dies…and the scepter vanishes. The culprits could be international art thieves, Russian mafioso, or Chechen rebels out to embarrass the current Russian government. 
Or it could be someone else, perhaps someone Temple knows all too well . . . .
Temple and Louie both have enemies in the magic act--evil magician Shangri-La and her curare-nailed performing Siamese cat, Hyacinth--and on the ground--ever-suspicious homicide lieutenant Carmen Molina, who's itching to pin the heist and murders on Temple's significant other, ex-magician and sometimes ex-spy Max Kinsella, now oddly AWOL. Worse, as Temple and Louie's separate investigations bring them both close to the truth, it's clear that someone has decided to hang them out to die too. 
Can fancy footwork and detection save our intrepid duo? Find out in Carole Nelson Douglas's Cat in a Quicksilver Caper.

Cat in a Quicksilver Caper: A Midnight Louie Mystery

Douglas, Carole Nelson

Contemporary

Zero Coupon

Takeover artist Willy Saxon returns from prison to Wall Street with a ruthless and beautiful accomplice, an airtight plan, and a tax-free bond worth billions

ERDMAN, PAUL