Medusa, by Clive Cussler with Paul Kamprecos

The cold weather that marched in with the New Year kept Floridians and visitors from swimming, surfing, sailing or even a game of golf. What to do? Get out the sweaters, jackets and caps and head to your public library, find your favorite author, and check out his latest book!  If you like underwater sea adventures, Clive Cussler and Paul Kamprecos have cooperated on Medusa, a non-stop adventure with Kurt Austin, Joe Zambala, and others who have appeared before in the Dirk Pitt series. China and the United States are collaborating in a search for a vaccine that that stop a new strain of flu that is a global threat capable of killing millions without a cure. The U.S. has built an undersea lab in the Micronesian islands where the Blue Medusa are plentiful.    Austin is rescuing Zambala and a friend from the bottom of the ocean when their bathysphere has been crippled by an attack from a Chinese Triad, the lab is invaded and moved.  Austin puts his NUMA special unit on the case. Can they  find the missing lab before the Chinese take the completed vaccine to sell to the highest bidders?  The NUMA team have been in tight spots before but this time its not just their own skins to save–millions of lives are at stake!

Two years ago, when Cotton Malone, the U.S. Justice agent retired to become a used bookseller in Copenhagen, Denmark, he was befriended by  millionaire Henrik Thorvaldsen, who helped Malone reclaim his kidnapped son.  Now Thorvaldsen is calling for a favor in return.  Someone has killed his own son and he wants Malone to find the assassin! Malone and a young U.S. agent named Sam Collins set out to find the members of a Paris Club which uses its funds to manipulate the world economy. The Club is also trying to find the treasure which Napoleon Bonaparte looted from Egypt and hid in Paris.  Thorvaldsen’s vendetta forces Malone to choose between friend and country and present and past. He and Sam and other agents are forced to confront the villains Ashby, Eliza Larocque, and others and shoot it out in Paris. Will Thorvaldsen find the man who murdered his son Cai?  Will the code discovered in a book about Napoleon provide the clue to finding the treasure?  Berry’s latest adventure novel will keep readers spellbound and they will want to check out his earlier books as well.

The stockings are empty, the lights are put away, and the Christmas tree is at the curb waiting to be recycled. It’s time to relax with a good book and John Stanford has written a new one that features Virgil Flowers. Flowers has appeared in several novels about Lucius Davenport head of the Minnesota  Bureau of Criminal Apprension, but has also been the leading character in Dark of the Moon and Heat Lightening and now Rough Country. While Virgil is up in northern Minnesota at a fishing tournament, but he gets a call from his boss asking him to investigate a murder. A woman has shot as she was kayaking.  Virgil finds several connections between the victim, the people at the resort, and some local women such as a talented country music singer. He also learns that there have been two more murders in the last two years. Will there be more killings? Should Virgil worry about being the target of a cold-blooded killer?  As he investigates he finds plenty of suspects to choose from. Sandford’s tight plot and readable prose has  readers squirming on the edge of their chairs so get to the library or bookstore and help Virgil  Flowers find the murderer in  Rough Country today!

In 2005, the author’s entralling but sad memoir The Glass House about her childhood was published and received critical praise, ending up with some 2.5 copies sold in 23 countries. When the public asked for more about the author’s life, her mother Rose Mary Walls persuaded her to tell an even more gripping tale about her maternal grandmother, Lily Casey Smith. Since Walls wrote the story in the grandmother’s own  words, she called Half Broke Horses a “true life novel”.  Lily was born in West Texas in 1901. When she was six, Lily was helping her father break horses. She learned to ride, shoot, and when she was only fifteen rode her horse alone from Texas to Arizona to teach in a one-room schoolhouse. A born teacher, she also learned to drive a car and even took flying lessons. She married Jim Smith, owner of a gas station in 1030 when she was 29. They had two children, Little Jim and Rose Mary, and they became managers of a vast ranch owned by English businessmen. While living in Chicago working, Lily had a personal tragedy when her pregnant sister Helen committed suicide . Lily survived tornadoes, floods, the Great Depression, con men, bigots, and fools. She was smart, tough, and packed a pistol. Wall does her grandmother proud in this beautifully written story about a woman that won’t be corralled. Buy this or borrow it from your local library. Don’t miss Half-Broke Horses!

A Wish For Christmas, by Thomas Kinkaide and Katherine Spencer

Celebrate the holidays with the people of Cape Light, a small seaside village in New England ! The series began in 2002, written by Thomas Kinkaide, award-winning painter and bestselling author and writer Katherine Spenser. Each year there are new titles about Cape Light, especially at Christmas. In A Wish for Christmas,widower Jack Bradshaw has acquired a family, Julie and Kate, and there may be a new baby on the way. Jack’s son David, returned from military duty in Afghanistan, has come to Cape Cod to be reconciled with his father. Will they be able to mend their relationship? Will David be able to resolve the serious problems he never faced at home? This is a story of love and hope that will capture readers’ hearts, one that should make the holidays bright!  If you enjoyed A Wish for Christmas, you will want to read more about Cape Light and its people!

The Unfinished Gift, by Dan Walsh

Pastor Dan Walsh has created a timeless holiday tale that will appeal to all ages. The Unfinished Gift is set in 1943 during World War II. Seven-year-old Patrick has just learned that his mother has died in a terrible automobile accident. Patrick’s father has been lost-in-action in the army overseas. Patrick lives with his grandfather and is unhappy and can’t welp wanting his father back from war. The story describes Patrick’s Christmas list for only for three things: the safe return of his father, to leave his grandfather’s house, and to own the wooden soldier completely carved. Can Patrick’s prayers be answered?  Will his Christmas be a happy one? When readers get to the end of The Unfinished gift they  will want to give Patrick a big hug! Buy or borrow this book  or give it to a friend.

Huckabee, Arkansas Governor and one of the presidential candidates in the 2008 election has written twelve autobiographical Christmas stories about life in a sleepy, small town where he and President Bill Clinton were neighbors. Both men came from poor families but managed to rise to Arkansas Governor, and Clinton became the President of the United States. The twelve stories are powerful and taken from Huckbee’s  life growing up in Hope, Arkansas. In one of the stories,  Huckabee’s wife survived cancer of the spine where the doctor had to remove the tumor which had become wrapped around the spine!  The Huckabees were able to have three healthy children thanks to the successful operation which strengthened a twenty-year-old Huckabee’s faith in the God and the American dream.  Some of  the stories are sad,and the author writes in nostalgic, folksy language. Huckabee’s message is that hard work can move people from below the povery line to  economic and political success. A Simple Christmas is an inspiring book that would make an excellent Christmas gift for readers who enjoy autobiographies.

The seventeenth of Cornwell’s series featuring Kay Scarpetta, medical examiner for Massachusetts, has arrived in time for Christmas. It is actually the week before, and Scarpetta is volunteering time at the Office of the Medical Examiner in New York. The death of Toni Darien, found in the park, has Scarpetta upset. She is appearing on CNN’s TV program, The Crispin Report, and is quizzed thoroughly about the murder by the host, Carly Crispin. Online telephone questions, especially one by a former patient of Scarpetta’s husband, Benton Wesley, upset Scarpetta, and a suspicious package  she receives at home warns her off the case. An actor is accused of  necrophilia, and the millionairess Hannah Starr also is missing and feared dead. Scarpetta enlists Benton, her niece Lucy, and former policeman Pete Marino in the investigation. Will the murder be solved before Christmas, and will Scarpetta say yes to having her own TV show on CNN?  The Scarpetta Factor is a tightly-plotted thriller with more emphasis on character development and less on the autopsy room. Cornwell’s latest book would make a nice gift for Scarpetta fans!

Albom’s new nonfiction bestseller, Have A Little Faith, number one on The New York Times current, list of non-fiction books, is a perfect holiday gift for your friends! His previous books, Tuesdays With Morrie, and One Day At a Time, were bestsellers a few years back.  Have A Little Faith is centered around two men of faith who impressed Albom; Rabbi Albert Lewis who asked him to do his funeral eulogy, and Henry Covington, the pastor of an impoverished and dilapidated church in Detroit, Albom’s home town. Both are men of faith with Rabbi Lewis preparing for his afterlife, and Covington trying to help children have a life. Both influenced Albom, who moved between two worlds, Jewish and Christian, white and African-American, and suburban and inner-city. Albom’s story took a long time to write, he traveled to numerous places, interviewed all old and younger people, and analyzed the “us” versus “them” issues. He stressed the importance of friendships and the power of faith. Get this and read it, it could change your life!

Six years after his bestselling novels, Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code (2003), Dan Brown brings back Harvard professor Robert Langdon in another thriller that takes place in Washington, D.C. within a twelve-hour framework. Langdon has come at the request of his friend, Peter Solomon, to deliver a lecture at the Smithsonian Museum only to find that Solomon has disappeared, and his severed hand has been displayed gruesomely in the Capitol Rotunda. Aided by Solomon’s sister, Langdon has only a night to find Peter before a tatooed villain called Mal’akh, plans to murder him and destroy the Masonic Temple. Mal’akh has infiltrated the Masons and is trying to find a symbolic pyramid which is claimed to convey godlike power to the possessor. The plot moves very rapidly, despite Brown’s mixture of historical, geographical and religious factoids interspersed throughout the 509 pages. Langdon follows a trail of hidden clues and solves ingenius puzzles in order to find the lost symbol while being tracked all the way by the murderer. Readers can imagine what it is like to ride through the tunnels under the Library of Congress in electrified book trucks!  Brown has provided his fans with a very entertaining read that does for the nation’s capitol what earlier books did for Paris and Rome.