PANDEMIC – ROBIN COOK

In New York City, a young, seemingly healthy woman is struck down by a respiratory attack as she heads home on the subway. By the time she arrives in Manhattan, she’s dead. She ends up on forensic pathologist Jack Stapleton’s table, which reveals surprising findings about the cause of death. Fearing the woman’s case could be the first in a severe outbreak of a deadly airborne virus, Jack works in overdrive for a diagnosis. When further cases occur round the city, and then in LosAngeles, London and Rome, Jack enters a race against time to discover the link that connects all the victims before it’s too late….

SLEEP – C.J.TAYLOR

All Anna wants is to be able to sleep. But paralyzing insomnia, terrifying nightmares and memories of that horrendous horrific day are making it impossible. If only she didn’t feel so guilty…. To escape the past, Anna takes a job at a hotel on the remote Scottish island of Rum. Yet even when seven guests join her, what started as a retreat from the world turns into a deadly nightmare. Each of the guests has a secret, but one of them is lying -about who they are and why they’re there. There’s a murderer staying in the Bay View Hotel. And they’ve set their sights on Anna.

HOME FROM HOME – VERONICA HENRY

Dragonfly Farm has been a home and haven for generations of Melchior – rivals to the Culbones, the family who live on the other side of the river. Life there is dictated by the seasons and cider-making, and everyone falls under its spell. For cousins Tabitha and Georgia, it has always been a home from home. When tragedy befalls their beloved Great-Uncle Mathew, it seems the place where they’ve always belonged might now be theirs. But the will reveals that a third of the farm has also been left to Gabriel Culbone, who has no idea what his connection to farm – or the Melchior family – can be.

WAR OF THE WOLF – BERNARD CORNWELL

Lord Uhtred of Bebbanburg knows that peace is far from reach. Though he has won the battle for his ancestral home, rebellion looms in Mercia and invading Norsemen appear at every turn. Surrounded and outnumbered by new enemies, Uhtred must call on all his skill and courage to survive, and prevent his beloved Northumbria from falling to the Viking hoards.

DVD Corner

THE WIFE – DV1307

Joan Castleman (Glenn Close) has spent forty years of sacrificing her own talent, dreams and ambitions to support her charismatic husband Joe (Jonathan Price) and his stellar literary career. Ignoring infidelities and excuses made in the cause of his art, but Joan has reached a turning point. On the eve of Joe’s Nobel Prize for literature, rewarding a spectacular body of work, Joan will confront the biggest sacrifice of her life and some long-buried secrets. The Wife is a poignant, funny and emotional journey, a celebration of womanhood, self-discovery and liberation, featuring a stunning cast that also includes Max Irons, Harry Lloyd, Annie Starke, Elizabeth McGovern and Christian Slater.

AS WE HEAD rapidly towards Easter and that time of year when most of our winter ‘swallows’ head back home, the Library nonetheless continues with its year-round programme of activities.

New books have been added to the shelves and we take our usual look at the pick of the crop, which this time round all feature big-selling women writers.

The Perfect Girlfriend

by Karen Hamilton

JULIETTE LOVES Nate. She will follow him anywhere. She’s even become a flight attendant for his airline so she can keep a closer eye on him. They are meant to be.

The fact that Nate broke up with her six months ago means nothing. Because Juliette has a plan to win him back. She is the perfect girlfriend. And she’ll make sure no one stops her from getting what she wants.

True love hurts, but Juliette knows it’s worth all the pain…

Tell Me A Secret

by Jane Fallon

HOLLY AND Roz spend most of their days together. They like the same jokes, loathe the same people and tell each other everything.

So when single mum Holly gets a shot at her dream job after putting everything on hold to raise her daughter, she assumes her friend will be dying to pop the champagne with her.

But is she just imagining things, or is Roz not quite as happy for her as she should be? As Holly starts to take a closer look at Roz’s life outside their friendship, she begins to discover a few things that don’t add up.

Who is the woman who claims to be her ally? Perhaps it was a mistake to tell Roz all her secrets. Because it takes two to forge a friendship. But only one to wage a war…

Old Baggage

by Lisa Evans

IT IS 1928. Matilda Simpkin is a woman with a thrilling past and an uneventful present. In her youth, she was a militant suffragette. Jailed five times, she marched, sang, smashed windows and heckled Winston Churchill.

But nothing since then has had the same depth the same excitement. Now in middle age, Mattie is looking for a new purpose.

Giving the wooden club she still keeps in her handbag a thoughtful twirl, she is struck by an idea – but what starts as a brilliantly idealist plan is derailed by a connection with Mattie’s militant past, one which begins to threaten every principle she stands for.

DVD Corner

Strangers

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PROFESSOR JONAH Mulray’s life is turned upside down when his wife Megan is killed in a car crash in Hong Kong. Although she lived and worked there half the year, Jonah’s never been. He lives a small, sheltered life, and his fear of flying has kept him in London.

But now he has no choice but to cross the ocean to identify the body of the woman he loved.

Not long after arriving in Hong Kong, Jonah makes a shocking discovery about his wife. Over the course of eight thrilling hours, Jonah is drawn deeper and deeper into a web of conspiracy as he comes to terms with this utterly alien and unfamiliar environment, battling to uncover the truth about his wife’s death.

ICONIC Scottish writer Ian Rankin’s 22nd novel in his series of Edinburgh thrillers featuring one of the genre’s most enduring characters, rogue detective John Rebus, is among the latest titles to be added to the Library collection.

Rebus novels have so far been translated into 22 languages worldwide and remain best sellers across the globe to an army of followers who eagerly gobble up every baleful twist and turn of the intricate and carefully-crafted tales.

In A House Of Lies

by Ian Rankin

A MISSING PRIVATE investigator is found, locked in a car hidden deep in the woods. Worse still – both for his family and the police – is that his body was in an area that had already been searched.

Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is part of a new inquiry, combing through the mistakes of the original case. There were always suspicions over how the investigation was handled and now – after a decade without answers – it’s time for the truth.

Every officer involved must be questioned, and it seems everyone on the case has something to hide, and everything to lose.

But there is one man who knows where the trail may lead – and that it could be the end of him. That man is John Rebus.

Dead Man’s Gift

by Simon Kernick

PART ONE IN A SERIES of three novels, sub-titled respectively Yesterday, Last Night and Today, sees MP Tim Horton’s seven-year-old son abducted by a gang of ruthless kidnappers, leaving behind the child’s brutally murdered nanny.

The gang’s demands are simple: the MP must sacrifice his own life to save his son’s. Enter ex-soldier Scope, British writer Kernick’s character who specialises in extracting people from impossible situations.

The Music Shop

by Rachel Joyce

FRANK OWNS A MUSIC shop. It’s 1988 and the shop is jam-packed with records of every speed, size and genre. Classical, jazz, punk – as long as it’s vinyl he sells it.

Then into his life walks Isle Brauchmann. Isle asks Frank to teach her about music.

His instinct is to turn and run. And yet he is drawn to this strangely still, mysterious woman with her pea-green coat and her eyes black as vinyl.

But Isle is not what she seems. And Frank has old wounds that threaten to reopen and a past he will never leave behind

Look For Me

by Lisa Gardner

A FAMILY HOME has become a crime scene. Four of them – mother, step-father, daughter, son – have been savagely murdered.

The fifth, the eldest daughter, is missing. Did she escape? Or is her absence evidence of something much more sinister?

Detective D.D. Warren is on the case, as is survivor-turned-avenger Flora Dane. Together they must make sense of the clues left behind by a 16-year-old girl who, as victim or suspect, is silently pleading, ‘Look for me.’

Villa of Secrets

by Patricia Wilson

FAMILY SECRETS were locked away during the dark days of war on the island of Rhodes. Now, it’s time to unlock the truth. When urgent news from her estranged family calls Rebecca Neumanner back to the beautiful island of her birth, she realises how little she knows of her grandmother’s past.

Her Bubba has never spoken about the Nazi occupation but there have always been whispers. What desperate measures did she take that terrible day when her family was ripped apart? Can the rumour she has blood on her own hands really be true? What will the discovery of long-hidden documents bring to light?

As Rebecca arrives on the island, reuniting with her sister, and bringing the promise of new life, it’s time for this broken family to come together and face their history. But Bubba has always intended to take her secrets to the grave…

Bitter Sun

by Beth Lewis

IN THE HEATWEAVE of 1971, four kids find a body by a lake and set out to solve a murder. But they dig too deep and ask too many questions.

Larson is a town reeling in the wake of the Vietnam draft, where the unrelentingly heat ruins the harvest, and the people teeter on the edge of ruin. As tension and paranoia run rife, rumours became fact, violence becomes reflex…

The unrest allows the dark elements of the close-knit farming community to rise and take control. And John, Jean. Gloria and Rudy are about to discover that secrets are best left buried…

The Last Secret of The Deverells

by Santa Montefiore

IN 1939, THE DARK CLOUDS of war are building over Europe; in Ireland, much has changed for the Deverill family, with a new generation is waiting in the wings. Bridie Doyle now Countess di Marcantonio and mistress of Castle Deverill, is far surpassing her humble roots.

But when the eyes of her dashing husband begin to stray, his identity is called into question, putting Bridie’s happiness at terrible risk.

Once Bridie’s best friend, Kitty Deverill lives nearby with her devoted husband Robert. Her world is suddenly rocked by the unexpected return of Jack O’Leary, her never forgotten first love. But, this time, might Jack’s heart belong to another?

Martha Wallace arrives in Dublin desperate to track down her birth mother. Her efforts thwarted, she has no one to turn to – until JP, scion of the Deverill’s, catches her eye.

DVD CORNER

Striking Out

Series One, DS444

WHEN DUBLIN-BASED solicitor Tara Rafferty discovers that her fiancé and fellow solicitor, Eric has been cheating on her with a colleague, she breaks up with him, quits her job at the prestigious law firm were they worked together, and begins accepting clients out of a makeshift office in the back of a cafe.

With the help of Ray her street-smart client-turned-assistant, private detective Meg Riley and friend and mentor Senior Counsel Vincent Pike, Tara takes on a series of cases that often put her against her former colleagues and the influential families of the legal establishment she is trying to leave behind.

Kingsman, The Secret Service

DVD DT607

A SUPER SECRET organisation recruits an unrefined but promising street kid into the agency’s ultra-competitive training programme just as a dire global threat emerges from a twisted tech genius.

The star-studded cast brings together Colin Firth, Michael Caine and Samuel L Jackson.

A LOVE STORY based on real events and set amidst the horrors of Auschwitz is among the latest batch of new titles added to the Library shelves.

Alongside them are a delightful tale set in Dublin that grew out of a Facebook page created by the authors, Emer Mclysaght and Sarah Breen and the latest offering from that doyen of the legal thriller, John Gresham.

Our DVD corner features the highly-charged political thriller, Bodyguard, a definite candidate for anyone’s must-see list.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz

by Heather Morris

IN 1942, LALE SOKOLOV arrived in Auschwitz-Birkenau. He was given the job of tattooing the prisoners marked for survival – scratching numbers into his fellow victims’ arms in indelible ink to create what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust.

Waiting in line to be tattooed, terrified and shaking, was a young girl. For Lale – a dandy, a Jack-the-lad, a bit of a chancer – it was love at first sight. And he was determined not only to survive himself, but to ensure this woman, Gita, did too.

So begins one of the most life-affirming, courageous, unforgettable and human stories of the Holocaust – the love story of the Tattooist of Auschwitz.

Oh My God What A Complete Aisling

by Emer Mclysaght & Sarah Breen

LIVING ‘DOWN HOME’ with Mammy and Daddy, Aisling commutes to her pensionable job in Dublin and stays two nights a week with her boyfriend of seven years, John.

But she wants more. She wants a ring on her finger. She wants the hen night with the Willy straws. She wants the big house with the utility room of her dreams.

When a week in Tenerife doesn’t result in a proposal, Aisling decides she’s had enough. It’s time for a change. A new start, a love triangle (well, more of a square) and some home truths force Aisling out of her comfort zone and into a life she never imagined.

The Rooster Bar

by John Grisham

THEY DREAMED OF CHANGING the world. Instead they’re facing a mountain of debt and no hope of a future. Mark, Todd and Zola are starting to realise it’s not even worth graduating from law school.

They’re better off hanging out at The Rooster Bar, plotting how to dodge the loan sharks. But maybe there’s another way. Maybe they know enough about the law to pass as lawyers.

Because it turns out the crooked hedge fund billionaire who owns their law school also runs the bank that arranged their student loans. And it’s time justice was served. Even if that means taking on the FBI…

DVD Corner

Bodyguard

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IF YOU MISSED this series on television it really is a must see. Set in and around the corridors of power, Bodyguard tells the story of David Budd (Richard Madden), a heroic but volatile war veteran now working as a Specialist Protection Officer for the Royalty and Special Protection branch of London’s Metropolitan Police Force.

When he is assigned to protect the ambitious and powerful Home Secretary Julia Montague (Keeley Hawkes), Budd finds himself torn between his duty and his beliefs. Responsible for her safety, could he become her biggest threat.

A BUMPER CROP of new titles added to the Library shelves in the run-up to Christmas include the atmospherically-charged Reservoir 13 by John McGregor, the equally intriguing The Word Is Murder by Anthony Horowitz, rightfully one of the hightest-earning writers in Britain, and Irish novelist Patricia Scanlan’s delightful Orange Blossom Days, which will resonate with many who have had dealings in their apartment block with El Presidente.

Then there’s the latest from the prolific pen of that master of the spy story, John Le Carre, a tangled tale of families by Joanna Nadin and a sparkling debut novel from Sarah Haywood.

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