Thrills and chills continue in these new Bestsellers!

The Inner Circle by Brad Meltzer

Publishers Weekly –

A fascinating look at the hidden treasures of the National Archives is the one strength of this otherwise unsatisfying thriller. Archivist Beecher White, to impress childhood crush Clementine Kaye during a tour of the archives, shows her the "Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility" reserved for President Orson Wallace, who often visits the SCIF. The accidental discovery of a rare volume linked to George Washington starts White on a perilous journey involving the Culper Ring, a secret spy group reaching back to the nation's first president; Nico Hadrian, a failed presidential assassin confined in a mental institution; and a presidential secret entrusted only to a few of Wallace's closest friends. Kaye's ambiguous re-entry into White's life adds another challenge. Bestseller Meltzer (The Book of Lies) fails to dial up much suspense with too many sketchy characters and a plot that never lives up to its promise, but the December 2 debut of his History Channel show, Brad Meltzer's Decoded, is sure to win him new fans.





Damage by John Lescroart

Publishers Weekly –

San Francisco homicide chief Abe Glitsky takes on a particularly nasty villain in Lescroart's hair-raising 16th novel featuring Glitsky and lawyer Dismas Hardy (after A Plague of Secrets). After Ro Curtlee serves 10 years of a long prison sentence for the rape and murder of one of his family's housekeepers, an appeals court orders a new trial and his wealthy and powerful parents post bail of million for his release. Cocky and ruthless, Curtlee eliminates one of the witnesses who testified against him and threatens Glitsky's family, while his parents, who own San Francisco's #2 newspaper, and their favorite columnist, Sheila Marrenas, apply other kinds of pressure to new DA Wes Farrell, among others. Either influence or lack of hard evidence frustrates every move Glitsky and his colleagues make to try to nail Curtlee. What at first appears to be a stunningly stark black-and-white portrayal reveals many subtle shadings by book's end.

Grave Secret (Harper Connelly Series #4) by Charlaine Harris

Publishers Weekly –

In bestseller Harris's solid fourth Harper Connelly mystery (after 2007's An Ice Cold Grave), Harper, who can not only locate bodies but also deduce the cause of death, and her stepbrother, Tolliver Lang, are summoned to Texas by members of the wealthy Joyce family, who are looking for answers behind the death of their patriarch, Rich. But when an act of violence threatens the pair, Harper realizes that the circumstances behind Rich's death may have ties to her own troubled childhood in nearby Texarkana. Further complicating matters, Tolliver and his drug addict father, who's recently been paroled, have an uneasy reunion that stirs up long-buried memories about the unsolved disappearance eight years earlier of Harper's older sister, Cameron. Harper and Tolliver's relationship, which blossomed into romance in Ice Cold, is the beating heart of the story and helps smooth over the somewhat rushed and questionably coincidental plot.