More new bestsellers have hit the shelves

The Hunter by John Lescroart

Publishers Weekly

“How did your mother die?” For San Francisco PI Wyatt Hunt, that enigmatic text message triggers his biggest, and most personal, case—and it’s a great start to bestseller Lescroart’s outstanding fourth Hunt novel (after 2010’s The Treasure Club). Hunt, an orphan with few details of his birth parents, soon learns that his birth name was Wyatt Carson; that his mother, Margaret, was murdered; and that his father, Kevin, was charged with the crime but never convicted. He also receives, from the priest who married his parents, a letter from Kevin asserting his innocence. Lescroart deftly handles a large supporting cast and makes fine use of the city of San Francisco while cleverly incorporating a piece of real history into the narrative, the infamous Jonestown massacre in Guyana in 1978 (the “People’s Temple” leader Jim Jones had been active in San Francisco). This book succeeds on every level—as a mystery, as a thriller, and as an exploration of its appealing hero.

Locked On by Tom Clancy and Mark Greaney

From the Publisher

Tom Clancy's All-Star lineup is back. Jack Ryan, his son, Jack Jr., John Clark Ding Chavez and the rest of the Campus team are facing their greatest challenge ever.

Jack Ryan, Sr. has made a momentous choice. He's running for President of the United States again and thus giving up a peaceful retirement to help his country in its darkest hour. But he doesn't anticipate the treachery of his opponent, who uses trumped up charges to attack one of Ryan's closest comrades, John Clark.

Now, Clark is in a race against time and must travel the world, staying one step ahead of his adversaries, including a shadowy organization tasked to bring him in, all while trying to find who is behind this.

Meanwhile, Jack Ryan, Jr., Ding Chavez, Dominick Caruso and other members of the Campus-the top secret off-the-books intelligence agency founded by Jack Ryan during his first term in the White House-deal with a question of their own: Why is a Pakistani military officer meeting with Dagestani terrorists? The answer will ultimately lead to a desperate struggle, with nothing short of the fate of the world at stake.

Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right by Thomas C. Frank

Publishers Weekly

Frank’s fifth book spotlights America’s political shift to the right and its embrace of laissez-faire economics (“the dogma of the nation’s ruling class”) in an effort to figure out why so many harshly affected by the Great Recession are falling in line behind the banner of free market theory. One response is that the downtrodden are quick to “lash out at whoever is in power”—and the talking points of right wing pundits are crisp: “Limited government, fiscal responsibility, and free markets.” Of course, the culture wars haven’t ended, but they’re invisible in the platform of the Tea Party. While others continue to shed heat, rather than light, on such issues as gay marriage, fiscal messaging is the prevailing ethos. Sadly, Frank’s book ends before the

Occupy Wall Street movement took center stage across the United States and the world in fall 2011.