Popular authors can be found @ your library

The Drop by Michael Connelly

Publishers Weekly -

In Edgar-winner Connelly’s compulsively readable and deeply satisfying 17th Harry Bosch novel (after 2010’s The Reversal), Harry, still a member of the LAPD’s “Open-Unsolved Unit,” pursues two investigations. A recently unearthed DNA hit connects the 1989 murder of a young woman with Clayton Pell, a convicted sexual predator. But Pell couldn’t have committed the crime because he was eight years old at the time. Meanwhile, Irv Irving, a city councilman and LAPD nemesis, wants Harry to look into the apparent suicide of his 46-year-old son, George, a well-connected lobbyist. The case smacks of politics (“high jingo,” Harry calls it), but he and partner David Chu do a by-the-book investigation to determine whether George fell from the seventh floor of the Chateau Marmont or was pushed. All of Connelly’s considerable strengths are on display: the keen eye for detail and police procedure, lots of local L.A. color, clever plotting, and—most important—the vibrant presence of Harry Bosch.

Explosive Eighteen by Janet Evanovich

From the publisher -

Bounty hunter Stephanie Plum’s life is set to blow sky high when international murder hits dangerously close to home, in this dynamite novel by Janet Evanovich.
 
Before Stephanie can even step foot off Flight 127 Hawaii to Newark, she’s knee deep in trouble. Her dream vacation turned into a nightmare, and she’s flying back to New Jersey solo. Worse still, her seatmate never returned to the plane after the L.A. layover. Now he’s dead, in a garbage can, waiting for curbside pickup. His killer could be anyone. And a ragtag collection of thugs and psychos, not to mention the FBI, are all looking for a photograph the dead man was supposed to be carrying.
 
Only one other person has seen the missing photo—Stephanie Plum. Now she’s the target, and she doesn’t intend to end up in a garbage can. With the help of an FBI sketch artist Stephanie re-creates the person in the photo. Unfortunately the first sketch turns out to look like Tom Cruise, and the second sketch like Ashton Kutcher. Until Stephanie can improve her descriptive skills, she’ll need to watch her back.

Gideon's Corpse by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child

Publishers Weekly -

Fans of Preston and Child’s bestselling Aloysius Pendergast novels (Relic, etc.) may want to take a pass on the unremarkable second Gideon Crew thriller (after 2011’s Gideon’s Sword), whose lead could be cut-and-pasted into any number of books by less gifted genre writers. A rare medical disorder has left Crew, a private contractor for the shadowy Effective Engineering Solutions, with just 11 months to live, but he can’t resist an opportunity to defuse a hostage situation in Queens. The hostage-taker, Reed Chalker, had worked with Crew at Los Alamos, and the FBI hopes Crew can calm Chalker, who believes the government is beaming rays into his head. The resolution of the standoff leads to fears that Chalker provided a weapons-grade nuclear core to Islamic terrorists. The unexciting action sequences that follow, including a duel with chain saws, fall well short of the authors’ usual high standard.