Reported by Garry
ShadowMan: An Elusive Psycho Killer and the Birth of FBI Profiling by Ron Franscell is a fascinating look at the beginning of the field of psychological profiling in murder investigations. In 1973, a seven-year-old girl went missing from her family’s camping tent in Montana. Someone cut the tent and snatched the girl, leaving no traces at all. The largest manhunt in Montana ensued, led by the FBI. Special Agents Howard Teten and Patrick Mullany had come up with the radical new idea that killers had patterns in their behavior that could be tracked and used to identify them. The 1973 case was the testbed for this new idea which has now become a standard tool in the forensic investigation kit. Packed with information, this book is both humorous and terrifying in equal measures. Our reader stated how she couldn’t put this book down and was amazed by how much she learned from this true-crime case that gave birth to an entire field of investigation. NH
Witch and Wizard by James Patterson, the first in the five book Witch and Wizard series, is a fun, fantastical romp, according to our reader. Wisty and Whit Allgood are siblings in a dystopian future where the government has seized control of all aspects of daily life, and are kidnapping children – including Wisty and Whit, who thought they were just normal teenagers, until their (highly illegal) magical powers start to show. Can these two survive, and overthrow the evil regime? Read it to find out! MC
The Matchmaker: A Spy in Berlin by Paul Vidich is a historical thriller set in 1989 Germany. Anne Simpson is an American whose seemingly normal marriage to Stefan, a charming German piano tuner, comes crashing down when Stefan disappears and the CIA and West German Intelligence arrive at her doorstep. Stefan was not a piano tuner; he was a spy for East Germany with ties to the KGB. Anne is now in a race to find the Matchmaker – the East German mastermind of a network of Stasi spies — before he escapes to Moscow in the turmoil surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall. Tightly written with believable characters and gripping suspense, our reader thoroughly enjoyed this Cold War spy story and recommends it highly. ML
Our next reader read both Never Let Me Go and Klara and the Sun by Nobel Prize winner Kazuo Ishiguro. Our reader noted how Ishiguro writes mainly about the relationships between adults and how complex and forceful his prose can be. Never Let Me Go is set in a dystopian parallel universe where clones are raised in isolated “boarding schools” until they are old enough that their organs can be harvested for transplant into the “original” body. Klara and the Sun explores the relationship between Klara, an “Artificial Friend,” and the teenage girl she was purchased to accompany. Both of these works look at the dangers of technology to human lives, the future of our world, and what it means to be “human.” WJ
Also Mentioned:
The Emergency: A Year of Healing and Heartbreak in a Chicago ER by Thomas Fisher
To Govern the Globe: World Orders and Catastrophic Change by Alfred W. McCoy
The Middle of Somewhere: An Artist Explores the Nature of Virginia by Suzanne Stryk
How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for our Times by Pablo Servigne
Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘Em Dead by Elle Cosimano
Book Girl: A Journey through the Treasures and Transforming Power of a Reading Life by Sarah Clarkson
Sister Stardust by Jane Green
Scoundrel: How a Convicted Murderer Persuaded the Women Who Loved Him, the Conservative Establishment, and the Courts to Set Him Free by Sara Weinman
Never Simple by Liz Sheier
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