Crispin Guest is a disgraced knight, stripped of his rank and his honor - but left with his life - for plotting against Richard II.  Having lost his bethrothed, his friends, his patrons and his position in society.  With no trade to support him and no family willing to acknowledge him, Crispin has turned to the one thing he still has - his wits - to scrape a living together on the mean streets of London.  In 1383, Guest is called to the compound of a merchant - a reclusive mercer who suspects that his wife is being unfaithful and wants Guest to look into the matter.  Not wishing to sully himself in such disgraceful, dishonorable business but in dire need of money, Guest agrees and discovers that the wife is indeed up to something, presumably nothing good.  But when he comes to inform his client, he is found dead - murdered in a sealed room, locked from the inside.  Now Guest has come to the unwanted attention of the Lord Sheriff of London and most recent client was murdered while he was working for him.  And everything seems to turn on a  religious relic - a veil reported to have wiped the brow of Christ - that is now missing. From Publishers Weekly Crispin Guest, a former knight who was stripped of his rank after being implicated in a plot against Richard II, now makes his living as a tracker, the medieval equivalent of a PI, in Westerson's promising debut, set in 1384 London. Nicholas Walcote, a wealthy cloth merchant, hires Guest to investigate his younger and attractive wife, Philippa, whom he suspects of infidelity. Guest's cursory probe is derailed after his client is found stabbed to death in a locked room. Philippa retains Guest's services to find her husband's killer, who may have been motivated by Walcote's possessing a legendary relic reputed to force those in its proximity to tell the truth. While featuring a hard-boiled medieval sleuth instead of a monk or a nun may not be quite as groundbreaking as the author suggests in her afterword (e.g., Susanna Gregory's 14th-century Cambridge physician Matthew Bartholomew), this is nonetheless an entertaining read that makes the prospect of sequels welcome.

“The president of the United States . . . is missing.”With these words, New York Times journalist J. B. Collins, reporting from the scene of a devastating attack by ISIS terrorists in Amman, Jordan, puts the entire world on high alert. The leaders of Israel and Palestine are critically injured, Jordan’s king is fighting for his life, and the U.S. president is missing and presumed captured.As the U.S. government faces a constitutional crisis and Jordan battles for its very existence, Collins must do his best to keep the world informed while working to convince the FBI that his stories are not responsible for the terror attack on the Jordanian capital. And ISIS still has chemical weapons . . .Struggling to clear his name, Collins and the Secret Service try frantically to locate and rescue the leader of the free world before ISIS’s threats become a catastrophic reality.

A TIDAL WAVE IS FAST APPROACHING. AND THAT'S THE LEAST OF HER WORRIES. Wilderness guide Kate Garrett is having the bad day of the century. The worst storm in Florida's history is about to hit land, and she's been taken hostage by a gang of escaped convicts. Worse, her children are stranded on low ground and her ex-husband can't be reached. Now Kate must race against time to guide the prisoners through the swamp and save her children from the tidal wave. She can't afford to be distracted by Shane Warren, the powerful convict who claims to be helping her, even as he keeps her from escaping. But Kate does have one advantage: there's no deadlier force in nature than a mother fighting for her young....

Proud heiress on a losing streak?Paparazzi darling Caroline Sullivan is hiding a secret behind her dazzling-yet-inscrutable smile. Her ex-flame, Russian businessman Roman Kazarov, is back on the scene—is he seeking revenge for her humiliating rejection or just to take possession of her troubled business?Sources confirm that the cutthroat Kazarov is seriously ruffling the pristine feathers of the normally cautious Caro…. Rumors of scorching-hot secret trysts are flying, but only one thing is certain—in this supreme game of wills only one person can win, and Roman believes he holds the ace….

Winner: American Society of Journalists and Authors Outstanding Book Award, General Nonfiction, 2006. Here, culled from extensive interviews and research, is the achingly dramatic story of the end of the Vietnam War as told from both sides of the conflict. Included are never-before-revealed accounts from people of every level involved in the war: NVA and Viet Cong soldiers, U. S. embassy personnel, guerilla commanders, civilians, generals, double agents— and leaders from both sides including former president Gerald Ford and North Vietnamese military commander General Tran Van Tra. From the first hints of the final offensive from the north, to the gut-wrenching hours before the fall of Saigon when a brave pilot defied his orders to return to base and rescued the last five Marines from the rooftop of the U. S. embassy, Goodnight Saigon is an unforgettable narrative of war, and those who live with its aftermath.

Kumiko doesn't like going to bed. She can't sleep, and the reason she can't sleep is because of the giant dragon that sits outside her bedroom window, every single night. So one night she plucks up the courage to ask the dragon to leave, not knowing that the truth she is about to discover is more thrilling than anything she could ever have imagined. This delightful story will take the young readers on a soaring dragon adventure, as Kumiko discovers a strength she never even knew she had.

From Publishers WeeklyThis sprawling text reconstructs the history of civilization in order to illuminate the importance of water in human development from the first civilizations of the Fertile Crescent and the Indus River Valley to the present. Solomon (The Confidence Game) advances a persuasive argument: the prosperity of nations and empires has depended on their access to water and their ability to harness water resources. The story he tells is familiar, but his emphasis on water is unique: he shows how the Nile's flood patterns determined political unity and dynastic collapses in Egypt. He suggests that the construction of China's Grand Canal made possible a sixth-century reunification that eluded the Roman Empire. Finally, he attributes America's rise to superpower status to such 20th-century water innovations as the Panama Canal and Hoover Dam. Solomon surveys the current state of the world's water resources by region, making a compelling case that the U.S. and other leading democracies have untapped strategic advantages that will only become more significant as water becomes scarcer. (Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistStarred Review Solomon’s unprecedented, all-encompassing, and resounding inquiry into the science and politics of water is predicated on two incontrovertible yet disregarded facts: water is essential to life and civilization. After elucidating water’s defining role in the planet’s climate and quantifying the earth’s limited supply of freshwater, Solomon describes in vivid detail the water technologies of the ancient river societies of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Assyria. On to Rome and its world-altering aqueducts and advanced sanitation, a crucial subject covered in depth when Solomon turns to nineteenth-century London, after telling the fascinating story of China’s bold and transforming waterworks. By the time Solomon reaches America and its water-powered industrialization, it becomes clear that the technological marvels of one era deliver the environmental challenges of the next. The triumphs of water harnessed, therefore, give way to accounts of water polluted and squandered. Solomon shares sobering revelations about the harsh disparities between the lives of those who have water and those who don’t, reports on the cruel consequences of today’s water scarcities, and assesses the potential for a nightmarish impending freshwater famine. Seeking to inspire us to place a higher value on water and establish wiser approaches to its use, Solomon has created a brilliantly discursive and compelling epic of humankind and earth’s most vital and precious resource. --Donna Seaman

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