Friday, January 14, 2011

Dean Koontz Readalikes

Did you really like Dean Koontz's books like What the Night Knows? Are you looking for other authors like him? Check out these suggested titles below! If you're a member of an OCLN library then just click on the link to place it on hold.

Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
"I believe there is another man inside every man, a stranger . . ." writes Wilfred Leland James in the early pages of the riveting confession that makes up "1922," the first in this pitch-black quartet of mesmerizing tales from Stephen King. For James, that stranger is awakened when his wife, Arlette, proposes selling off the family homestead and moving to Omaha, setting in motion a gruesome train of murder and madness. In "Big Driver," a cozy-mystery writer named Tess encounters the stranger along a back road in Massachusetts when she takes a shortcut home after a book-club engagement. Violated and left for dead, Tess plots a revenge that will bring her face-to-face with another stranger: the one inside herself. "Fair Extension," the shortest of these tales, is perhaps the nastiest and certainly the funniest. Making a deal with the devil not only saves Dave Streeter from a fatal cancer but provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment. In "A Good Marriage," Darcy Anderson looks for batteries in the garage when her husband of more than twenty years is away on one of his business trips. Her toe knocks up against a box under a worktable and she discovers the stranger inside her husband. It’s a horrifying discovery, rendered with bristling intensity, and it definitively ends a good marriage.

The Panic Zone by Rick Mofina
A car crashes in Wyoming: A young mother is thrown clear of the devastating car crash. Dazed, she sees a figure pull her infant son from the flames. Or does she? The police believe it's a case of trauma playing cruel tricks on the mind, until the night the grief-stricken woman hears a voice through the phone: "Your baby is alive."

A bomb explodes in a Rio de Janeiro café: The heinous act kills ten people, including two journalists with the World Press Alliance news agency. Jack Gannon's first international assignment is to find out whether his colleagues were innocent victims or targets who got too close to a huge story.

A Caribbean cruise ends in horror: Doctors are desperate to identify the mysterious cause of a cruise ship passenger's agonizing death. They turn to the world's top scientists, who fear that someone has resurrected their long-buried secret research. Research that is now being used as a deadly weapon.

With millions of lives at stake, experts work frantically against time. And as an anguished mother searches for her child and Jack Gannon pursues the truth, an unstoppable force hurls them all into the panic zone.

Edge by Jeffery Deaver
Shock waves of alarm ripple through the clandestine agency when Washington, D.C., police detective Ryan Kessler inexplicably becomes the target of Henry Loving, a seasoned, ruthless “lifter” hired to obtain information using whatever means necessary. While Loving is deft at torture, his expertise lies in getting an “edge” on his victim—leverage—usually by kidnapping or threatening family until the “primary” caves under pressure. The job of keeping the Kessler family alive falls to a man named Corte, a senior federal protection officer known as a “shepherd.” Uncompromising, relentlessly devoted to protecting those in his care and a passionate board game aficionado, he applies brilliant gaming strategy to his work. For Corte, the reappearance of Loving—the man who, six years earlier, had tortured and killed someone close to him—is also an opportunity to avenge his friend’s death. The assignment soon escalates into a fast-paced duel between Corte and Loving, a dangerous volley of wits and calculated risks.

Want more readalikes on different authors? Send your requests/suggestions/comments to me at aboivin@ocln.org

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Dreams, Magic and Tales of Mystery

I Still Dream About You by Fannie Flagg
Meet Maggie Fortenberry, a still beautiful former Miss Alabama. To others, Maggie's life seems practically perfect -- she's lovely, charming, and a successful real estate agent at Red Mountain Realty. Still, Maggie can't help but wonder how to wound up in her present condition. She had been on her hopeful way to becoming Miss America and realizing her childhood dream of someday living in one of the elegant old homes on top of Red Mountain, with the adoring husband and 2.5 children, but then something unexpected happened and changed everything. Maggie has heartbreaking secrets in her past, but through a strange turn of events she soon discovers, quite by accident, that everybody, it seems -- dead or alive -- has at least one little secret.

Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie
With the same dazzling imagination and love of language that has made Salman Rushdie one of the great storytellers of our time, Luka and the Fire of Life revisits the magic-infused, intricate world he first brought to life in the modern classic Haroun and the Sea of Stories. This breathtaking new novel centers on Luka, Haroun's younger brother, who must save his father from certain doom. Rashid Khalifa, the legendary storyteller of Kahani, has fallen into a deep sleep from which no one can wake him. To keep his father from slipping away entirely, Luka must travel to the Magic World and steal the ever-burning Fire of Life.

Give Me Your Heart: Tales of Mystery and Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates
The need for love -- obsessive, self-destructive, unpredictable -- takes us to forbidden places, as in the chilling world of Oates new collection of stories. In these powerful tales, children veer beyond their parents' control, wives and husbands wake up to find that they hardly knew each other, haunted pasts intrude upon uncertain futures, and those who bring us the most harm may be nearest at hand.

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Best Plays, Seashore and Medical Myths

The Best American Short Plays 2008-2009 edited by Barbara Parisi
Applause Theatre & Cinema Books is proud to continue to publish the series that for decades has been the standard for excellence for one-act plays in America. The sixteen plays in this volume deal with complex social issues and confront some of Life's most difficult junctures.

The Naturalist's Guide to the Atlantic Seashore by Scott Shumway
This is the ultimate guide to the diverse ecosystems of the Atlantic Coast from the Gulf of Maine to Cape Hatteras. From the tiniest diatom found in coastal tide pools to the giant baleen whales cruising the vast ocean, the species and habitats that make up the character of the seashore are described in detail for the enjoyment and enlightenment of beachgoers of all stripes.

Doctor Chopra Says Medical Facts & Myths Everyone Should Know by Dr. Sanjiv Chopra
Once upon a time, maintaining your health seemed relatively simple. But today we're barraged with a never-ending array of conflicting medical advice. It's all terribly confusing and most of us aren't sure what news we can trust and what we can ignore. Dr. Chopra has teamed up with renowned cardiologist Dr. Alan Lotvin to give you the most cutting-edge medical research available. They explain how to tell the difference between true medical news and irrevelant media hype.

Friday, December 17, 2010

Cats, Memoirs, and FBI agents

Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme by Carole Nelson Douglas
Temple Barr, publicist extraordinaire, is itching to bring off her most dangerous and exciting assignment, helping to launch an endeavor that many a Vegas showman has dreamed of -- creating a Las Vegas mob museum/casino. A buried safe rumored to contain scads of mob loot is found underneath one of the hotels during the renovations and Temple has a grand scheme to do a live media event surrounding the opening of this portal to the past. They discover there isn't money to be had...but there is a two-day-old body wearing a white tie and tails!

The True Memoirs of Little K by Adrienne Sharp
Exiled in Paris, tiny, one-hundred-year-old Mathilde Kschessinska sits down to write her memoirs before all that she believes to be true is forgotten. A lifetime ago, she was the vain, ambitious, impossibly charming prima ballerina assoluta of the tsar's Russian Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg. Now, as she looks back on her tumultuous life, she can still recall every slight she ever suffered, every conquest she ever made. Kschessinska 's riveting storytelling soon thrusts us into a world lost to time.

The Passage by Justin Cronin
First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a world forever altered. As civilization crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary: FBI agent Brad Wolgast, a good man haunted by what he's done in the line of duty; and six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte, a refugee from the doomed scientific project.

Friday, December 10, 2010

Noir, New Yorker, and Scotland

The Gordian Knot by Bernhard Schlink
Georg Polger ekes out a lonely living as a freelance translator in the south of France, until he is approached by a certain Mr. Bulnakov, who has an intriguing proposition: Georg is to take over a local translation agency and finish a project left by the previous owner, who died in a mysterious accident. The money is right and then there is the matter of Bulnakov's secretary Francoise, with whom Georg has fallen hopelessly in love.

20 Under 40: Stories from the New Yorker edited by Deborah Treisman
This book presents twenty young writers, chosen by The New Yorker, whose work will help define the future of American letters. The range of voices assembled here is extraordinary: from lyrical realism to satirical comedy, from sociopolitical narratives of immigration and identity to genre-bending metaphysical fantasies.

Queen Hereafter by Susan Fraser King
Shipwrecked on the Scottish coast, a young Saxon princess and her family--including the outlawed Edgar of England--ask sanctuary of the warrior-king Malcolm Canmore, who shrewdly sees the political advantage. He promises to aid Edgar and the Saxon cause in return for the hand of Edgar's sister, Margaret in marriage. A foreign queen in a strange land, Margaret adapts to life among the barbarian Scots, bears princes, and shapes the fierce warrior Malcolm into a sophisticated ruler. Yet even as the king and queen build a passionate and tempestuous partnership, the Scots distrust her. When her husband brings Eva, a Celtic bard, to court as a hostage for the good behavior of the formidable Lady MacBeth, Margaret expects trouble. Instead, an unlikely friendship grows between the queen and her bard.

Friday, December 3, 2010

Cold Dawn

Cold Dawn by Carla Neggers
The small town of Black Falls, Vermont, finally feels safe again -- until search-and-rescue expert Rose Cameron discovers a body, burnt almost beyond recognition. Almost. Rose is certain that she knows the victims identity...and that his death was no accident.

Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck
By the side of a lake in Brandenburg, a young architect builds the house of his dreams - a summerhouse with wrought-iron balconies, stained-glass windows the colour of jewels, and a bedroom with a hidden closet, all set within a beautiful garden. But the land on which he builds has a dark history of violence that began with the drowning of a young woman in the grip of madness, and that grows darker still over the course of the century. With this haunting evocation of a home and its buried secrets, layer after layer of German history reveals the beating heart and unique memories that lie beneath.

Men of Bronze by Scott Oden
It is 526 B.C. and the empire of the Pharoahs is dying, crushed by the weight of its own antiquity. Decay riddles its cities, infects its aristocracy, and weakens its armies. While across the expanse of Sinai, like jackals drawn to a carrion, the forces of the King of Persia watch and wait. Leading the fight to preserve the soul of Egypt is Hasdrabal Barca, Pharoah's deadliest killer. Caught in the midst of this violence is Jauharah, a slave in the House of Life. Though her hands tend to Barca's wounds, it is her spirit that heals and changes him. He is now a man motivated as much by love as anger. Nevertheless honor and duty have bound Barca to the fate of Egypt.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Tales of Redemption, Knitting, and World War II

Dear Mrs. Fitzsimmons: Tales of Redemption from an Irish Mailbox by Greg Fitzsimmons
Greg Fitzsimmons has made a lot of what appear to be bad decision. It's what he was raised to do. Most parents would hide or destroy any evidence so clearly demonstrating their child's failures, but - lucky for us - Greg Fitzsimmon's family has preserved each mistake in its original envelope like a trophy in a case, lest he ever forget where he came from.

Stitch 'N Bitch Superstar Knitting: Go Beyond the Basics by Debbie Stoller
Take your knitting to the next level! Learn intarsia knitting in a single setting. Work Fair Isle with a smile. Knit lace with grace, and don't freak when it's time to steek. Plus cable, double knitting, beading, embroidery, how to work short rows, and useful cast-ons, bind-offs, increases and decreases.



Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand
On a May afternoon in 1943, an Army Air Forces bomber crashed into the Pacific Ocean and disappeared, leaving only a spray of debris and a slick of oil, gasoline, and blood. Then, on the ocean surface, a face appeared. It was that of a young lieutenant, the plane's bombardier, who was struggling to a life raft and pulling himself aboard. So began one of the most extraordinary odysseys of the Second World War.