The Learned Owl Mystery Newsletter

The Learned Owl Book Shop, April 15, 2015
Kate's Corner

Saturday, May 2nd is Independent Bookstore Day! You are cordially invited to join us for a fun filled day of treats, trivia, and limited edition items only available in store that day. Don't worry if you won't be around. Bookstores all over the country are celebrating. I would encourage you to visit any indie bookstore you are near and let them know how happy you are they are around. You could even make a whole day of it and go on your own local bookstore treasure hunt.

For more information and a list of participating bookstores, go to indiebookstoreday.com.

Thank you for your support, and happy reading!
- Kate
Independent Bookstore Day
This month at
The Learned Owl

Friday, April 17, 4-5:30 PM (at The Owl)
Storytime with author/illustrator Jose Lucio. His children's book Heave Ho is a delightful story about teamwork and outside-the-box thinking.

Saturday, April 18, 1-3 PM (at The Owl)
Local author George McNulty will visit to sign and sell his first novel, The Trieste Intrigue, a fictionalized account of the 1981 plot to assassinate Pope John Paul II.

Tuesday, April 21, 7 PM
(at the Hudson Libray)
Regina Brett returns to discuss her newest book, God Is Always Hiring: 50 Lessons for Finding Fulfilling Work. Register for this free program online or call (330) 653-6658 x1010.

Wednesday, April 22, 6 PM (at Hudson High School)
Hudson Community First presents a panel presentation entitled No One Starts with Heroin. The Learned Owl will provide books for purchase at this event. [read more]

Saturday, April 25, 11 AM
(at The Owl)
Local children's author Deanna Voso will be reading and signing her children's book Lily's Bows. All in attendance will receive their own brightly colored bow to take home with them!

Saturday, April 25, 1 PM
(at The Owl)
Come meet Marlit Polsky and hear stories about her 16 years behind the cosmetic counter at Bloomingdale's. Her book, Rouge Hags, will have you laughing out loud!

Saturday, April 25, 2 PM
(at the Hudson Library)
Meet Gail Carson Levine, author of Ella Enchanted and other wonderful children's books. Register online for this event, or call (330) 653-6658.

Sun., April 26, 2-3:30 PM
(at The Owl)
Wimpy Kid party at The Learned Owl! We have all of the books in stock and will have activities and a special snack for everyone in attendance, so please call 330-653-2252 to register. [more]

Thursday, April 30, 7 PM (location TBA)
Our Book Club in a Bar will meet to discuss The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. Join us!

Sat., May 2 (at The Owl)
Mark your calendar and join us as we celebrate Independent Bookstore Day! Details coming soon.

Saturday, May 2,
11 AM-1 PM (at The Owl)
Meet children's author Tricia Springstubb, whose newest book, Moonpenny Island, is a Learned Owl staff pick!
New mysteries

Reykjavik Nights Reykjavik Nights: An Inspector Erlendur Novel by Arnaldur Indridason

[Minotaur Books, $25.99; available April 21]

In this prequel to his critically acclaimed Inspector Erlendur series, Arnaldur Indridason gives devoted fans a glimpse of Erlendur as a young, budding detective.
The beat on the streets in Reykjavik is busy: traffic accidents, theft, domestic violence, contraband. And an unexplained death. When a tramp he met regularly on the night shift is found drowned in a ditch, no one seems to care. But his fate haunts Erlendur and drags him inexorably into the strange and dark underworld of the city.
The writer whose work The New York Times describes as "having the sweep and consequence of epic story telling" has outdone himself in this multi-layered and masterful suspense story. His latest book in the series, Strange Shores, was nominated for the 2014 Crime Writers of America Gold Dagger Award.

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Every Fifteen MinutesEvery Fifteen Minutes by Lisa Scottoline

[St. Martin's Press, $27.99]

Dr. Eric Parrish is chief of the Psychiatric Unit at Havemeyer General Hospital outside of Philadelphia. Recently separated from his wife Alice, he is doing his best as a single dad to his seven-year-old daughter Hannah.

His unit at the hospital has just been named number two in the country and Eric has a devoted staff of doctors and nurses who are as caring as Eric is. But when he takes on a new patient, Eric's entire world begins to crumble. Seventeen-year-old Max has a terminally ill grandmother and is having trouble handling it. That, plus his OCD and violent thoughts about a girl he likes make Max a high risk patient. Max can't turn off the mental rituals he needs to perform every fifteen minutes that keep him calm. With the pressure mounting, Max just might reach the breaking point. When a girl is found murdered, Max is nowhere to be found. Next, one of his own staff turns on Eric in a trumped-up charge of sexual harassment. Is this chaos all random? Or is someone systematically trying to destroy Eric's life?

Scottoline's visceral thriller brings you into the grip of a true sociopath and shows you how, in the quest to survive such ruthlessness, every minute counts.

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Memory Man Memory Man by David Baldacci

[Grand Central Publishing, $28.00; April 21]
Amos Decker's life changed forever - twice.
The first time was on the gridiron. A big, towering athlete, he was the only person from his hometown of Burlington ever to go pro. But his career ended before it had a chance to begin. On his very first play, a violent helmet-to-helmet collision knocked him off the field for good, and left him with an improbable side effect: He can never forget anything.
The second time was at home nearly two decades later. Now a police detective, Decker returned from a stakeout one evening and entered a nightmare: His wife, young daughter, and brother-in-law had been murdered. Unable to forget a single detail from that horrible night, Decker finds his world collapsing around him. He leaves the police force, loses his home, and winds up on the street, taking piecemeal jobs as a private investigator when he can.
But over a year later, a man turns himself in to the police and confesses to the murders. At the same time a horrific event nearly brings Burlington to its knees, and Decker is called back in to help with this investigation. Decker also seizes his chance to learn what really happened to his family that night. To uncover the truth, he must use his remarkable gifts and confront the burdens that go along with them. He must endure the memories he would much rather forget. And he may have to make the ultimate sacrifice.              

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Where They Found Her Where They Found Her

by Kimberly McCreight

[Harper, $26.99]
At the end of a long winter in well-to-do Ridgedale, New Jersey, the body of a newborn is found in the woods fringing the campus of the town's prestigious university. No one knows the identity of the baby, what ended her very short life, or how she came to be found among the fallen leaves. But for the residents of Ridgedale, there is no shortage of opinions.
When freelance journalist and recent Ridgedale transplant Molly Sanderson is unexpectedly called upon to cover the disturbing news for the town's local paper, she has good reason to hesitate. A severe depression followed the loss of her own baby, and this assignment could unearth memories she has tried hard to bury. But the disturbing history Molly uncovers is not her own. Her investigation reveals a decades-old trail of dark secrets hiding behind Ridgedale's white picket fences.
Told from the perspectives of three Ridgedale women, Kimberly McCreight's taut and profoundly moving novel unwinds the tangled truth behind the tragedy, revealing that these women have far more in common than they could ever have imagined: that the very worst crimes are committed against those we love. And that, sooner or later, the past catches up to all of us.
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Blood on SnowBlood on Snow by Jo Nesbo, translated by Neil Smith

[Knopf Publishing Group, $23.95]

From the internationally acclaimed author of the Harry Hole novels comes a fast, tight, darkly lyrical stand-alone novel that has at its center the perfectly sympathetic antihero: an Oslo contract killer who draws us into an unexpected meditation on death and love.
This is the story of Olav, an extremely talented "fixer" for one of Oslo's most powerful crime bosses. But Olav is also an unusually complicated fixer. He has a capacity for love that is as far-reaching as is his gift for murder. He is our straightforward, calm-in-the-face-of-crisis narrator with a storyteller's hypnotic knack for fantasy. He has an "innate talent for subordination" but running through his veins is a "virus" born of the power over life and death. And while his latest job puts him at the pinnacle of his trade, it may be mutating into his greatest mistake...

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New & coming soon in paperback

Ice Shear
The Red Eagles
The Necessary Death of Lewis Winter
The Alchemist's Daughter
Thanks for supporting your local independent bookstore.
Happy reading!