New Books Just In

Cornwell, Patricia, The Scarpetta Factor ($28) Signed

It is the week before Christmas. A tanking economy has prompted Dr. Kay Scarpetta-despite her busy schedule and her continuing work as the senior forensic analyst for CNN-to offer her services pro bono to New York City's Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. In no time at all, her increased visibility seems to precipitate a string of unexpected and unsettling events. She is asked live on the air about the sensational case of Hannah Starr, who has vanished and is presumed dead. Moments later during the same telecast she receives a startling call-in from a former psychiatrist patient of Benton Wesley's. When she returns after the show to the apartment where she and Benton live, she finds an ominous package-possibly a bomb-waiting for her at the front desk. Soon the apparent threat on Scarpetta's life finds her embroiled in a surreal plot that includes a famous actor accused of an unthinkable sex crime and the disappearance of a beautiful millionaires with whom Lucy seems to have shared a secret past...

Doss, James. The Widows Revenge a Charlie Moon Mystery ($27) Signed

Even with some of the toughest hombres and nastiest outlaws roaming the Southwest, bestselling author James D. Doss’s seven-foot-tall rancher and sometime tribal investigator Charlie Moon does a fair job on the side of the good guys. So it’s no surprise that he gets the call when the widow Loyola Montoya starts making a fuss about witches. Witches? She swears there’s a whole midnight brood lurking in the woods just off her property, mocking her with lewd songs and harassing her with the carcasses of dead animals. When no one takes her seriously—she has been known to cry wolf from time to time—she takes matters into her own hands, with disastrous results. By the time Charlie arrives, it’s too late to save her, and while he knows he can’t bring her back, that doesn’t mean he can’t help the widow get her revenge after all. Told in Doss’s whimsical style, The Widow’s Revenge is a wonderfully tall tale that requires wide-open spaces and larger-than-life heroes like Charlie Moon to saddle up and make sure that justice is served.

Hicks, Robert. A Separate Country ($26) Signed

Set in New Orleans in the years after the Civil War, A Separate Country is based on the incredible life of John Bell Hood, arguably one of the most controversial generals of the Confederate Army--and one of its most tragic figures. Robert E. Lee promoted him to major general after the Battle of Antietam. But the Civil War would mark him forever. At Gettysburg, he lost the use of his left arm. At the Battle of Chickamauga, his right leg was amputated. Starting fresh after the war, he married Anna Marie Hennen and fathered 11 children with her, including three sets of twins. But fate had other plans. Crippled by his war wounds and defeat, ravaged by financial misfortune, Hood had one last foe to battle: Yellow Fever. A Separate Country is the heartrending story of a decent and good man who struggled with his inability to admit his failures-and the story of those who taught him to love, and to be loved, and transformed him.