Welcome to Brian’s Book Blog’s weekly New and Notable Post for the Week of September 22nd.  We share the 10 books from this week that caught our eye featuring Post-Apocalyptic, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thrillers, and more. Enjoy!

 

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The Murder of Paolo Mancuso by Owen Parr
Narrated by Fred Filbrich
Publisher Owen Parr
This time is personal – very personal.

Paolo Mancuso was killed in a bar in Little Italy 20 years ago. To this day, his murder has gone unsolved. A cold case the NYPD has not paid much attention to in all these years. Enter Antonino “Tony the Hammer” Falcone, Paolo’s best friend and co-Mafia family member. Tony, in his deathbed, reveals to Joey that the Mafia had nothing to do with his dad’s murder, something Joey always believed it had. Instead, with his last breath, Tony whispers only three words to Joey – Barcelona, Wetherly, Stevens.

With just those three words, Joey sets off to Barcelona. Is it justice or revenge Joey seeks? Will he learn things about his dad’s past he wished he hadn’t? Is Joey about to go up against one of New York’s five Mafia families? Will he solve Paolo Mancuso’s murder?

Now retired, Joey Mancuso, a former NYPD homicide detective with the Midtown South Precinct, had looked at the murder book many times during the time he was with the NYPD. Lacking clues and any evidence, he was never able to pursue the perpetrators responsible for his father’s death. Currently a licensed private detective in New York City and half-owner of an Irish Pub in New York’s Financial District with his half-brother, Father Dominic O’Brian, the pastor at Saint Helen’s Catholic Church in Brooklyn, also a licensed private detective, they set out to solve the murder of Paolo Mancuso.

The brothers Mancuso and O’Brian have been called by the New York press “The Last Advocates of the Victims” for the relentless pursuit of the perpetrators they exemplified in their last cases, working as consultants for the NYPD or as investigators for criminal law firms. But this time is personal – very personal. And Joey’s determination in solving this case, his dad’s unsolved murder, could make him do things outside the bounds of justice. Is it justice or revenge he seeks?

Fletch and the Widow Bradley by Gregory Mcdonald
Narrated by Dan John Miller
Publisher Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Young Fletch is less than pleased to be writing a business story, something that’s well outside his field of expertise. Eager to get back out on the streets, he quickly compiles what he thinks is a well-executed article, complete with quotes from the chairman of the board’s recent memos. But when he fails to do his due diligence when researching the company and its associates, he finds himself in hot water…and now out of a job. The chairman has been dead for more than a year.

Realizing his mistake, he visits the widow, Bradley, to make amends – and to ask a few simple questions. But her strange demeanor and puzzling answers leave Fletch perplexed. He can’t help but wonder: Why would a dead man still be writing memos to his associates? Is he even dead?

With his interest now thoroughly piqued, fueled by his desire to get the real story and take back his job, Fletch puts his reporting skills to work as he dives into the mystery surrounding the Bradleys’ past.

Homestead: A Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Human Survival by L. Douglas Hogan
Narrated by Kevin Pierce
Publisher L. Douglas Hogan
Two years after the Pulse shut down the nation’s power grid, Darrick, his wife Tonya, and their autistic son Andy, show up on the doorstep of Darrick’s childhood home. Darrick must make peace with his older brother Jimmie and ailing father James, all the while reacquainting himself with the life of a homesteader.

Meanwhile, a looming omen hovers over everything he holds dear. A huge murder of crows circles a large, well-equipped, and organized group of aggressive survivors that are about to discover the homestead and threaten everyone’s way of life. When a bad decision leads to the loss of a family member, everything changes, and Darrick must reanalyze and adapt himself to the situation. Mistrust and paranoia take hold as Darrick struggles with the blurred lines between friend and foe.

Lethal White by Robert Galbraith
Narrated by Robert Glenister
Publisher Hachette Audio
Lethal White is the fourth book in the Cormoran Strike series from the international best-selling author Robert Galbraith.

“I seen a kid killed… He strangled it, up by the horse.”

When Billy, a troubled young man, comes to private eye Cormoran Strike’s office to ask for his help investigating a crime he thinks he witnessed as a child, Strike is left deeply unsettled. While Billy is obviously mentally distressed, and cannot remember many concrete details, there is something sincere about him and his story. But before Strike can question him further, Billy bolts from his office in a panic.

Trying to get to the bottom of Billy’s story, Strike and Robin Ellacott – once his assistant, now a partner in the agency – set off on a twisting trail that leads them through the backstreets of London, into a secretive inner sanctum within Parliament, and to a beautiful but sinister manor house deep in the countryside.

And during this labyrinthine investigation, Strike’s own life is far from straightforward: his newfound fame as a private eye means he can no longer operate behind the scenes as he once did. Plus, his relationship with his former assistant is more fraught than it ever has been – Robin is now invaluable to Strike in the business, but their personal relationship is much, much trickier than that.

The most epic Robert Galbraith novel yet, Lethal White is both a gripping mystery and an addictive next instalment in the ongoing story of Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott.

We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix
Narrated by Carol Monda
Publisher Blackstone Audio, Inc.
In this hard-rocking, spine-tingling supernatural thriller, the washed-up guitarist of a ’90s heavy metal band embarks on an epic road trip across America and deep into the web of a sinister conspiracy.

Grady Hendrix, horror writer and author of Paperbacks from Hell and My Best Friend’s Exorcism, is back with his most electrifying novel yet. In the 1990s, heavy metal band Durt Wurk was poised for breakout success – but then lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom as Koffin, leaving his fellow bandmates to rot in obscurity.

Two decades later, former guitarist Kris Pulaski works as the night manager of a Best Western – she’s tired, broke, and unhappy. Everything changes when a shocking act of violence turns her life upside down, and she begins to suspect that Terry sabotaged more than just the band.

Kris hits the road, hoping to reunite with the rest of her bandmates and confront the man who ruined her life. It’s a journey that will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a celebrity rehab center to a music festival from hell. A furious power ballad about never giving up, even in the face of overwhelming odds, We Sold Our Souls is an epic journey into the heart of a conspiracy-crazed, pill-popping, paranoid country that seems to have lost its very soul…where only a lone girl with a guitar can save us all.

Charlie the Anomaly by Shae Ford
Narrated by Emma Galvin
Publisher Podium Publishing
Humanity wasn’t always doomed. There was a time when people were actually pretty decent.

Two hundred years ago, every person on Earth was connected through the stream of AVA: a hyper-advanced artificial intelligence system designed to give the world a fresh start. AVA cleansed humanity and rebuilt it on the ideals of progress and peace. With their pasts bleached and their futures filtered out, humans advanced in a startling leap. They thrived in the new world that AVA created.

Then, the virus struck.

Now, after a centuries’ long apocalypse, humanity has returned to its violent roots. The few ragged settlements that remain fight each other for what little the Nothing provides and will do whatever it takes to stay alive.

Charlize Smith doesn’t know it yet, but her hometown might be the last civilized place on Earth. Born a Defect and forced to undergo a slew of dangerous experiments, Charlie dreams of the day when she can finally set out on her own. But when a tragedy pushes her to the edge, she’s arrested and thrown onto a truck bound for the Nothing – where she’s probably going to die.

Rosewater by Tade Thompson
Narrated by Bayo Gbadamosi
Publisher Hachette Audio
Tade Thompson’s Rosewater is the start of an award-winning, cutting-edge trilogy set in Nigeria, by one of science fiction’s most engaging new voices.

Rosewater is a town on the edge. A community formed around the edges of a mysterious alien biodome, its residents comprise the hopeful, the hungry, and the helpless – people eager for a glimpse inside the dome or a taste of its rumored healing powers.

Kaaro is a government agent with a criminal past. He has seen inside the biodome and doesn’t care to again – but when something begins killing off others like himself, Kaaro must defy his masters to search for an answer, facing his dark history and coming to a realization about a horrifying future.

The Lafayette Campaign: A Tale of Deception and Elections by Andrew Updegrove
Narrated by Roger Wayne
Publisher Tantor Audio
America is rushing headlong into another election year, but something is wrong – the polls don’t match reality. It’s up to cybersecurity super sleuth Frank Adversego to find the Black Hats who are trying to hack the presidential election, and stop them before they do.

The action begins when a nameless government agency recruits Adversego to find out who’s manipulating the polls, but he soon learns that the voting results are at risk as well. From then on, it’s a race against time to see who will stop who as the presidential election – and Adversego’s life – hang in the balance. In this latest Frank Adversego thriller, you’ll meet a scheming Native American casino manager, a scrum of presidential candidates too incredible to be believed anywhere outside of a real American election, a former Secretary of Defense who will stop at nothing, and an attractive French hitchhiker that Adversego rescues in the middle of a desert, and soon wishes he hadn’t.

The Lafayette Campaign provides a satirical take on American politics and our infatuation with technology that will make listeners pause and wonder: could this really happen? Andrew Updegrove brings a rare combination of drama, satire and technical accuracy to his writing.

The Siren and The Specter by Jonathan Janz
Narrated by Davis Brooks
Publisher Flame Tree Audio
When David Caine, a celebrated skeptic of the supernatural, is invited by an old friend to spend a month in “the most haunted house in Virginia,” he believes the case will be like any other. But the Alexander House is different.

Built by a 1700s land baron to contain the madness and depravity of his eldest son, the house is plagued by shadows of the past and the lingering taint of bloodshed. David is haunted, as well. For 22 years ago, he turned away the woman he loved, and she took her life in sorrow.

And David suspects she’s followed him to the Alexander House.

Flame Tree Press is the new fiction imprint of Flame Tree Publishing. Launching in 2018 the list brings together brilliant new authors and the more established; the award winners, and exciting, original voices.

Whiskey in a Teacup by Reese Witherspoon
Narrated by Reese Witherspoon
Publisher Simon & Schuster Audio
Academy award-winning actress, producer, and entrepreneur Reese Witherspoon invites you into her world, where she infuses the Southern style, parties, and traditions she loves with contemporary flair and charm.

Reese Witherspoon’s grandmother Dorothea always said a combination of beauty and strength made Southern women “whiskey in a teacup”. We may be delicate and ornamental on the outside, she said, but inside, we’re strong and fiery.

Reese’s Southern heritage informs her whole life, and she loves sharing the joys of Southern living with practically everyone she meets. She takes the South wherever she goes with bluegrass, big holiday parties, and plenty of Dorothea’s fried chicken. It’s reflected in how she entertains, decorates her home, and makes holidays special for her kids – not to mention how she talks, dances, and does her hair (in this audiobook, you will learn Reese’s fail-proof, only slightly insane hot-roller technique). Reese loves sharing Dorothea’s most delicious recipes as well as her favorite Southern traditions, from midnight barn parties to backyard bridal showers, magical Christmas mornings to rollicking honky-tonks.

It’s easy to bring a little bit of Reese’s world into your home, no matter where you live. After all, there’s a Southern side to every place in the world, right?

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

Brian
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