New Releases - August Edition

Check out these highly anticipated new releases featuring fiction and nonfiction titles. Click on the title to request a copy or get your name on the waitlist. Don’t forget to watch for more featured releases next month!

NONFICTION

The Devil Behind theBadge: The Horrifying Twelve Days of the Border Patrol Serial Killer by Rick Jervis.  Gritty account of a Texas lawman turned serial killer. Jervis, an Austin-based Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, unearths the 2018 murder spree of Border Patrol officer Juan Ortiz, who killed four sex workers in Laredo before being captured by local police. They had perceived the murders were related but were shocked to find the perpetrator was one of their own. Although Ortiz’s arc of violence was brief, the author patiently develops the larger social backdrop and the stories of both killer and victims. He also traces the volatile histories of the border region and the once-neglected Border Patrol, which became a militarized behemoth after 9/11, underscoring that “agents who violated the agency’s use-of-force policy rarely faced consequences.”… The author contrasts Ortiz’s seedy unraveling with the difficult lives of his victims. He empathetically reconstructs their lives and the complex social network that marginalized people depend on, capturing how places like Laredo have become ground zero for the intersecting crises of opiate abuse and migration, amplifying opportunities for predators. An affecting true-crime drama that captures unsettling realities of the southern border. Copyright Kirkus 2024 Kirkus/BPI Communications. 

I Heard There Was aSecret Chord: Music As Medicine by Daniel Levitin. Neuroscientist is also a musician who has devoted much of his attention to the role of music—classical, folk, popular—in various therapies and how it impacts the human brain. In his latest book, he investigates the neuroanatomy of music and how it relates to memory and attention. He also offers insight into what he calls the brain's default modes: introspection and meditation. His book takes a look—in a brilliantly creative yet solidly evidence-based light—at the part music can play in the treatment of movement disorders. He also explores other health issues that music can help: Parkinson's disease, trauma-induced and other mental illnesses, memory loss, dementia, Alzheimer's, strokes, and other types of pain and neurodevelopment disorders. VERDICT This fascinating and valuable title gives readers insight into the many neurological benefits of music. Most readers can easily identify what kind of music calms them, provokes creative sparks, or helps get them through strenuous exercises but until they read this, they may not know why music has that power or that it can be great medicine too. Copyright 2024 Library Journal.

 

Never Saw Me Coming: How I Outsmarted the FBI and the Entire Banking System - and Pocketed $40 Million by Tanya Smith. In this rollicking debut, Smith reflects on the crime spree that led a judge to label her “a threat to the United States of America.” As a preteen in 1970s Minneapolis, Smith was so infatuated with Michael Jackson that she tracked down his grandfather’s phone number. Wanting more, she called the phone company and got transferred between departments enough times that her call appeared to be coming from the billing division, at which point she pumped employees for Jackson’s home address. Using the same method, Smith conned utility companies, pretending to pay off bills for family and friends, and eventually learned to fake bank transfers and pocket millions of dollars. Her purchases of diamonds and luxury cars caught the attention of the FBI, who started investigating Smith when she was in her teens but refused to believe a young Black woman could organize such a sophisticated scheme. Her run of luck first ended in 1986, when she was arrested and sentenced to 13 years in prison—then again in the early 1990s, after she’d escaped from prison and was arrested on new fraud charges. Smith is deliriously entertaining company, keeping her foot on the gas all the way through. It’s a gripping real-life caper from a charismatic antihero. Copyright 2024 Publishers Weekly.

FICTION

And So I Roar: A Novel by Abi Daré. The wait is over for fans of Daré's who want to know what's next for Adunni, the protagonist of her debut novel, The Girl with the Louding Voice. Her latest outstanding offering, which can be read as a stand-alone, opens with 14-year-old Adunni, who's excited about being only one day away from finally starting school. But the next day brings a slew of high-stakes conflicts that not only dim her chances of obtaining the education she's always wanted but also threaten her life. Adunni lives with Tia, a married woman who is also at risk of significant loss, thanks to secrets—both her own and her dying mother's. Daré expertly tells Adunni's and Tia's stories by alternating chapters from each character's point of view. Set in rural Nigeria and bigger places there, her book illuminates traditional rituals that often lead to harmful outcomes for girls and women. She also breaks the typical prose structure by incorporating letters, distinctively presenting words of wisdom at the bottom of some of the pages, and even transcribing a talk show, all of which enhance the reading experience. VERDICT Eye-opening, evocative, exquisite; this title will resonate with Daré's fans and readers drawn to themes around women's empowerment, educational rights, choices, and cultural customs.—Jill Cox-Cordova, Copyright 2024 Library Journal.

Burn by Peter Heller

A Maine camping trip turns into a fight for survival in this meditative dystopian thriller from Heller (The Last Ranger). Best friends Jess and Storey are headed home from their annual moose hunt when they find their route cut off by a bridge that appears to have been recently demolished. On foot, they arrive at a scorched village littered with corpses; with no phone signal, they speculate the violence is linked to the “secession mania” that’s been spreading through Maine. Further hiking takes them to a lakeside hamlet, where the friends exchange fire with hostile locals and steal a boat to pursue their attackers. They lose their quarry, but discover a five-year-old girl named Collie hiding in the boat—and now, in addition to finding their way home, Jess and Storey must locate Collie’s parents. Despite the high stakes, Heller gives the narrative plenty of space to breathe, allowing him to cast a haunting, immersive spell as his heroes traverse the ruined landscape. Painterly descriptions of nature and sparkling philosophical ruminations. The result is a wilderness adventure with real emotional depth. Agent: David Halpern, David Halpern Literary. (Aug.)

Copyright 2024 Publishers Weekly.

She Who Knows: Firespitter by Nnedi Okorafor.  This first in a projected trilogy tells the tale that came before Who Fears Death by giving readers a portrait of Onye's mother as a young woman who brings both tragedy and prosperity to her family—and violence and exile to herself—in the novel's vision of an Afrocentric future. In this world, salt is life, but the gods that control access to that life-giving substance have plans that will divide humans into those who submit to them and those who want to take everything for themselves. Najeeba, "she who knows," is caught in the middle as a young woman who travels the desert and finds great power but pays for her gains with the lives of those she holds dear. VERDICT Readers who fell hard for Okorafor's award-winning Who Fears Death (recently optioned by HBO, with George R.R. Martin at the helm) will be thrilled to read this novel that dives deeply into the backstory of one of the fundamental but mysterious characters in that tale. Those who enjoyed Shadow Speaker will find a story with a similar form but featuring a much-deadlier young woman who defies the rules that are intended to reduce and confine her gifts and her spirit.—Marlene Harris. Copyright 2024 Library Journal.