“Since the days of conquistador Hernan Cortes, rumors have circulated about a lost city of immense wealth hidden somewhere in the Honduran interior, called the White City or the Lost City of the Monkey God.” In 2012 best selling author Douglas Preston and a team of scientists explored under the dense rainforest canopy that “revealed the image of a sprawling metropolis, tantalizing evidence of not just an undiscovered city but an enigmatic, lost civilization.” Recommended by Joey. 1/2/2020

“Empty Mansions is a rich mystery of wealth and loss, connecting the Gilded Age opulence of the 19th century with a 21st century battle over a $300 million inheritance. At its heart is a reclusive heiress names Huguette Clark, a woman so secretive that, at the time of her death at age 104, new new photograph of her had been seen in decades. Huguette as the daughter of self-made copper industrialist W.A. Clark, a controversial senator, railroad building and founder of Las Vegas. ” This is a fascinating biography of a famous recluse. Submitted by Joey 1/2/2020

“The monumental statues of Easter Island, both so magisterial and so forlorn, gazing out in their imposing rows over the island’s barren landscape, have been the source of great mystery ever since the island what first discovered by Europeans on Easter Sunday 1722. Shattering the conventional wisdom, Hunt and Lipo’s ironclad case for a radically different understanding of the story of this most mysterious place is scientific discovery at its very best.” Recommended by Joey

“A gripping narrative adventure, superbly written, the Lost Tribe is also a stunning account of what happened to a small society of primitive people suddenly ensnared by the interests and predations of modern life.” Recommended by Joey

You Can Run Steve Mosby

Mosby’s latest crime caper follows Detective Will Turner on the trail of a sicko murderer known as the Red River Killer. Because Turner knew one of the victims, his hunt is personal — and grows complicated when he starts to wonder if someone else is the bad guy. Mosby’s work is always twisty, and this one will keep you guessing until the very end. Suggested by AARP

A WORLD OF THREE ZEROS by Professor Muhammad Yunus

A winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and bestselling author of Banker to the Poor offers his vision of an emerging new economic system that can save humankind and the planet. Suggested by Laura

Look for Me Lisa Gardner

Gardner’s mesmerizing story is set in Boston and features female police Detective D.D. Warren and vigilante Flora Dane — characters who appear in some of her other 20 novels, including last year’s hit Find Her, though this isn’t a sequel. Now Warren and Dane are drawn into a disturbing case where a family’s been murdered, with the exception of 16-year-old daughter Roxanna, who’s missing. They need to find her, while figuring out if she’s a killer or victim. (Fun fact: There’s another thriller coming out in January named Don’t Look for Me by Mason Cross.) Recommended by AARP

Down the River Unto the Sea Walter Mosley

The prolific author, best known for his mystery series featuring Los Angeles detective Easy Rawlins, is back with a new hero: Joe King Oliver, a former New York cop who’s been framed and jailed for assault. Years later he begins to investigate who was behind the set-up while taking on the case of a black journalist accused of cop-killing. It’s a heady stew of racial politics and seedy characters that Mosley’s fans are sure to eat up. Recommended by AARP

The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, by Daniel Ellsberg

Shortlisted for the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction

From the legendary whistle-blower who revealed the Pentagon Papers, an eyewitness exposé of the dangers of America’s Top Secret, seventy-year-long nuclear policy that continues to this day.

Laura

A book readers might enjoy is The Alice Network, about a network of women spies during WWI and WWII.

USA TODAY BESTSELLER One of NPR’s Best Books of 2017! One of Bookbub’s Biggest Historical Fiction Books of 2017! One of Amazon’s Best Books of June! One of Goodreads’ Best Books of June! A Summer Book Pick from Good Housekeeping, Parade, Library Journal, Goodreads, Liz and Lisa, and Book Bub.

I was totally immersed in this book: the soup boiled over; I forgot to put water in the pan of eggs I was boiling and they exploded…these things had never happened before…really a riveting book!

The book ends with the statement that only a few spies ever equaled the accomplishments of the Alice Network, none ever surpassed them.

Happy New Year, Laura