7/21: New at the library this week

Videos:

• The hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy

DVDs:

• The gods must be crazy

Books:

• The devil's bed / William Kent Krueger — When President Clay Dixon's father-in-law -- a former vice president -- is injured in a farming accident, First Lady Kate Dixon returns to Minnesota to be at his side. Assigned to protect her, Secret Service agent Bo Thorsen soon falls under Kate's spell. He also suspects the accident is part of a trap set for Kate by David Moses, an escaped mental patient who once loved her. What Bo and Moses don't realize is that they're caught in a web of deadly intrigue spun by a seemingly insignificant bureaucratic department within the federal government. (read a sample chapter)
• The Verge practice / Barry Maitland — Scotland Yard's superlative detective duo take on a puzzling case in the posh world of big-name international architecture, and it's got them chasing red herrings and hopping fences from London to Barcelona.
• Embroidered truths / Monica Ferris — After her friend Godwin is arrested for the murder of his boyfriend, Betsy sets out to prove him innocent. She finds that the victim had some dishonest dealings that made him a lot of money-and a lot of enemies. Now, Betsy has to untangle a cat's-cradle of lies if she's going to save Godwin before the murderer decides to cut off the loose ends for good. (Needlecraft Mystery Series, #9)
• The iron girl / Ellen Hart — After years spent mourning the death of her partner, Christine Kane, Minneapolis restaurateur Jane Lawless thinks she's ready to move on. That is, until she finds a gun missing from Christine's belongings. The night before Christine dies of cancer, three members of the Simoneau family, Christine's real estate clients, were murdered. The timing of their deaths appeared coincidental and Jane always assumed Christine knew nothing of the family's secrets. But as she searches for clues to understand what really happened all those many years ago, the gun and a few other discoveries begin to convince Jane otherwise.
• The ice maiden / Edna Buchanan — Fourteen years ago, two teenagers on a Christmas Eve first date were abducted, and only one lived through the ordeal. The lone surviving victim, Sunny Hartley, became a wealthy sculptor, but the reclusive “ice maiden” will not talk about what happened that terrible night. Now a chance encounter in the Miami morgue between reporter Britt Montero and a petty thief, bizarrely electrocuted during the commission of a crime, has placed the still unsolved kidnapping/murder on the front burner of Sgt. Craig Burch's Cold Case Squad. (Britt Montero Series, #8; read a sample chapter)
• Cold case squad / Edna Buchanan — A man and a woman are shot dead at a strip club in Miami Beach. A few hours later, an explosion rocks a child's birthday party, killing a father of three. The murders go unsolved and the blast is deemed an accident. Twelve years later, a blonde walks into the Miami Police Department's Cold Case Squad. She's been seeing her husband everywhere she goes. Trouble is, he's been dead for twelve years. (read a sample chapter)
• Dancing naked at the edge of dawn / Kris Radish — Meg Fratano has just witnessed the unthinkable: her husband of twenty—seven years making love to another woman. In her bed. And all Meg wanted to do was watch. Quietly, secretly, watch. Then she realized her life would never be the same.
• Renegade / Diana Palmer — Newly appointed police chief Cash Grier makes it his personal mission to keep law and order in the streets of Jacobsville. As a true renegade, Cash has learned never to take anything at face value — especially not his gorgeous sworn enemy,"Georgia Firefly" Tippy Moore. But Tippy is no longer a spoiled Hollywood starlet, just an unassuming beauty who has almost as many skeletons in her closet as Cash. Now the hard-edged Texan finds himself powerless to resist their explosive chemistry. (read an exerpt)
• Winter house / Carol O'Connell — never has Mallory faced as many surprises as in the case before her now. It seems cut-and-dried at first: a burglar has been caught in the act and killed by an ice pick-wielding home owner. Except that the home owner turns out to be the most famous lost child in NYPD history, missing for almost sixty years, thought to have been kidnapped following the massacre of her family: five siblings, father, stepmother, nanny, and housekeeper -nearly the entire household wiped out . . . with an ice pick. (Kathleen Mallory Series, #7; read a sample chapter)