Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Tomorrow Never Dies  is one of my favorite James Bond films, with plenty of suspense to keep you on the edge of your seat.  Media tycoon Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) has positioned his satellites to provoke a war between Great Britain and China– and his media empire is primed to reap huge financial rewards by [...]

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24

24 is one of the most exciting television shows I’ve ever seen.  It is all about a federal agent named Jack Bauer and the federal agency he works for, CTU– the Counter-Terrorism Unit. They must thwart plots involving various nuclear or biological weapons that pose a serious threat to people in the United States.
The unique format draws [...]

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The King’s Coat, by Dewey Lambdin

This is a good, rousing tale of sailing life in 1780. You will learn much about ships and how they work as well as battles of the time and the weapons used. Our “hero,” (and we use the word loosely) is a wild young fellow who suddenly finds himself in a new world. Think Horatio Hornblower, but [...]

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Crystal Rain, by Tobias Buckell

John deBrun has two problems with his past. The first is that 27 years before the action of Crystal Rain, he was washed up on the shore of the island nation of Nanagada. He can’t remember anything prior to those events. He spent a few years rising through the ranks of sailors and eventually led [...]

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Devil May Care, by Sebastian Faulks

Ian Fleming’s star rose when John F. Kennedy casually mentioned that he was reading one of the James Bond books.  Bond burned his way through 14 books, all of which became movies, before Fleming’s death in 1964.  Those movies, which departed the published canon in 1982’s Moonraker, have come to define James Bond’s image, despite [...]

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Billy Boyle, by James Benn

If you like your crime fiction written in a fairly straightforward, no-nonsense style, with a lot of action and an appealingly imperfect main character, James Benn’s Billy Boyle series will be a good fit. Billy is a Boston policeman, just having been made a detective, when WWII begins. He is not the brightest star in [...]

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The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, by Lauren Willig

Today, the Circulation Division’s Sarah Smethurst brings us a tale of intrigue, adventure, and romance.
As a child, I remember sleeping over at my grandparents’ house and watching the old black and white version of The Scarlet Pimpernel, a daring tale of intrigue, spies, and elaborate costuming. Baroness Orczy’s story of a British spy who, with [...]

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Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld

With thanks to my BookExpo-attending colleague, who returned with an advance reader copy, here’s a sneak peek at a young adult book to be released in October 2009.

This alternate World War I adventure kicks off with a middle-of-the-night escapade in an AT-AT walker a two-legged stalking tank, followed by aerial acrobatics aboard a living hydrogen [...]

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Pendragon: The Merchant of Death, by D.J. MacHale

Bobby Pendragon is a typical 14-year-old boy.  Well, sort-of.   On the night of the big semi-final basketball game, right after he gets kissed by the coolest girl he knows, his Uncle Press shows up and tells Bobby he needs to come with him — he needs his help.  Uncle Press looks so serious that Bobby [...]

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Bone: Out from Boneville, by Jeff Smith

The Wizard of Oz could have been awfully boring. Dorothy could have traveled to Oz, seen some munchkins and a flying monkey or two, and skedaddled back home. It’s the sort of story that would have entertained young children, but only young children.
And that’s what the Bone series is like, at first. Forced to [...]

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