Adult Summer Reading 2014: Staff Picks

Two remarkable women, separated by more than a century, whose lives unexpectedly intertwine . . . 2004: Lina Sparrow is an ambitious young lawyer working on a historic class-action lawsuit seeking reparations for the descendants of American slaves. 1852: Josephine is a seventeen-year-old house slave who tends to the mistress of a Virginia tobacco farm, an aspiring artist named Lu Anne Bell. It is through her father, renowned artist Oscar Sparrow, that Lina discovers a controversy rocking the art world: art historians now suspect that the revered paintings of Lu Anne Bell, an antebellum artist known for her humanizing portraits of the slaves who worked her Virginia tobacco farm, were actually the work of her house slave, Josephine.
Recommended by Librarian Nancy Cheng

For Bryan Bennett, designing hostage negotiation programs is the perfect job-as long as he keeps a safe, theoretical distance. What he can't do is deal directly with kidnappers or their victims, as a result of his own abduction and imprisonment as a small boy. Thirty-some years later, intense nightmares still plague his sleep, and a fear of enclosed spaces prevents him from attempting to travel. So when Bryan's boss asks him to fly to Reykjavik, Iceland, to teach his corporate-level kidnapping and extortion seminar, he automatically says no. But the CEO of GlobalSeas Fisheries, Inc. has specifically requested Bryan-or no one else. Bryan finally relents. For decades he's treaded gingerly around the edges of his deepest terrors. Now, on this trip, Bryan's taken hostage again and must face his fears full-on.
Recommended by Librarian Mary Beck

The celebrated Skeleton Detective, Gideon Oliver, is visiting friends at a vineyard in Tuscany when murder leaves a bitter aftertaste. Recommended by Librarian Mary Beck

As a former prosecutor and writer living in the small town of Natchez, Mississippi, where he grew up, Penn Cage has always been a fighter. He learned it from his father, Tom Cage, a beloved family doctor who spent decades taking care of folks no matter their origin or circumstance, rich or poor, black or white. In a place like rural Mississippi, when the issues are race and crime, the pressures are formidable and the risks no less life-threatening. So when Tom Cage finds himself on the verge of being charged with murder-of his long-time nurse assistant and friend Viola Turner-Penn knows he must find the truth and rescue his father. The catch: his father believes client privilege forbids him from talking about the night in question and so refuses to say anything to help himself or Penn. Penn soon learns that Viola's death is only the tip of the iceberg-for it brings into question several horrific, unsolved murders in the 1960s, one of which was her brother's. And it points to a group of secretive KKK members who call themselves the "Double Eagles."
Recommended by Librarian Ashley Maraffino