Hello, and welcome to the halfway way point. We are—oh, what? Already past the halfway point? Fine. Welcome to the post-halfway point, where we're already on the downhill side and no one bothered to check if the brakes work on this thing. Strap in, hang on, and pack a lunch.
Good thing it is Rhubarb Days this weekend, because that means food trucks! Well, it means we'll be doing that summer street festival thing where we all enjoy the sun and the community. There will be noise makers galore. There will be snacks. There will lots of vintage market stalls to poke around in. And there will be books.
Well, there's always books, but this weekend, we'll have some new titles on the shelves.
Like The Associated Press's 2022-2024 Stylebook.
Oh, come on. You know you've been dying to see if they're still arguing against the use of the Oxford comma.
Anyway, you're probably more excited about the second volume in Rachel Smythe's Lore Olympus series. Smythe's retelling of the Hades and Persephone story continues with her bright and gorgeous art, her engaging storytelling, and her dreamy character design. Delicious!
And speaking of delicious things, Paul Tremblay is back this week with The Pallbearers Club, which is the story of a high school stoner loner, who makes friends with a new girl, who brings along a Polaroid camera one night, and well, things get weird from there. Now, Stoner Loner has written a memoir about those years, but New Girl has gotten ahold of the manuscript. She has some notes about Stoner's recollection of the past. It's a little bit Mark Danielewski meets Grady Hendrix in The Pallbearers Club, which is to say What We're Reading At Lunchtime.
And speaking of lunch, Josh Malerman is back this week with the paperback edition of Pearl, his novel about that feral pig that lives out on Mr. Kopple's farm. You know the one. The psychic pig who convinces folks to do terrible things in service of a greater evil. Of course, it might not be the pig who is crazy. It might be the entire town. Either way, don't eat the bacon and lock your doors at night.
Meanwhile, Tess Gerritsen's favorite duo is back in Listen to Me, the newest Rizzoli & Isles suspense novel. Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli is, once again, working with medical examiner Maura Isles to solve a seemingly senseless locked room murder. Who beat the nice old lady to death in her own home? And why does the nice old lady have a stack of burner phones? Oh, someone has secrets, and once the duo start duo-ing, the killer starts kill-a-ing.
And speaking of long-running series, forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is back this week in Kathy Reichs's Cold Cold Bones. It starts with an eyeball in a box, wanders into a Benedictine monastery with a macabre secret, and then drops a mummified corpse into a bush at the state park. What do all these things have to do with each other? Well, Tempe knows, which means that someone else knows what Tempe knows. And even though we don't know what Tempe knows that someone else knows, we're locked in, because we want to find out.
Mark Greaney, on the other hand, mixes it up this week with a book that doesn't star The Gray Man, his series regular. Armored is the story of Josh, a dude who used to work as a Close Protection Agent (fancy way of saying "bodyguard"). Josh took one for the team, and since then, he's been working as a mall cop (because no one wants to hire the guy missing the lower half of his left leg for protection work). That life sucks. Then, an old friend shows up and asks: "Hey, how about you join me for one last job, doing work at this place called Espinazo del Diablo?" Josh says, "Yes," mostly because it's a place that doesn't have the word "mall" in its name. And so, yeah, it's off to broker a peace between homicidal drug cartels in a place called "The Devil's Spine." Good call, Josh. This'll end well.
And speaking of things blowing up, Brad Thor is back this week with Rising Tiger, where America's top spy, Scot Harvath is "thrust into a completely unfamiliar culture where he can trust no one as he fights to take down the country's most powerful enemy--and for his life." Which is to say: like every other week in Scot Harvath's life.
You know, we're not entirely sure that you should be calling yourself "America's top spy" when every mission revolves around discovering that someone close to you has a secret agenda. Okay, okay. Maybe he's just overly trusting. Fine. We'll let it play THIS time.
Meanwhile, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow purports to be a love story unlike any love story you've read before. Naturally, you have to read it to find out if this is the case, but with Zevin—who not only uses the Oxford comma correctly in their title, but who also wrote the marvelous The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry—we've got a book filled with fame, betrayal, tragedy, immortality, and video games. Sometimes that bonus life makes a difference, dear readers.
And since it's been a few weeks since we 'oohed' and 'aahed' over a tarot deck, here is MJ Cullinane's The Guardians of Night Tarot. You might know MJ's work from the Crow Tarot, which has been one of our most popular decks. The Guardians of Night Tarot is filled with all sorts of marvelous creatures, and yes, we're already anthropomorphized most of them.
And speaking of things we like, Ron Shelton has written a tell-all about Bull Durham, his classic baseball film starring Kevin Costner, Don Johnson, and Rene Russo. The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham: Home Runs, Bad Calls, Crazy Fights, Big Swings, and a Hit does manage its serial commas well, but man, that two colon nonsense in titles is so headache-inducing. Anyway, for those of you who have listened to Shelton's audio commentary on the home video release of Bull Durham, you know the man loves both making movies and talking about baseball. We're not sure why it took him so long to write a book about his favorite things, but we're delighted that he did.
