Looking for a good novel?

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

One thing never changes in libraries: people are always looking for suggestions for a good book to read.  It’s been a long time since I’ve done an article about new fiction, and this time of year many people could use a book to read while they wait for spring to arrive.  Here are some of the newest novels we’ve gotten at the Litchfield Library:

Norwegian author Jo Nesbo has come out with a sequel to his novel Blood on Snow, although it’s apparently only loosely related.  Midnight Sun tells the story of a hit man who flees Oslo to hide from a drug kingpin and takes refuge in a small Sami village above the Arctic Circle.  The locals are mostly followers of what the publisher describes as “a particularly harsh Swedish version of Christianity”: the Laestadian Lutheran Church, a church more familiar to those of us in Minnesota than to most people in the world.  Nesbo is one of the authors who have made gritty Scandinavian crime novels an international sensation, mainly with his bestselling Harry Hole series.

Rosamund Lupton has had bestsellers with her previous novels Sister and Afterwards.  Her new novel is a thriller called The Quality of Silence.  This story involves an astrophysicist and her profoundly deaf daughter driving through the Alaskan wilderness to find out whether their husband and father has really been killed in an accident as they've been told. A storm pits them against the danger of the cold Alaskan night as well as a human menace following them.  A reviewer from the Washington Post compares this novel to The Revenant and The Hateful Eight in its humans vs cruel nature theme.

Tessa Hadley is a British writer who has been critically acclaimed but not bestselling.  It appears this could change with her new novel The Past.  It tells the story of three weeks at a family's summer home, most likely their last visit before the grown siblings sell it. Beneath the educated, refined surface lie family secrets and rivalries that emerge in the hot summer days.

For another novel that transports you to a sweltering location, pick up Hunters in the Dark by Lawrence Osborne.  This literary thriller tells the story of an English schoolteacher who decides on a whim to disappear from his boring life while on vacation in Thailand.  When he wins money gambling, he gets mixed up with a host of dangerous people and everything goes wrong. 

Cometh the Hour is the second-to-last book in Jeffrey Archer's popular Clifton Chronicles. The series beginning was set in the 1920s and has come up to the present day, telling the story of Harry Clifton, a working class boy from Bristol, his best friend, and his best friend's sister, with whom Harry falls in love.  This family saga includes many suspenseful twists and turns, with this newest installment reportedly ending on a stunning cliffhanger. Archer's books are surefire bestsellers. 

Saving Jason by Michael Sears is part of the Jason Stafford series, which began with the book “Black Fridays.”  Jason is a former Wall Street trader who went to prison and now works as a financial investigator.  In this installment, Jason goes into witness protection with his young autistic son after investigating the Mob. Then his son disappears.  Expect fast-paced action with this one.

As always, this is only a tiny sample of the new books available at our library, not to mention all of those you could order in. For more ideas, stop at our front desk to pick up a copy of BookPage, a book review magazine sponsored by the Friends of the Litchfield Public Library. Enjoy a good book while winter lasts!