As the Senior Learning Commons completes its renovation, students and faculty can expect to find many new and exciting changes within. But one thing that won’t be changing is our effort to bring new titles to our readers, both for school curriculum and for pleasure.
Here are some of the older works of fiction (but new to our collection!) that you might find as you explore the new space:
ITALIAN SHOES [2006], by Henning Mankell
Living on a tiny island entirely surrounded by ice during the long winter months, Fredrik Welin is so lost to the world that he cuts a hole in the ice every morning and lowers himself into the freezing water to remind himself that he is alive. Haunted by memories of the terrible mistake that drove him to abandon a successful career as a surgeon, he lives in a stasis so complete an anthill grows undisturbed in his living room. Then an unexpected visitor alters his life completely: Harriet, whom he inexplicably abandoned in the midst of their youthful romance, turns up decades after they last saw each other and demands that Fredrik fulfill an old promise and take her to the forest pool he visited as a youth. Thus begins their eccentric, elegiac journey, leading to undreamt-of connections. A moving tale of loss and redemption, Italian Shoes is a testament to the unpredictability of life, which breeds hope even in the face of tragedy.
KAYANKAYA SERIES: Books 1 & 2, by Jakob Arjouni HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TURK! [1985]
When a Turkish laborer is stabbed to death in Frankfurt’s red light district, the local police see no need to work overtime. But when the laborer’s wife comes to him for help, wise-cracking detective Kemal Kayankaya, a Turkish immigrant himself, smells a rat. The dead man wasn’t the kind of guy who spent time with prostitutes. What gives? So who wanted him dead, and why? On the way to find out, Kayankaya has run-ins with prostitutes and drug addicts, gets beaten up by anonymous thugs, survives a gas attack, and suffers several close encounters with a Fiat. MORE BEER [1987] Wisecracking PI Kemal Kayankaya cares more about sausage and beer than politics, but when he’s hired to defend four eco-terrorists charged with murdering a chemical plant owner he finds himself stuck in the middle of Germany’s culture wars. And is the fiery journalist Carla Reedermann dogging his steps because she smells a story, or is she after something more? A hardboiled noir in the Chandler tradition that also provides a wry critique of contemporary racial and environmental politics, More Beer shows why Jakob Arjouni’s series of Kayankaya novels has become a bestselling international sensation.
THE LONG STRETCH [1999], by Linden MacIntyre
In one apocalyptic night, John Gillis and his estranged cousin, Sextus, confront a half century of half-truths and suppositions that have shaped and scarred their lives, their families and their insular Cape Breton community. Telling stories that unravel a host of secrets, they begin to realize that they were damaged before they were born, their fathers and a close friend forming an unholy trilogy in a tragic moment of war. Among the roots of a complex andpainful relationship, they uncover the truth of a fateful day John has spent 20 years trying to forget.
Taut and brilliantly paced, etched with quiet humour and crafted with fiery dialogue, The Long Stretch is a mesmerizing novel in the tradition of Alistair MacLeod and David Adams Richards.
ONE CARELESS MOMENT [2009], by Doug Hugelschaffer
When a small fire starts to creep through the underbrush deep within a Montana forest valley, Porter Cassel is brought in to organize the firefighters charged with containing it. The fire moves quickly from bad to worse, rapidly scaling the forest canopy and killing one of Cassel’s men. Removed from command, Cassel takes the fire investigation into his own hands, discovering that the fire was not just a random flare-up, but the work of an arsonist. In this second book in the Porter Cassel mystery series, One Careless Moment picks up where Day Into Night left off — with Porter continuing to prove himself against all odds. Fighting against local legends about the valley being haunted, shady development deals, and the tree-hugging hippies who’ve chosen Holder’s Canyon as their particular Eden, Cassel must get to the bottom of the case not only to clear his name, but also his conscience.
RED DOG, RED DOG [2008], by Patrick Lane
An epic novel of unrequited dreams and forestalled lives, Red Dog, Red Dog is set in the mid-1950s, in a small town in the interior of B.C. in the unnamed Okanagan Valley. The novel focuses on the Stark family, centering on brothers Eddy and Tom, who are bound together by family loyalty and inarticulate love. Unrepentant, bitter, older brother Eddy speeds freely along, his desperate path fuelled by drugs and weapons, while Tom, a loner, attempts to conceal their secrets and protect what remains of the family. Eventually, an unspeakable crime causes him to come face to face with something traumatic that has lain hidden in him since he was a boy. This is also a novel about a small community of people, about complicated loyalties, about betrayals and shifts of power. Filled with moments of harrowing violence and breathtaking description, of shattering truths and deep humanity, Red Dog, Red Dog is about the legacies of the past and the possibilities of forgiveness and redemption. With this astonishing novel, one of Canada’s best poets propels himself into the forefront of our finest novelists.
THE SUICIDE MURDERS [1980], by Howard Engel
She was cool, attractive–a real society lady–and she was in trouble. Benny Cooperman, a private eye with a hard head and a tender heart, was ready to help her in any way he could. But when her husband commits suicide the day Benny begins his investigation, the detective realizes he’s dealing with something beyond a simple “family affair.”
Probing into the curious circumstances surrounding the death, Benny finds himself in the midst of a strange group indeed–one that involves a mysterious psychiatrist, shady eminent citizens, and soon a few more suicides–or murders.
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