Book Reviews

November 8, 2010 Homer Hickam, of Rocket Boys fame, has changed literary course. In his new novel, The Dinosaur Hunter, he presents a mystery set in remote east-central Montana, a land full of cattle, cowboys, ranchers, and paleontologists. It’s a mix sure to cause trouble. On the Square C Ranch, a season of bone digging, romantic entanglements, and dreams of fame and fortune is followed closely by murder and mayhem, putting an ex-cop turned cowboy back into the business of gunfights and catching bad guys. Homer Hickam signs The Dinosaur Hunter at Davis-Kidd Booksellers in Nashville November 11 at 7 p.m.

November 3, 2010 J.T. Ellison delivers her trademark blend of police procedural doused in the macabre with The Immortals, the fifth in her Nashville-based Taylor Jackson series. When the ritualistic murder of eight teenagers on Halloween shocks an upper-middle-class neighborhood that prides itself on its normality, homicide lieutenant Jackson and her team are plunged into a dark world of teenage Goths and black magic. Ellison will discuss The Immortals at Sherlock’s Books in Nashville on November 6 at 7 p.m.

October 27, 2010 With his new collection of short fiction, Burning Bright, Ron Rash offers a scaled-down version of the same concerns on display in his bestselling novel, Serena, employing a sweeping cast of characters and historical milieus, ranging from the Civil War era to the present day. Ron Rash opens the 2010-11 Lipscomb University Landiss Lecture Series on October 28 at 7:30 p.m. in the Doris Swang Chapel of the Ezell Center on the Lipscomb University campus. A reception follows the program with a book signing. Admission is free.

October 22, 2010 Lady Emily has not had the most auspicious beginnings to married life. Her first husband, essentially a stranger, died as a newlywed. On her second honeymoon, she was shot while helping her husband Colin, a British intelligence agent, on one of his investigations and suffered a subsequent miscarriage. In Dangerous to Know, Tasha Alexander’s fifth Lady Emily novel, the protagonists have returned to Colin’s mother’s house in France to recuperate. Naturally, this recovery is hampered.