NCW Libraries

"[A] heart-stopping literary noir, a richly atmospheric tale of espionage and international intrigue, set in Shanghai in 1931--an electrifying, decadent world of love, violence, and betrayal filled with femme fatales, criminals, revolutionaries, and spies" -- "A boat from Hong Kong arrives in Shanghai harbor, carrying an important official in the Nationalist Party and his striking wife, Leng. Amid the raucous sound of firecrackers, gunshots ring...

It's Labor Day weekend, 1935, and members of the Darling Dahlias--the garden club in little Darling, Alabama--are trying to keep their cool at the end of a sizzling summer. This isn't easy, though, since there's a firebug on the loose in Darling. He--or she!--strikes without apparent rhyme or reason, and things have gotten to the point where nobody feels safe. What's more, a dangerous hurricane is poised to hurl itself in Darling's direction, while...

"In the summer of 1932, the career of psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs takes an exciting new turn when she accepts an undercover assignment from the British Secret Service. Sent to pose as a junior lecturer at a private college in Cambridge, she will monitor any activities "not in the interests of His Majesty's government." When the college's controversial pacifist founder, Greville Liddicote, is murdered, however, Maisie is directed to...

"It's December 19, 1931. Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool are looking forward to a much-needed, restful Christmas holiday, when they are called upon to investigate the murder of a man in a Norfolk hospital ward. Cynthia Catchpool, Edward's mother, insists that Poirot stay with her in a crumbling mansion by the coast, so that they can all be together for the festive period while he solves the case. As Poirot digs into the mystery, he discovers...

There are only two kinds of objects in this world: the ones that shine and the ones that don't. James Finnigan, master thief, only concerns himself with objects from the first category. Those objects don't hide in plain sight. They hide in dark places. When Finnigan loses his grifter gang's entire fortune in a job gone wrong, he's desperate to make amends. He stumbles on his chance to do so in the crypt of the Harker Foundation, where he finds a bar...

"English anthropologist Andrew Banson has been alone in the field for several years, studying the Kiona river tribe in the Territory of New Guinea. Haunted by the memory of his brothers' deaths and increasingly frustrated and isolated by his research, Bankson is on the verge of suicide when a chance encounter with colleagues, the controversial Nell Stone and her wry and mercurial Australian husband, Fen, pulls him back from the brink. Nell and Fen...

"Vividly portrays the City of Light during the tumultuous 1930s. The decade was marked by violence at home and the rise of Hitler abroad, even as glamour prevailed in fashion and Surrealism sparked new forms of artistic creativity"--

Heroes for sale: A fascinating social story about a wounded ex-doughboy who overcomes one tragic event after another. Wild boys of the road: Teenage children made homeless by the Depression travel the country in search of work.

Set in the 1930s, a young Bronx native moves to Hollywood where he falls in love with the secretary of his powerful uncle, an agent to the stars. After returning to New York he is swept up in the vibrant world of high society nightclub life.

"The New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Who Knew Too Much sweeps readers back to 1930s California--where the most dazzling of illusions can't hide the darkest secrets... After escaping from a private sanitarium, Adelaide Blake arrives in Burning Cove, California, desperate to start over. Working at an herbal tea shop puts her on the radar of those who frequent the seaside resort town: Hollywood movers and shakers always in need of hangover...