Librarian Picks: Five Great Modern Fiction Works

William Dietrich, The Barbary Pirates (2010)

A swashbuckling tale of pirates; Muslim outlaws; a ruthless cabal called the Egyptian Rite and a British femme fatale Lady Aurora Somerset.  They are all part of Ethan Gage's quest to find the priceless artifact--the Mirror of Archimedes and to rescue his lost love Astiza.  

This is the fourth title in the Ethan Gage series that delivers the action-packed adventure, humor and historical events that readers have come to expect from Dietrich.  The other titles in the series are Napoleon's Pyramids, The Rosetta Key and The Dakota Cipher.  Dietrich is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, historian and naturalist.

Maeve Haran, The Lady and the Poet (2009)

Set against the intrigues of Queen Elizabeth I's court, this irresistible novel tells the story of the forbidden love between the famous poet John Donne and Ann More.  Haran has written 11 contemporary novels; this is her historical fiction debut.

Ghita Schwartz, Displaced Persons (2010)

This debut novel covers the period from 1945 to 2000 and follows the lives of three Holocaust survivors who met in a displaced persons camp.  Pavel and Fela eventually marry and move to America, taking teenaged Chaim with them.  As they try to build an ordinary life, they are constantly haunted by their past.

Dennis Tafoya, The Wolves of Fairmount Park  (2010)

A drive-by-shooting leaves one teenage boy dead and another in coma.
What were they doing in a rough Philadelphia neighborhood at night?
And why did they have a thousand dollars? The details are filled in from four perspectives:  the cop investigating the shooting, the junkie uncle of the boy in a coma and the two fathers.  The truth has its price in this gritty, realistic crime novel.  The author of the Dope Thief.

Simon Tolkien, The Inheritance  (2010)

When a famous Oxford historian is found dead in his study one night, all evidence points to his son.  But there were five other people in the manor house at the time, they all had a motive and no one is telling the truth.  This complex mystery of deception and betrayal is part courtroom drama and part historical thriller.  Tolkien is the author of the Final Witness and grandson of J.R.R. Tolkien.