Reading Recommendations: Altar of Bones, a novel, Philip CarterIn San Francisco, a homeless woman is fatally stabbed by an assailant she's been expecting for years and her cryptic last words unlock a decades-buried secret that changed history.In Galveston, an old man makes a chilling death bed confession-"I am not who you think I am" - that serves as a warning of deceit and deception to his sons.In Massachusetts, a cold blooded female assassin makes an insidious pact with a corporate billionaire over a highly incriminating film.Each of these people has ties with a woman who, decades ago, fled a Soviet prison camp with an ancient knowledge people would sell their souls to possess.Drawn into this web of danger are Ry O'Malley a man desperate to outrun his own deadly fate; and Zoe Dmitroff a San Francisco attorney who recognizes the slain homeless woman, a woman she was told had died nearly half a century ago.No one can be trusted in the corrosive game of cat and mouse that ensues, one that spans a century, from the frozen Siberian terrain to the serpentine streets of Paris, fro the shocking revelations of a doomed Hollywood legend to the deadly machinations of the KGB and the highest office of the United States, and ultimately to the guardians of an ancient religious icon.From revelation to startling revelation, Philip Carter keeps the pages turning and the imagination running wild in a razor-sharp thriller that sets a new standard for compulsive international suspense.One of the most stunning novels I've ever read! The reader will not be able to put it down.And, Zero Day, a novel, David BaldacciJohn Puller is a combat veteran and the best military investigator in the U.S. Army's Criminal Investigative Division. His father was an Army fighting legend, and his brother is serving a life sentence for treason in a federal military prison. Puller has an indomitable spirit and an unstoppable drive to find the truth.Now Puller is called out on a case in a remote rural area in West Virginia coal country far from any military outpost. Someone has stumbled onto a brutal crime scene, a family slaughtered. The local homicide detective, a headstrong woman with personal demons of her own joins forces with Puller in the investigation. As Puller digs through deception after deception, he realizes that absolutely nothing he's seen in this small town, and no one in it, is what it seems. Facing a potential conspiracy that reached far beyond the hills of West Virginia, he is one man on the hunt for justice against an overwhelming force.I happen to be a David Balducci fan, this may be his best yet! Bet you the reader, didn't know David Baldacci, along with his wife, is co-founder of the Wish You Well Foundation, a non profit organization dedicated to supporting literacy efforts across America.And, The Gardens of Kyoto, a novel, Kate WalbertSo begins Kate Walbert's beautiful and heartbreaking novel about a young woman, Ellen, coming of age in the long shadow of World War II. Forty years later she relates the events of this period, beginning with the death of her favorite cousin, Randall, with whom she has shared Easter Sundays, secrets, and perhaps love. In an isolated, aging Maryland farmhouse that once was a stop on the Underground Railroad, Randall has grown up among ghosts: his father, Sterling, present only in body; his mother, dead at a young age; and the apparitions of a slave family. When Ellen receives a package after Randall's death, containing his diary and a book called The Gardens of Kyoto, her bond to him is cemented, and the mysteries of his short life start to unravel.The narrative moves back and forth between Randall's death in 1945 and the autumn six years later when Ellen meets Lieutenant Henry Rock at a college football game on the eve of his departure for Korea. But it soon becomes apparent that Ellen's memory may be distorting reality altered as it is by a mix of imagination and disappointment, and that the truth about Randall and Henry and others may be hidden. Walbert spins several parallel stories of the emotional damage done by war. Like the mysteries arrangements of the intricate sand, rock and gravel gardens of Kyoto, they gracefully assemble into a single, rich mosaic.– From the Recycled Books–Thank you, Janice Bull, telling me of this very different book!See you at Rylander!