Your Library Today

Recently we ask for people to select One Word to describe Stratford Public Library as it is today.  While most of the words are still being compiled, here's a preview of what we have received so far.

Would you like to contribute your One Word? It's easy to do - simply fill out this short form. 

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Christmas of Year's Past

Ever thought about what Christmas was like in the "olden days"? Before the mania of shopping and commercialization of ... well... everything? When children were satisfied with a gift of a ball or a doll? 


This Thursday Cheryl MacDonald will be presenting at Thursday Noon Hour Club on Christmas in Ontario: Legends, Tales & Traditions of Early Canada.  The program begins at 12noon and cost is $1.  This is the last of the Fall 2011 Noon Hour Club lineup. 


If you can't make it to this program on Thursday, we have a number of books on the history of Christmas:

• Christmas: A Candid History by Bruce Forbes
• The Battle for Christmas by Stephen Nissenbaum (eBook)
• Christmas in Shakespeare's England
• and my personal favourite... The Autobiography of Santa Claus  by Jeff Guinn

If you prefer a DVD, try Joyeux Noel, an account of the Christmas Eve truce between the British, French and German troops.  

If you attend the program, or read / watch the suggested books and dvd, leave a comment below and let us know what you thought.

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Year of the Cat

Well 2011 is almost over, but you can still Celebrate the Year of the Cat.


On Saturday December 3, come to to the Library Auditorium from 11-12 noon come meet some cats from the Perth County OSPCA. Learn about the history of domestic cats over the past 4000 years, with interesting anecdotes of their life among humans. 


Members of the OSPCA and Feline Friends Network will be on hand. Families (of all ages) welcome.


This free event should be a purrrfect way to spend part of your Saturday!

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SPL Shelf Life [kids]

The Elephant Scientist, by Caitlin O’Connell and Donna M. Jackson, 70 pages.

@ SPL:  J 599.674096881 O’Co

While studying elephants in Nambia, researcher Caitlin O’Connell encountered an intriguing mystery. She noticed that the pachyderms sometimes behaved quite oddly while they were walking, when they would suddenly freeze and lean forward on their feet as if they could sense something. Could they be sensing vibrations of some sort through their feet?

Working with other scientists, O’Connell eventually discovered the explanation. The elephants were indeed sensing vibrations through the many vibration-sensitive cells located in their footpads. These cells allow them to “hear” waves or vibrations transmitted through the ground. In fact, although elephants are also known to communicate over long distances with low-frequency rumbles, they often “talk” to each other with their feet. The special cells in their feet allow them to feel even the tiniest movement, causing nerve impulses to be sent to their brain. When this happens, the elephants stand in place so that they can focus and “hear” the message that is being sent.

Interestingly, O’Connell had previously observed the same behaviour in much smaller creatures – planthoppers. These tiny insects also feel vibrations in their feet from surrounding plants, leaves, twigs and the ground, and they freeze in position while “receiving” their message. Various other types of insects act in a similar fashion. 

The Elephant Scientist incorporates clear explanations of the process through which a researcher was able to solve a fascinating scientific mystery, as well as eye-catching photos, a useful glossary and sources of further information (which include Internet links to videos of some of O’Connell’s elephant experiments).

** Recommended for ages 8 to 13 years.

You Asked? Over 300 Great Questions and Astounding Answers, by the editors of Chickadee and Owl Magazines, 160 pages.  

@ SPL:  J 500 You

Do animals in hot climates – such as elephants and lions – get sunburns?  If not, why not? On a hot day, why does a long asphalt road look as if it has water on it?  Which is colder: the North Pole or the South Pole? What causes people and animals to sink in quicksand?  If a black hole can’t be seen against the blackness of space, how do scientists know where these holes are located? Do rainbows ever happen at night? (yes, occasionally - but they are much harder to see than those occurring during the daytime.)  How do stars twinkle? How do mice squeeze through such tiny holes? Do woodpeckers get headaches when they hammer on trees? Why are feet so ticklish? And why does it hurt so much when you hit your “funny bone”?

To parents and teachers, it seems as if kids are always asking the most challenging science questions possible! However, this updated reissue of a very useful title for children, You Asked, can help. It includes 350 of the most puzzling questions that have been submitted to Chickadee and Owl, two award-winning Canadian children’s magazines, on the subjects of animals, plants, earth sciences, technology and the solar system. The answers and explanations to these intriguing questions are informative and easy for young readers to understand.

Curious kids (and adults) will enjoy discovering lots about the world around (and above) them with this illustrated volume.

** Recommended for ages 8 to 12 years.

These reviews appeared in The Stratford Gazette on November 24th. Written by Sally Hengeveld, Librarian.

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SPL Shelf Life [adult]

The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis

@SPL: 330.973 Lew

As author of books like The Blind Side and Moneyball, Michael Lewis is no stranger to success as a nonfiction writer. He has a talent for covering stories in ways that play up their humanity, giving niche topics like economics and sports a universal appeal. But despite his knack for reading and reflecting public sentiment, even he couldn't have foreseen the push his latest effort, The Big Short, would receive from the zeitgeist. The Big Short takes readers on a thrilling, fast-paced and sometimes baffling ride through the swell and burst of the subprime mortgage bubble. He's already written one book exposing the inner workings of Wall Street – Liar's Pokercovered the greed, incompetence and corruption that ran rampant in the big firms of the 1980s - so when he tackled his second Wall Street opus, he was uniquely positioned to understand the complicated market machinery and labyrinthine logic driving the subprime mortgage crisis and triggering The Great Recession.

Sure, it's a bit of dense information and economic terminology, but he delivers it quickly; and given that some of the brightest minds on Wall Street couldn't make sense of the complicated mess surrounding subprime mortgages, readers should forgive themselves if they get a little lost in the details. At any rate, he works these technicalities into the story well enough that they don't break the narrative’s momentum.

Lewis also introduces readers to the real people making the trades, swaps and bets that left nations teetering. He takes us into the lives of those who inflated the value of investment portfolios containing subprime mortgages and disguised their risk, as well as those who discovered the risk and bet against them. Spoiler alert: the ratings agencies (like Moody's and S&P) do not come off at all well. Moving chronologically from the early 2000s, his prose builds a mix of disbelief, dread and outrage as events race toward the conclusions with which we're all now too familiar. Characters in the real-life drama range from iconoclastic to downright devious and smarmy, and the tale of how they manufactured investments that looked to be made of gold from groups of losing loans is riveting and angering to say the least. Even more interesting are the stories of those who identified the problem, bet against the subprime mortgages, and tried to warn others. For readers itching to know more about the events feeding the rage driving the Occupy protests, there is probably no more absorbing, enraging crash course available than Lewis' The Big Short.

This review appeared in The Stratford Gazette on November 24th. Written by Shauna Thomas, Librarian.

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French resources for you and your family

Last night, the Stratford chapter of Canadian Parents for French hosted a Parents Success Night at the Falstaff Early Years Centre. There was a booksale, french food, and a number of presenters on french resources. 
I was there to present about french resources from the library and to highlight our new online sources.  The French resources at the library are great for those in French immersion, but also for those who are taking French generally in school, those who speak french and want to continue learning in that language, who want to learn more about french culture and those who want to learn the language. 


In French
Books: board books for the youngest readers, easy readers, picture books, chapter books, novels, French fact books for kids and adults, 
Music: various cds in french language including the very popular Nikki Yanofsky
DVDs: french language DVDs, but also a good number of our dvds can have French subtitles turned on. 
Magazines: J'aime Lire for kids and L'Actualite (like Macleans)
Books on CD: learn french in one of our many language kits
Downloadables: a small, but growing collection of french materials in downloadLibrary. 


About French Life
Books: Travel Guides, French cooking and recipes, grammar, dictionaries
DVDs: learn by watching a film about France or Quebec


And Online
A new French Homework Help section to our SPL Kids website. Contains links to good sites on language, art, math, social science, health, science, reference sources, and games. 
Encyclopedie Decouverte - World Book in French - Free access with your library card!
Tumblebooks - there are quite a few titles that are in french that can be enjoyed by kids of all ages. 


If you have any suggestions for our French Homework page - please forward them on!


Krista Robinson, Librarian

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Library is a kind of paradise

[source]

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Breaking Dawn

Image from Wikipedia

Last night I went to see the long anticipated Breaking Dawn Part 1 at Stratford Cinemas.  The wedding was amazing, the honeymoon breath taking... and the rest - well I'll let you wait and see. For a glimpse however you can watch the trailer. My only complaint about the film was that it ended too soon, although it does end at a perfect point in the story. Now fans of the Twilight series will have to wait until November 2012 for Part 2 to hit the theatres. 


In the mean time, fans of the Twilight series can use the library to:

• read the print books (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn)
• read the ebooks (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn)
• listen to the books in audio format (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn)
• watch the earlier flicks (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse)
• listen to the soundtracks (Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse)
• Read The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella
• Read Twilight in Graphic Novel format
• read up on how the movies were made in the Twilight Director's Notebook
• Learn more about Forks in the DVD Destination Forks
• Or learn more about the whole series in the Twilight Companion

Super TwiHard fans will also want to read the unfinished Midnight Sun - the fifth book in the Twilight saga. Midnight Sun had been leaked on the Internet in 2008 causing Meyer to stop her work on the novel - although she claims finishing this book is her next project. Midnight Sun is essentially Twilight through Edward's eyes.

We also have a number of other books that fans of Twilight will surely enjoy. For the next week there is a display on the main floor of the library, but you can also reserve titles online from our If You Like The Bite of Twilight list. 

"Surely it was a good way to die, in the place of someone else, someone I loved. Noble, even. That ought to count for something" Bella Swan, Twilight, Preface p.1.

~Krista Robinson, Librarian 

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SPL Shelf Life [adult]

The Very Picture of You by Isabel Wolff

@SPL: FIC Wolff

Gabriella Graham is a portrait artist, one who prefers to paint her subjects in person rather than from a photograph. It allows her to get a sense of the real person behind their façades, to get their true essences. But for a woman who paints the inner person, she has a hard time getting past her first impressions, especially about some of the most important people in her life – the father who abandoned her and her mother when she was a toddler; the sister whose fragility seems precarious; the graceful mother whose core of steel hides some of the most important details of Ella’s life. Those she paints are also subject to her prejudices – the entitled trophy wife who tries to sabotage her own sittings, the politician with bonhomie who suddenly drops forty pounds, and especially her own sister’s fiancée Nate. Ella is sure Nate will break her sister’s already delicate heart, and despises him for it;  her open hostility threatens to ruin her portrait of him and her relationship with her sister. Until, that is, the day they finally clear the air, and Nate’s portrait starts to really take on a life of its own, revealing some hidden truths to which only Ella, ironically, remains oblivious. 

The Very Picture of You has a great sense of atmosphere within its romance and humour; there is nothing very sordid about the secrets the characters keep, nor wholly original about how the plot develops, but the writing is satisfying, the pace good and the characters well-drawn (no pun intended). For fans of the genre, The Very Picture of You falls somewhere between Carole Matthews’ and Olivia Goldsmith’s brand of chick lit.

This review appeared in The Stratford Gazette on November 17th. Written by Robyn Godfrey, Librarian.

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SPL Shelf Life [kids]

Ghost Messages, by Jacqueline Guest, 176 pages.

@ SPL:  J FIC Guest

The year is 1865. At 13 years of age, Ailish O’Connor is already a fortune-teller. She and her father travel from place to place in Ireland and earn a living with her prophecies of the future, which are surprisingly accurate. Ailish has the gift of second sight.

Tragedy strikes suddenly one night in an Irish seaport when Ailish awakes to the sounds of vicious blows. In the second room that they have rented for the night, she finds her father beaten and dying, their savings stolen. Ailish is certain that a newly-met acquaintance of her father is responsible.

The next day, through a series of circumstances, Ailish becomes trapped on a high liner, the Great Eastern, as it casts off from Ireland on its historic voyage to lay the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable.

The sailors on the Great Eastern are superstitious and Ailish must pretend to be a boy so that they won’t toss her into the sea. When she discovers that her father’s murderer, a dangerous and brutal man, is also aboard the ship, she knows that she must be doubly sure to keep her disguise – as well as her wits and courage – if she is to complete the long voyage and reach Newfoundland alive.

Posing as a cabin boy, Ailish sometimes receives help from a mysterious young boy named “Davy”, who never comes up on deck – yet seems to know everything about the ship. They become close friends. Later, she discovers that none of the ship’s crew have ever seen or heard of the boy. Could he be a ghost from the past?

This suspenseful story is very believable, and will “hook” readers as it brings to life a significant event in world history – the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. Readers will cheer for Ailish, a brave, resourceful and likeable heroine.

** Recommended for ages 9 to 13 years.
** This book is nominated for the 2012 Silver Birch Award in the Forest of Reading

Hoping for Home: Stories of Arrival, a “Dear Canada” book; stories written by various authors, 242 pages.

@ SPL:  J FIC Dear

Dedicated to “all who have forged a home in Canada”, Hoping for Home celebrates the people who have arrived here over the years to make a new home, searching for freedom or for a better life, braving the many challenges of moving to a different country. Eleven short stories, based on history, have been written for this anthology by well-known Canadian children’s authors such as Jean Little, Paul Yee and Kit Pearson.

Readers will meet boys and girls who arrive in various Canadian locations at different times in our history. Some have immigrated with their families, but others are not so lucky. Verity is a war guest from England, sent by her parents to Canada for her own safety during the Blitz of World War II. She is now in Toronto, adjusting to a new school and trying to make new friends. Zayd and his family have left Pakistan in the 1960’s to make a better life in Hamilton. He also is adjusting to a new school and trying to make new friends. Harriet is one of the approximately 100,000 Home Children arriving in Canada in the 19^thand early 20 century without their parents. Her new home is in Peterborough. Wong-Joe has just reached Tybalt, Saskatchewan after a long journey across the Pacific Ocean, British Columbia and Alberta. He will be helping his father run his busy makeshift café there. The year is 1921.

Each story is told in the first person, as a letter or an entry in a diary or journal.

Hoping for Home is one of the titles in the popular “Dear Canada” series for girls; however, this book would be enjoyed by both boys and girls.

** Recommended for ages 8 to 12 years.

These reviews appeared in The Stratford Gazette on November 17th. Written by Sally Hengeveld, Librarian.

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Canada Reads 2012

CBC’s annual battle of the books, devoted for the first time this year to works of non-fiction, has named the titles in its 2012 Canada Reads: True Stories Top 10 list.  In just one week the list will be dwindled down to 5 books. Which ones do you think will make the cut?
Click here for more details on Canada Reads.


They are:
Louis Riel by Chester Brown
The Tiger by John Vaillant
The Boy in the Moon by Ian Brown
Cockeyed by Ryan Knighton
The Game by Ken Dryden
On a Cold Road by Dave Bidini
Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan
Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat
Shake Hands with the Devil by Romeo Dallaire
Something Fierce by Carmen Aguirre


Click on any of the links to reserve a copy of this year's long list.

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SPL Shelf Life [adult]

Hotel Pastis: A Novel of Provence by Peter Mayle

@SPL: FIC Mayle

London-based ad man Simon Shaw has had enough – enough massaging clients' egos, enough battling other agency directors for supremacy, enough dodging mutiny attempts from younger colleagues. In grey, cold London, he watches his marriage dissolve and realizes that the career that once excited him now seems like pointless drudgery, albeit with a lovely paycheque. Frustrated and burnt out, he decides to put the paycheque to good use, and heads to the south of France for a vacation in the sun.

On the advice of a well-traveled friend, he heads to an undiscovered corner of paradise in Provence called Isle-sur-Sorgue. Author Peter Mayle does a wonderful job capturing the sensual experience of the region, capturing the light, smells, tastes, and even local speech patterns in frothy prose. Through a series of misadventures, Simon's Porche is disabled and he gets stuck in the sleepy town, where he meets a pretty Frenchwoman named Nicole. They discover a partially developed piece of property with a fantastic view, left to rot since the recession ate away the project's funding.

He grudgingly returns to London, but not for long – the magnetic pull of Nicole and Isle-sur-Sorgue have him making frequent return trips, and his work suffers. When Nicole floats the idea of purchasing the old, partially developed gendarmerie to create a hotel, Simon's decision comes quickly – within months, he and his butler Ernest have moved to Isle-sur-Sorgue, and construction resumes. Meanwhile, a crew of colourful local crooks are plotting an elaborate bank robbery. As the date of the bank robbery and hotel opening march closer, Simon finds that running a luxurious hotel while ignoring local mobsters isn't so simple as he'd hoped.

Mayle's light prose and dry humour keep the capers squarely in the realm of cozy suspense, and as the tension builds the reader is taken on a sumptuous tour of the delights hidden in rural Provence. Mayle creates a memorable ensemble cast of sympathetic characters, each with their own distinct voices and endearing foibles. While the pacing isn't always perfect, readers longing for a taste of the good life in Provence will certainly enjoy Hotel Pastis' rich, earthy comic romp.

This review appeared in The Stratford Gazette on November 10th. Written by Shauna Thomas, Librarian.

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SPL Shelf Life [kids]

Ghost of Heroes Past, by Charles Reid, 168 pages.

@ SPL: YA Reid

On the night before his fourteenth birthday, Johnny Anders has an unusual dream – a dream in which he is taken back in time to meet the ghosts of some real-life Canadians who were involved in dangerous, deadly work during the two World Wars. He observes Commando Tommy Prince’s daring rescue of a small group of ambushed French Resistance fighters and Nurse Joan Fletcher’s courageous struggles to bring hundreds of wounded civilians through the dense Indonesian jungle to safety. He witnesses Bill Chong’s near-capture in his work as a British spy in World War II Hong Kong, and flies with fighter-pilot Raymond Collishaw as he brings yet another German plane to the ground. Johnny is present when a group of courageous nurses stand in front of some helpless invalids to shield them from armed Japanese soldiers invading a war hospital. He sees the vicious trench warfare of World War I, as well as boats being torpedoed in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II.

Charles Reid’s story brings Johnny and the reader to a new interest in, and understanding of, our nation’s war heroes – heroes who were ordinary Canadians, both men and women, acting with great courage to save others even when they were very afraid. Loosely based on Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol (in which Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by ghosts), Ghost of Heroes Past is believable because the story is based on real people, facts and events. (In fact, London, Ontario author Charles Reid was able to interview British spy Bill Chong while conducting his research.)

The result is an intriguing book that reveals the courage, resilience and selflessness of its heroes - as well as the death and dehumanization of war.

** Recommended for ages 12 to 15 years.

 

Irena Sendler and the Children of the Warsaw Ghetto, by Susan Goldman Rubin, 40 pages.

@ SPL:  J 940.5318092 Sendl-R

The subject of heroism is further explored in the beautifully-illustrated, true story of Irena Sendler, a young Polish social worker who helped approximately four hundred children escape from Nazi soldiers – and almost certain death - during World War II.

When Poland surrendered on September 28, 1939, Nazi soldiers rounded up Jewish families and forced them to live in ghettos located in cities such as Warsaw. There, poor sanitation, a lack of food and overcrowding soon resulted in deadly epidemics, such as cholera. In 1942 the Nazis started to empty these ghettos, herding Jewish children and adults into cattle cars going to Treblinka, a death camp, where those who hadn’t already succumbed to sickness or starvation would be put to death.

Irena’s heart told her that despite the certain danger and risk, she had to do something – and she did.

She became a member of the Council for Aid to Jews, a new underground organization. Disguised as a nurse, Irena would enter the Warsaw Ghetto and smuggle out children in any way she could devise. With the help of other Council members, some children were smuggled out in ambulances, hidden under stretchers and floorboards. Some were concealed in fire trucks. Some were hidden in sacks, body bags or coffins, supposedly en route to the Jewish cemetery. Occasionally, some of the children escaped through the city’s sewer system in a precisely-timed, well-rehearsed operation. Sometimes, babies were even smuggled out of the ghetto in potato sacks, suitcases or toolboxes.

Parents of these children made the heart-breaking decision to let their offspring go, knowing that otherwise they would face almost certain death. Irena kept a list of the escaped children and their parents, in case they could be reunited after the war – and in a few cases, this did happen.

For the 5 ½ years of the German occupation of Warsaw, Irena continued her dangerous work, despite being arrested once by the Nazis and almost put to death.

Irena’s story is one that certainly deserves to be told and read.

It is the story of a true hero.

Recommended for ages 7 to 12 years.

These reviews appeared in The Stratford Gazette on November 10th. Written by Sally Hengeveld, Librarian.

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New Magazine at SPL

Do you love trivia? Little facts about this and that? Then you will love Mental Floss - a new magazine in the library's adult magazine collection. Mental Floss is full of short tidbits and articles on a variety of topics. 

Recent articles include: Ideal Soundtracks for Milking Your Cow, 5 Lessons from the Gurus of Spin, Muppets, Christmas in Space, 25 Most Powerful Songs of the Past 25 Years, 

5 Medical Innovations From The Civil War

.  

Knowledge Junkies will certainly get their fix with this new bimonthly magazine.  

The current issue is now on display at the library.  While it can't be checked out, place a hold and when the January copy comes in you will be able to check this issue out!

Keep an eye out for another new magazine coming to SPL... Every Day with Rachel Ray!

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SPL Shelf Life [kids]

These reviews appeared in The Stratford Gazette on November 3rd. Written by Sally Hengeveld, Librarian.

Every Thing on It, by Shel Silverstein, 194 pages.

@ SPL:  J 811.54Silve

As well as being a recognized cartoonist, song writer, playwright and performer, Shel Silverstein was one of the most beloved children’s poets of all time. Author of such children’s classics as Where the Sidewalk Ends , A Light in the Attic, Falling Up and The Giving Tree, Silverstein wrote prolifically and enthusiastically.

After Silverstein’s death, his family gathered about 130 unpublished poems from his extensive personal archives and published them in a new collection, entitled Every Thing on It.

Fortunately, this new poetry collection has lost none of the infectious humour which, over the years, has made Silverstein’s poetry so popular with children (and probably adults too). Clever, fun, gleeful and always enhanced by a quirky illustration or two, his poems inevitably leave readers wanting more – or even wanting to try writing their own poems.

In Silverstein’s newly-published poems, readers will discover why asking for a hot dog “with everything on it” is not a good idea, why you should never criticize someone’s hat, what happened to “Stick-A-Tongue-Out-Sid” and what really happened when the prince found Cinderella’s shoe!

Poignantly, the last poem in this collection is entitled When I am Gone. “When I am gone what will you do? Who will write and draw for you? Someone smarter – someone new? Someone better – maybe you!”

** Recommended for ages 5 to 10 years.

The Lunch Thief, by Anne C. Bromley, 28 pages.

@ SPL:  JP Broml

Readers will also finish this second book with a smile on their faces – not from laughter as with Silverstein’s poems, but just because The Lunch Thief such a heart-warming, satisfying and beautifully-illustrated story.

Kevin, a new kid in the school, has been snitching his classmates’ lunches. Every day - without any intimidation or bullying on his part – he’s very quietly made off with someone’s lunch. First, it was Raphael’s lunch. Out of the corner of his eye, Raphael saw Kevin stuff it into his backpack and quickly leave the room. The next day, it was Alfredo’s lunch, and the next day, Kevin ran off with Karen’s lunch bag. But when Raphael and Alfredo chased Kevin, he was too quick for them and he disappeared from sight.

Raphael pondered what to do. His mom had always told him that only cowards fight. He decided to talk to Kevin instead. When he did, he discovered that Kevin was from the Jacinto Valley, where many homes had recently been destroyed by a wildfire. However, Kevin didn’t want to talk about it. He just seemed very sad.

That weekend, on the way to the grocery store, Raphael spotted Kevin entering a small motel room. His mom told him that it was likely Kevin’s whole family would be living there - in one small motel room - for a long time. Many Jacinto Valley families had lost everything in the fire.

Now Raphael understood.

Then he thought of the generous lunch that his mom packed for him every day, his many friends, his home, and many other things that he had – and Kevin didn’t.

And then, Raphael knew exactly what to do.

** Recommended for ages 5 to 9 years. 

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SPL Shelf Life [adult]

This review appeared in The Stratford Gazette on November 3rd. Written by Robyn Godfrey, Librarian.

Heat Rises by Richard Castle
@SPL: FIC Castl


In the third novel "fictitiously attributed to Richard Castle, a character on the ABC television show, Castle", Detective Nikki Heat has a series of uphill battles with which to contend. First, her investigative journalist boyfriend Jameson Rook is MIA, in some far-flung part of the world. No doubt he is up to his neck in danger while following a story, but is that any reason not to call? Then there is the increasingly erratic behaviour of her leader, Captain Montrose, who is facing bureaucratic pressure to reduce crime rates on a reduced budget. But that does not seem to be the only thing bothering him, and Nikki is shut down when she tries to help her former mentor. To make matters worse, she finds her investigation into the murder of a local priest is being stonewalled at every turn from an unknown but likely inside source, and there is evidence to suggest that Captain Montrose is interfering outside the call of duty. And even though Nikki is garnering good - and somewhat unwanted - attention by aceing her lieutenant's test, the powers that be that started fighting over her suddenly turn on her when she stubbornly refuses to stop following the case.  What's a determined detective to do? With help from best work buds Lauren Parry, Raley and Ochoa - and some late night help from Rook - Nikki turns up the heat in a cold New York winter and perseveres - but at the cost of one, and maybe two, more lives. As always, the books based on the fictitious writings of a writer who doesn't really exist are fast-paced cops-and-murderers mysteries, with bones thrown to fans of both the Castle television show and of its stars, Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic. The Nikki Heat series is for fans of the show, or of authors like Stephen J. Cannell or Dennis LeHane.

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