BARRY J BARROS

Stephanie Plum, Trenton’s hardest working, most underappreciated bounty hunter, is offered an assignment that seems simple enough. Local jeweler Martin Rabner wants her to locate his former security guard, Andy Manley (a.k.a. Nutsy), who he is convinced stole a fortune in diamonds from his safe. Stephanie is also looking for another troubled man, Duncan Dugan, a fugitive from justice arrested for robbing the same jewelry store on the same day.

A NEW mystery for the curious mind with a short attention span called They Put Him in a Cage is followed by an installment of The Way I Talked About The Way I Heard It, during which Mike and Chuck discuss first jobs, audition horror stories, and the condition of Mike’s dad.

Peggy chides her eldest for spending too much time in the sun, then they discuss book clubs and pool sharks, Peggy’s latest borderline inappropriate post, Mike eating dates, geoducks and horses, Picasso vs Cezanne, a briss gone wrong, used condoms in an elevator shaft, a little paregoric on the gums, how Peggy discovered Mike was circumcised, and a tease about her espionage court case. In other words, another Coffee with Mom!

1863: In a small Creole cottage in New Orleans, an ingenious young Black woman named Stella embroiders intricate maps on repurposed cloth to help enslaved men flee and join the Union Army. Bound to a man who would kill her if he knew of her clandestine activities, Stella has to hide not only her efforts but her love for William, a Black soldier and a brilliant musician.

Dirty Jobber Stacey Schumacher, co-owner of Schumacher Cattle (a ranch with a "pasture to plate program") and founder and executive director of the Texas Coalition for Animal Protection, a non-profit organization that spayed and neutered over 68,000 cats and dogs last year, has a unique perspective on animal rights and animal husbandry and why they are both so crucial.

It’s another Christmas extravaganza featuring three-time New York Times bestselling author Peggy Rowe, a.k.a. Mike’s mom. Now with less potty mouth! Peggy explains why she and Chuck conspired to keep a secret from Mike.

As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything - beauty, wealth, and the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses - but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, and puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets.

It is 1911, and Jean is about to join the mass strike at the Singer factory. For her, nothing will be the same again. Decades later, Connie sews coded moments of her life into a notebook, as her mother did before her. More than 100 years after his grandmother's sewing machine was made, Fred unpicks the secrets of four generations, one stitch at a time.

Fern Castle works in her local library. She has dinner with her twin sister, Rose, three nights a week. And she avoids crowds, bright lights, and loud noises as much as possible. Fern has a carefully structured life, and disrupting her routine can be...dangerous. When Rose discovers that she cannot get pregnant, Fern sees her chance to pay her sister back for everything Rose has done for her. Fern can have a baby for Rose. She just needs to find a father. Simple.

Nothing bad can happen at the Ritz; inside its gilded walls, every woman looks beautiful, every man appears witty. Favored guests walk through its famous doors to be welcomed and pampered by Blanche Auzello and her husband, Claude, the hotel’s director. Until June 1940, when the German army sweeps into Paris, setting up headquarters at the Ritz. Suddenly, with the likes of Hermann Goëring moving into suites once occupied by royalty, Blanche and Claude must navigate a terrifying new reality. One that entails even more secrets.