Mailbox Monday

Mailbox Monday is hosted by Marcia at The Printed Page.

We share what books that we found in our mailboxes last week.

Here's what I got ~

When She Flew by Jennie Shortridge (For Review) ~ In this predictable but good-hearted novel, a father and his daughter—a damaged but loving Iraq War vet named Ray and a budding 12-year-old naturalist named Lindy—live happily off the grid in an Oregon forest until the day Lindy is spotted by a bird-watcher. Notified of a young girl wandering alone deep in the woods, the police assign dedicated officer Jessica Villareal to the case. Recently rejected by her own daughter and still smarting, Jessica sets out with the best of intentions for helping Lindy, but risks destroying the life Lindy and her father have built for themselves. Examining people willing to sidestep the rules in pursuit of a greater good, Shortridge's fourth novel (after Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe) recalls Barbara Kingsolver's Pigs in Heaven; Shortridge even manages to finesse authentic performances from her population of familiar types: a pitiable war veteran, a conflicted cop and a poor but precocious youngster.

Down to the Wire by David Rosenfelt (ARC) ~ A reporter for the Bergen News, Chris Turley could never measure up to his father, a combination of Bob Woodward and Ernie Pyle. He was one of the last great investigative reporters and a difficult man to impress. While stuck covering town hall meetings, Chris has always dreamt of his own Pulitzer, however unlikely it seems.
Then one day while he's waiting to meet a source, an explosion takes out half of an office building. Shocked into action, Chris saves five people and his firsthand account makes him a celebrity.
And that's not all. The source's next tip implicates a crooked mayor, and Chris has his second story. But then he finds out the deadly lengths to which his source has gone to "help" him, and now the man wants something in return - or more people will die. What seemed like a reporter's dream quickly becomes a nightmare.

Untraceable by Laura Griffin ~ Private investigator Alexandra Lovell uses computer skills and cunning to help clients drop off the radar and begin new lives in safety. Melanie Bess, desperate to escape her abusive cop husband, was one of those clients. But when Melanie vanishes for real, Alex fears the worst, and sets out to discover what happened. Using every resource she can get her hands on -- including an elite team of forensic scientists known as the Tracers, and a jaded, sexy Austin PD detective -- Alex embarks on a mission to uncover the truth. Melanie's murder is wrong, his instincts -- and their visceral attraction -- won't let him walk away. As a grim picture of what really happened begins to emerge, Nathan realizes this investigation runs deeper than they could ever have guessed. And each step nearer the truth puts Alex in danger of being the next to disappear....

The Lineup: The World's Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story of Their Greatest Detectives by Otto Penzler ~ A great recurring character in a series you love becomes an old friend. You learn about their strange quirks and their haunted pasts and root for them every time they face danger. But where do some of the most fascinating sleuths in the mystery and thriller world really come from? What was the real-life location that inspired Michael Connelly to make Harry Bosch a Vietnam vet tunnel rat? Why is Jack Reacher a drifter? How did a brief encounter in Botswana inspire Alexander McCall Smith to create Precious Ramotswe? In THE LINEUP, some of the top mystery writers in the world tell about the genesis of their most beloved characters--or, in some cases, let their creations do the talking.

House Rules: A Novel by Jodi Picoult (ARC) ~ Jacob Hunt is a teenage boy with Asperger's Syndrome. He's hopeless at reading social cues or experessing himself well to others, and like many kids with AS, Jacob has a special focus on one subject - in his case, forensic analysis. He's always showing up at crime scenes, thanks to the police scanner he keeps in his room, and telling the cops what they need to do ... and he's usually right. But then one day his tutor is found dead, and the police come to question him. All of the hallmark behaviors of Asperger's - not looking someone in the eye, stimulatory tics and twitches, flat affect - can loot a lot like guilt to law enforcement personnel. Suddenly, Jacob finds himself accused of murder. Emotionally powerful from beginning to end, House Rules looks at what it means to be different in our society, how autism affects a family, and how our legal system works well for people who communicate a certain way - and fails those who don't.

Miracle on the 17th Green: A Novel about Life, Love, Family, Miracles ... and Golf by James Patterson and Peter de Jonge (For Review) ~ While it isn't quite the literary equivalent of a hole-in-one, this fast-moving golf fantasy about an amateur golfer who decides to try out for the PGA Senior Tour has enough sweetness and humor to overcome its obvious plot cliches. Middle-aged and happily married, Travis McKinley does the unthinkable: he misses Christmas dinner after getting caught up in a divinely inspired streak of great putting during an outing on the country club course in Winnetka, Ill. As Travis's obsession with his newfound talent takes over his life, his obstetrician wife, Sarah, expresses increasing dismay over his inability to grow up, a domestic crisis that reaches a boiling point when Travis loses his job and journeys to Tallahassee, Fla., to try to qualify for the Senior Tour. Competing against overwhelming odds, Travis earns a place on the tour, only to have his dream spoiled when he learns that Sarah intends to file for divorce. As he continues to compete against the likes of Jack Nicklaus and Lee Trevino, the victory that will fulfill Travis's dream and reunite him with his family is as improbable as it is inevitable. Plot issues aside, Patterson (whose newest thriller is Jack and Jill) and de Jonge succeed admirably in creating a winning character who is enough of a child to believe his dreams and is also mature enough to offer some gently humorous reflections on our national obsession with an engaging sport. Christmas shoppers take note: vigorous, straightforward prose and solid characterization put this second golf fable of the season in a far different league from the mystical, romantic The Legend of Tommy Morris