W. Bruce Cameron introduced Ruddy McCann, former Michigan high school football star turned repo man, in his hilarious first mystery, The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man. Returning for a second installment in an equally side-splitting adventure, McCann no longer hears the voice of dead realtor Alan Lottner in his head. And he discovers he's lonely.

In an effort to contact Alan and encourage him to return, McCann visits mediums. When he exits one's establishment, a young woman confronts him, claiming the catastrophic accident that changed his life years ago didn't actually happen the way everyone believed. Then she vanishes as quickly as she arrived, leaving McCann to investigate the incident that has haunted him his entire adult life.

To augment the suspense and add chaos ("repo madness") to McCann's life, his employer dies, an apparent suicide; a spineless banker tries to hire McCann as a hit man; and Alan returns. This novel also resurrects the wonderfully wacky characters hanging out at the Black Bear, including linguistically creative Kermit, the bickering Wolfingers and Casanova Jimmy. Cameron keeps his protagonist on his toes and the readers completely entertained. Repo Madness is nonstop action with laughs on every page.

Reading The Midnight Plan of the Repo Man prior to Repo Madness isn't necessary to enjoy the second of the series, but those intending to read both should start with the first to avoid spoilers present in the second. Regardless of where one starts, repo madness is one affliction that readers shouldn't miss. --Jen Forbus of Jen's Book Thoughts

Imagine being trapped in a coma, in a body that can neither perceive nor respond to touch, but which might feel and rely on the stimuli of "sound" for a connection to the outside. There is no bright light, no lucid dream, just the sickening desire to avoid the uncertain fate that a prolonged period of being "off" would entail--the declaration of death. This is what Prix Nouveau Talent Award-winning writer Clélie Avit has imagined in her tactile and vivid fiction debut, a sweetly narrated love story.

An ice bridge collapses on a mountain climbing trip, and the anchor that secures Elsa to the lead climber fails, plunging her several hundred feet down to the hard snow. She has now been in a coma for five months, having regained her auditory sense only in the last six weeks. On her birthday, Elsa receives a visit from Thibault, a young man who is avoiding his brother, who is in the same hospital after a drunk driving accident resulting in the death of two teenage girls. Thibault initiates a one-sided conversation with Elsa that finishes with a kiss to her cheek. His uninhibited discourse excites Elsa, and Thibault returns over several weeks. He is beginning to fall for his silent companion, even as doctors are pressuring Elsa's parents to pull the plug.

Avit's deft writing gives Elsa's interior landscape a colorful and addictive joy that pulls on the heartstrings. I'm Still Here is a wonderful story from a new and emerging voice. --Nancy Powell, freelance writer and technical consultant

At the outset of Shari Lapena's first novel, Anne and Marco Conti are enjoying a rare night out at a dinner party next door. Their babysitter canceled at the last minute, so the Contis have brought along their baby monitor and are taking turns every half-hour to go back to their place and check on six-month-old Cora. When the party wraps at one a.m., Anne and Marco return home to find their front door ajar--and Cora gone.

Detective Rasbach arrives at the scene, and suspects the Contis know more about their child's disappearance than they're admitting. There's also tension between Marco and his father-in-law, and Anne's wealthy parents may have been the real targets for ransom. And what to make of the fact Anne can't remember what her own baby was wearing the last time she saw her? Rasbach is determined to get to the truth, even if everyone he encounters seems intent on hiding it from him.

The prose is wooden, often stating the obvious ("The truth is there. It's always there. It only needs to be uncovered."), and the omniscient narrative voice makes it hard to form a clear picture of anyone. But this last quality works in the novel's favor, because it means any or all of the cryptic characters could be guilty of something. The plot turns are many, and though not particularly shocking, they speed this psychological thriller along toward a satisfying ending. --Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, blogger at Pop Culture Nerd

Alice Arlen and Michael J. Arlen's biography of Alicia Patterson tells the extraordinary story of an unconventional life. Patterson was a world traveler, a licensed transport pilot, a journalist and publisher of a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper, though she lived only until the age of 56. With their research, the authors show how many of Patterson's decisions in her early life appear guided by a desire to be close to her father, Joe Patterson, heir of a Chicago newspaper empire and founder of the New York Daily News. The two were similar in temperament, both curious and willing to push boundaries, which made Alicia Patterson's home and school life difficult. By 10th grade, she had been expelled from numerous boarding schools after showing no qualms about breaking school rules. Attempts to settle her down included her father bringing her to New York and giving her a job running errands at one of his newspapers and her mother pushing for her to marry a childhood friend. Patterson would have three marriages in her life, the first two arranged by her parents.

While her initial desire to impress her father may have driven her to become a pilot and try journalism, her knack for achieving challenging goals continued throughout her adulthood. She followed her uncommon passions across the globe and challenged the many limitations put on her gender in the early and mid-20th century. More than that, the inroads she made in establishing investigative journalism forever changed the U.S. national news. The Arlens captivatingly portray a fascinating woman. --Justus Joseph, bookseller at Elliott Bay Book Company

C. Nicole Mason (Me First) is "both the subject and the authority on the matter" of poverty as a black woman who grew up poor in Los Angeles and got a full scholarship to Howard University. A common view of the poor is that they are "lazy, infantile, morally corrupt, and in need of direction and supervision"; individual responsibility is what will save them. But for most people born into poverty, escaping it "is like winning the lottery." Mason is now a poverty scholar and advocate. "I am a winner no matter which side of the aisle you occupy. Yet I do not feel like a winner." She spent years wondering how she managed to get out when her equally gifted and industrious peers did not. Her intimate memories and scholarly expertise illuminate and empower this vivid memoir.

Mason had a chaotic, often violent and hungry childhood in which school became her main source of stability and self-worth. She was always moving, usually with a drug dealing adult or two in the house and the constant presence of fear and death. She writes with love, cooled anger and empathetic resignation about her beautiful, determined and sometimes violent teenage mother; her father who dealt drugs because he couldn't find consistent legitimate work; her kind, generous grandparents and aunt; her siblings, classmates and teachers. Mason's breadth of personal and academic knowledge makes her a rare and valuable voice in the poverty policy debates, and this heartfelt memoir will have broad appeal. --Sara Catterall

Witches have haunted American psyches since before there was a United States. In American Witches: A Broomstick Tour Through Four Centuries, Susan Fair recounts key stories in this haunting, from the first witches "brought over" by colonists, to the modern-day Blair Witch phenomenon.

As the title suggests, Fair's tour is often wry, occasionally verging on sarcastic, but she balances humor directed at the absurdities in these superstitions with sympathy for the many, many victims caught in the thrall of preternatural fears. "For most accused witches, the only words of theirs that survive are the curses they supposedly sputtered at neighbors they had had a disagreement with, or their courtroom denials as transcribed by the prosecutors." Fair gives meaningful voice to these victims, but uses levity to make the grim subject of their suffering endurable for the reader.

Of particular note is the section on witchcraft from the American Indian perspective. Many tribes had their own stories of witchcraft and devilry and, as they Christianized, adopted those of the European missionaries proselytizing among them. Often, Indian legends targeted those very European colonists, blaming them for disease and hardship. Also noteworthy, and almost incomprehensible, is the fact that many people believe that the movie The Blair Witch Project is a documentary and visit Burkittsville, Md., to encounter the witch. American Witches is a fine, fun exploration of the witchcraft craze. --Evan M. Anderson, collection development librarian, Kirkendall Public Library, Ankeny, Iowa.

Few journalists are as conversant with the frightening post-9/11 world than the New Yorker's Lawrence Wright (The Looming Tower). In The Terror Years, a collection of 11 pieces from the magazine, Wright displays equally incisive investigative skills and comprehensive reportage to describe the West's fight against terrorism, the intractable conflict in the Middle East and the rise of al-Qaeda's even more ruthless progeny, ISIS.

The collection's most poignant story is "Five Hostages," recounting the desperate, private efforts led by David Bradley, publisher of the Atlantic, to save Kayla Mueller and four other kidnapped journalists and activists. The beheadings of Mueller and three other hostages by ISIS in 2014 and 2015 first exposed most of the world to the depravity of that organization, "a proto-state that uses terror not just to conquer but to rule." But as Wright reveals in "The Rebellion Within," some former terrorists in Egypt, including one who provided the original intellectual underpinning for al-Qaeda's activities, have begun to question the wisdom of these barbaric tactics and the use of violence in general to achieve the movement's goals.

Because of the breadth and complexity of its subject matter, The Terror Years would have benefited from at least a brief chronology. Nevertheless, Wright's sobering journalism isn't likely to make his readers optimistic about a quick and painless victory in the "expensive and clumsy enterprise" that is fighting terrorism. But anyone who reflects on these thorough, thoughtful pieces will be better equipped to evaluate the prescriptions for waging that fight offered by those vying to lead it. --Harvey Freedenberg, attorney and freelance reviewer

Leigh Calvez had studied orca and humpback whales, spirit bears and brown bears, before owls crossed her line of sight. The Hidden Lives of Owls: The Science and Spirit of Nature's Most Elusive Birds is the story of the time she spent pursuing the owls of the Pacific Northwest, where she lives.

Calvez meets with citizen scientists and professional researchers, and travels through Alaska, Montana, Washington and Oregon in her quest to spot and, more significantly, to understand a range of species. In a wondering tone, she considers the hard science and spiritual connections of Flammulated, Snowy, Great Horned, Great Gray, Burrowing and the controversial Barred Owls--which have thrived in the Pacific Northwest at the expense of other owls. Calvez shares some of the fascinating particulars of owl biology: specialized feathers that support silent flight; asynchronous hatching and fledging schedules; reversed sexual size dimorphism (females are larger than males in most owl species). She investigates the environmental threats to these birds, and she sympathizes with mothers forced to choose between the safety of their babies and their own.

The Hidden Lives of Owls is both informative and often reverential. While Calvez has chosen her subjects by their proximity to her home, many species considered here migrate or travel from coast to coast in the United States, and from Canada to Mexico, giving this book appeal across North America. In the end, Calvez makes a strong argument for the owls' particular needs and interests. --Julia Jenkins, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia

Lygia Day Peñaflor, an academic tutor for Hollywood "showbiz kids," gives readers a peek at life as a child actor in Unscripted Joss Byrd, her emotive, gritty debut starring a vulnerable young thespian, "the next Tatum O'Neal."

At 12, Joss Byrd reigns as one of Hollywood's darlings, but inside she knows she's just a "dirt-driveway kid" from Pennsylvania with a "hole in our bank account where there used to be my movie money" after her mother/manager, Viva, blew her earnings on a bad business plan. Critics rave about Joss's performances, but every day on set in Long Island's Montauk is a struggle for her, as she strives for infrequent morsels of approval from Viva and lives in fear that someone will notice her dyslexia. Her latest role as her director's sexually abused kid sister in the biopic of his own childhood has Joss overwhelmed. Frequent script changes, a crush on her 14-year-old movie brother, Chris, and scary run-ins with the Method actor playing her "pervy stepdad" leave Joss unmoored. When her mother has an affair with her director and agrees that her daughter will perform scenes dealing more intimately with abuse than her contract stipulated, Joss finds some support from the director's real sister, who disapproves of the film. Ultimately, though, Joss must use her own wits and grit to stand up to the adults who have power over her.

Peñaflor's on-set moments spark with insider accuracy, but the book's true strength lies in Joss's sensitive, engrossing voice, which sings with frustration, fear and hope. Despite her young age, the adult situations she faces will give the young teen set plenty to digest. --Jaclyn Fulwood, lead librarian at Del City Public Library, Okla.

Can't a purple, furry, bean-shaped fellow ride his bicycle in peace without school buses of kids screaming in fright and people calling him... a monster?

He's serious: "It really hurts my feelings. I'm no monster!" His horns, wild eyes, "clompy feet," fangs, long toenails and "huge, toothy smile that glows in the dark" should not justify such boorish name-calling. He says he shouldn't be called a monster just because he might happen to be under the bed, or "Just because I roar./ And scream./ And holler./ And whoop./ And cackle./ And howl at the moon./ And howl at the sun." This poor purple soul can't even shop for groceries, scrutinizing the cereal-box ingredients with his pink reading glasses, without some kid yelling for his mommy. How rude. It's not like he goes around calling children "little meat snack" or anything. His name is Floyd Peterson, and people should call him that.

Jory John (author of Goodnight Already!; co-author of The Terrible Two) and Bob Shea (the Dinosaur vs. series)--the creators of I Will Chomp You!--whoop it up in this very funny picture book sure to inspire countless dramatic echoes of "I'm no monster!" (Poor Floyd, who loves flowers and baguettes, is so misunderstood.) Shea's bright, bold, electric illustrations sizzle with monster energy and will generate far more giggles than shrieks, just as Floyd would want it. --Karin Snelson, children's & YA book editor, Shelf Awareness