Defend the Turf

Attack the Block is a comedy/horror movie (think Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) with a surprising dash of morality thrown in. When an alien crash lands in their council estate, a gang of teenagers do what anybody else would: they kill it. However, this one fatal decision causes a full-scale alien invasion and the boys and their leader, Moses, are left to defend the block. They team up with Sam, a woman they had previously mugged, to thwart the police, fight against drug dealers, and protect their neighborhood. Along the way, both Sam and Moses begin to realize that they are responsible for the consequences caused by their actions and prejudices. HM

Dealing With The Devil

Detective Chief Inspector John Luther has a lot of problems. He's incredibly volatile, he's haunted by the terrible crimes he investigates, his marriage is falling apart, and a psychopath is obsessed with him. But he's also a brilliant detective who will stop at nothing to punish the deserving for their monstrous actions. Always balancing on a tight-rope across a moral grey area, will Luther be pushed over the edge when he faces the ultimate betrayal? Find out in Luther: Season 1. And keep an eye out for Season 2, coming soon to the Oxford Public Library! HM

Good Old-Fashioned Haunting

In the spirit of Halloween, settle down for this quick read: The Woman in Black by Susan Hill. I'm not a huge fan of scary stories, but this one had the right amount of thriller and supernatural creepiness to keep me on the edge of my seat (and not too afraid to be alone in the dark). Though published in the early 1980s, Hill sets her ghostly tale somewhere in the early part of the 1900s on the desolate marshes of England's northeast coast. Arthur Kipps, a young up-and-coming lawyer is sent to the secluded Eel Marsh House to settle the estate of it's most recent inhabitant, Alice Drablow. Instead, he finds himself caught in a web of terrifying apparitions and unexplainable sounds. And to add to the tension, Eel Marsh House just so happens to be situated at the end of a causeway and is only accessible when the tide is out. If this story sounds a little familiar, it's because The Woman in Black has already been made into a stage play, a TV movie, two radio programs, and will be introduced to the big screen early next year (starring Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame as Kipps). HM

Breaking the Rules

Have you ever started reading a book, only to discover about halfway through that it's the second book in a trilogy (if you read Nora Roberts, I'm sure this sounds familiar)? It's a major pet peeve for a lot of library patrons, so what I'm about to say might sound a little strange. I recently read In a Dry Season by Peter Robinson, and absolutely loved it. The caveat? It's the 10th book in the author's long-running Inspector Banks series (out of a staggering 19). Having not read any of the previous nine titles, I half-expected to be a bit lost. Not so! In a Dry Season begins with the mystery writer's cliché of the discovery of a body -- only this particular body is found in the mud of a depleted reservoir, which in turn was constructed on top of a village decades ago. Robinson expertly weaves Inspector Banks' modern day murder investigation with flashbacks and memories of the people who lived in the village during World War II. Along the way, the reader picks up tidbits about Banks' troubled background (including a failed marriage and his demotion to the backwaters of Yorkshire), filling in the blanks presumably detailed in the earlier books in the series. So go ahead, be brave! Read a series out of order --after all, sometimes it feels good to be bad. HM

buzzzz for Little Bee...

recommended read and a starred review by Booklist---Little Bee, smart and stoic, knows two people in England, Andrew and Sarah, journalists she chanced upon on a Nigerian beach after fleeing a massacre in her village, one grisly outbreak in an off-the-radar oil war. After sneaking into England and escaping a rural “immigration removal” center, she arrives at Andrew and Sarah’s London suburb home only to find that the violence that haunts her has also poisoned them. In an unnerving blend of dread, wit, and beauty, Cleave slowly and arrestingly excavates the full extent of the horror that binds Little Bee and Sarah together. A columnist for the Guardian, Cleave earned fame and notoriety when his first book, Incendiary, a tale about a terrorist attack on London, was published on the very day London was bombed in July 2005. His second ensnaring, eviscerating novel charms the reader with ravishing descriptions, sly humor, and the poignant improvisations of Sarah’s Batman-costumed young son, then launches devastating attacks in the form of Little Bee’s elegantly phrased insights into the massive failure of compassion in the world of refugees. Cleave is a nerves-of-steel storyteller of stealthy power, and this is a novel as resplendent and menacing as life itself.---Seaman, Donna Copyright 2008 BooklistDistributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc. CKW

Charming novel

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand is very satisfying to read. I was on Major Pettigrew's side from the beginning and knew he would figure out a plan to do the right thing. It is a wonderful story: charming and British, about culture, race and learning to fit in an old society struggling with change. Don't miss this gem!