Here is where you will find what's new at St. Thomas' well-known, well-read Dockside Bookshop at Havensight Mall. Every week you will find new titles to peruse. Look for updates of our "picks" for fiction and nonfiction and, at the end of the reviews, a list of new paperback fiction.
"The Last Voyage of Columbus," by Martin Dugard, Little Brown & Company, fiction hard cover, 304 pp. $24.95
Remarkably, there are no other popular books about Columbus for adult readers. The story of the fourth voyage has never been fully told, and Columbus's many misfortunes on this trip make it the most interesting of them all. Dugard balances the traditional and revisionist views of Columbus to give us a more complete picture of this much-debated figure. Dugard is the "New York Times bestselling author of "Farther Than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook," Knockdown: Surviving the Toughest Race on Earth," and most recently, "Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone." Recent bestsellers like "1421," "The Bounty, In the Heart of the Sea," and others have shown that nautical exploration remains a hot topic.
"The Pirates Lafitte," by William C. Davis, Harcourt, nonfiction hard cover, 706 pp. $28.00
Jean and Pierre Laffite's lives were intertwined with the most colorful period in New Orleans' history, the era from just after the Louisiana Purchase through the War of 1812. Labeled as corsairs and buccaneers for methods that bordered on piracy, the brothers ran a privateering cooperative that provided contraband goods to a hungry market and made life hell for Spanish merchants on the Gulf. Later they became important members of a syndicate in New Orleans that included lawyers, bankers, merchants, and corrupt U.S. officials. But this allegiance didn't stop them from becoming paid Spanish spies, handing over information about the syndicate's plans and selling out their own associates.
In 1820 the Laffites disappeared into the fog of history from which they had emerged, but not before becoming folk heroes in French Louisiana and making their names synonymous with piracy and intrigue on the Gulf.
"Captian Alatriste," by Atruro Perez-Reverte, Putnam Publishing Group, fiction hard cover, 272 pp. $23.95
It is the height of Spain’s celebrated golden century—but beyond the walls of the Royal Palace there is little on the streets of Madrid that glitters. The Invincible Armada has been defeated. The shadow of the Inquisition looms large. And the Thirty Years’ War rages on in Flanders. When a courageous soldier of this war, Captain Diego Alatriste, is forced to retire after being wounded in battle, he returns home to live the comparatively tame—though hardly quiet—life of a swordsman-for-hire. In this dangerous city where a thrust of steel settles all matters, there is no stronger blade than Alatriste’s.
The captain is approached with an offer of work that involves giving a scare to some strangers soon to arrive in Madrid. But on the night of the attack, it becomes clear that these aren’t ordinary travelers—and that someone is out for their blood. What happens next is the first in a series of riveting twists, with implications that will reverberate throughout the courts of Europe.
"Map of Bones," by James Rollins, William Morrow & Company, fiction hard cover, 448 pp. $24.95
The bestselling master of astonishing adventure James Rollins delivers his most relentlessly exciting page-turner to date – a gripping and explosive novel of an ancient conspiracy to create a terrifying new world order out of the ashes of modern civilization.
The crime is inhumanly cruel with horrific consequences both unthinkable and inevitable. During a service at a cathedral in Cologne, Germany, a band of armed intruders dressed in monks' robes unleash a nightmare of blood and terror, ruthlessly gunning down worshippers and clergy alike. The killers haven't come for the church's gold and valuable artwork, but for a priceless treasure secreted within: the preserved bones of the Three Magi who once came to pay homage to a newborn savior. As they flee the carnage they have wrought, they carry a prize that could reshape the world.
The Vatican is in turmoil, and Lieutenant Rachel Verona of Rome's carabinieri is assigned to lead the investigation. But no ordinary police organization alone can deal with the bizarre theft and massacre, and SIGMA Force — an elite covert arm of the U.S. Defense Department — is called in under the command of Grayson Pierce. New to SIGMA, Pierce assembles a crack team of scientific and Special Forces operatives to unravel the mystery of the stolen bones, and together they set out on a twisting trail through a labyrinth of clues and dark revelations that carry them to the sites of the Seven Wonders of the World — and to the doorstep of the mystical and terrifying Dragon Court.
An ancient, secret fraternity of alchemists and assassins, the master-adepts of the Dragon Court have plans for the sacred remains that will alter the future of humankind indevastating ways that only the maddest of zealots could desire — and they will let nothing and no one stand in their way. Suddenly Pierce, Verona, and the SIGMA team are the hunted as well as the hunters, forced to use every skill they possess to survive as they follow the bones to the ultimate confrontation between darkness and light — in a lost place of history where science and religion will unite to unleash a horror not seen since the beginning of time.
A masterful novel that combines the exhilarating mysticism of The Da Vinci Code with the pulse-pounding action of a Tom Clancy thriller, James Rollins's Map of Bones is destined to be a modern classic that will stand among the very best adventure tales ever written.
We will gladly order any books you want. E-mail us at dockside@islands.vi, or call 340-774-4937.
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Sunday: 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.
Phone: 340-774-4937
