Library Loot:: June 29 to July 5

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire (The Captive Reader) and Marg (The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader) that encourages bloggers to share the books they've checked out of the library. If you'd like to participate, just write up your post, feel free to steal button, and link up using the Mr. Linky on Marg's site this week. And, of course, check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

I somehow skipped a week...so here is my loot for two weeks:

1. The Last Matryoshka by Joyce Yarrow: A fast-paced, suspenseful mystery, starring Jo Epstein, a performance poet and private investigator. She uses her New York street smarts to outmaneuver a master Russian criminal on his own turf.

2. The Curious Death of Peter Artedi by Theodore W. Pietsch: 18th Century contemporaries saw only a tragic accident when the promising ichthyologist Peter Artedi himself joined the fishes as he tumbled to his 1735 death in an Amsterdam canal. But in this fascinating and impeccably researched novel, Pietsch opens a more sinister possibility....A truly highbrow whodunit that will be of interest to readers of historical fiction, literary thrillers, and scientific history. (Bryce Christensen, Booklist)

3. The Ghost of Greenwich Village by Lorna Graham: A young woman moves to Manhattan seeking romance and excitement, only to find that her apartment is haunted by the ghost of a cantankerous Beat Generation writer in need of a rather huge favor.

4. The Herring in the Library by L. C. Tyler: Ethelred Tressider, the mediocre mystery author we first met in The Herring Seller's Apprentice and Ten Little Herrings, and his bossy, chocolate-loving agent, Elsie, are to dine with Ethelred's old friend, Sir Robert (known to his friends as Shagger) and Lady Muntham. Elsie doesn't think much of her hosts, but she is very much interested in figuring out who killed Sir Robert once he turns up dead in his locked library. A delightful parody of the country house mystery. - (Natl Book Network)

5. The Bones of Avalon by Phil Rickman: Summoned by William Cecil to address dangerous questions about Elizabeth I's legitimacy, royal astrologer John Dee teams up with Robert Dudley to retrieve the bones of King Arthur, a mission that is complicated by magic, a first love, and a complex plot against the queen.