This column is submitted by Evangeline Cessna, Local History Librarian at the Warren County-Vicksburg Public Library. 

This week we are featuring fiction titles from the New Large Print collection.

“All the Sinners Bleed,” is by S.A. Cosby. As the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia, Titus Crown doesn’t expect to have to deal with much murder. In fact, there have only been two murders in the past few decades. However, after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows that his small hometown is not the land of moonshine, cornbread and honeysuckle the outside world sees. There are always dark secrets that fester under the surface. Then a year to the day after Titus was elected, a schoolteacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. While investigating the shootings, Titus finds terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight. He tries to project an heir of confidence about closing the case with a connection to a local church all the while hiding a painful secret from his own past. He also has his hands full with a racist group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history. When faith and violence meet, there is always a reckoning.

The latest from author Lynette Eason is titled, “Countdown.” When a stalker wants to finish what he started, a US Marshal is determined to protect his charge, and a woman who is determined to leave the past in the past collide, it is bound to end badly for one or more of them. Flight paramedic Raina Price has been running for so long that she finds it hard to stop. In order to escape a dangerous stalker, she changed her name and disappeared, building a new life with the help of a friend from her time in juvenile hall. She puts all her energy into saving people’s lives because it gives her a sense of purpose, but her stalker was never found, and she still looks over her shoulder. U.S. Marshal Vincent Corelli’s job is to hunt down fugitives and protect those who
are assigned to him. When Raina is almost killed right in front of him, he vows to protect her whether it’s his job or not. They will join forces to solve the mystery of Raina’s past, but someone is determined to prevent them from doing so.

The fifth action-packed installment of William W. and J.A. Johnstone’s Jackals series is titled “The Fires of Hell.” Three men committed to justice descend upon the territory like angels of death to quell the band of merciless, murdering thieves. Comanchero Cullen Brice has escaped from a Huntsville, Alabama, prison where he had been sentenced to hang. He has sworn revenge against Texas Ranger Matt McCulloch who killed his brother and put him behind bars. Brice was sprung by his gang, and they kidnapped the lawman’s daughter Cynthia along with a few other women and have absconded to the Texas panhandle. While holing up in The Canyon of Weeping Women, the outlaws plan to sell their captives to Comanche raiders. McCulloch is joined by retired cavalry sergeant Sean Keegan and bounty hunter Jed Breen. They are riding hard to find Cynthia and the outlaws. But Cynthia isn’t her father’s little girl anymore, and hell hath no fury like a woman raised by a Texas Ranger.

“The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho” is by Paterson Joseph. Charles Ignatius Sancho’s story begins on a slave ship in the Atlantic and ends at the very center of London life. In 1746 Georgian London, a young black man is not safe. Charles must dodge slave catchers and worse, and his main ally — a kindly duke who taught him to write — is dying. This leaves Charles desperate and utterly alone. So how does the same man meet the king, write, and perform highly acclaimed music, become the first black person to vote in Britain, and lead to the end of slavery? Charles forges through his rich, exuberant life living for every experience that moves him forward. He always says, “I had little right to live, born on a slave ship where my parents both died. But I survived, and indeed, you might say I did more.”

“The Butterfly Effect,” by Rachel Mans McKenny is a tale of a grumpy introvert, her astonishing lack of social skills and empirical data approach to people and relationships. Perhaps there is such a thing as an anti-social butterfly? If there is, Greta Oto would know about it and can totally relate. Greta is an entomologist and prefers the company of bugs to humans. It seems the only human that likes her is her twin brother, Danny, though they’ve recently had a falling out. When she lands a research gig in the rainforest, she leaves it all behind, but when she learns that her brother has suffered an aneurysm and is hospitalized, she abandons her research and hurries home to nurse him. Coming home means confronting all she left behind, including her lousy soon-to-be-sister-in-law, her estranged mother, and her ex-boyfriend Brandon and his new partner with perfect teeth and shiny hair. Since Brandon runs the only butterfly conservatory in town, and her dissertation requires she take a job there, Greta’s world is thrown into chaos.