New items are available at the Hancock County Public Library.
The following items are available at the Hancock County Public Library, 900 W. McKenzie Road. For more information on the library’s collection or to reserve a title, visit hcplibrary.org.
Adult Fiction
“The Freedom Broker,” by K.J. Howe
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Kidnap negotiator Thea Paris has spent her entire life with survivor’s guilt, following a childhood tragedy. At 8 years old, she watched, frozen in fear, as her 12-year-old brother, Nikos, was abducted from their home in Kanzi, Africa. Although he was recovered nine months later, he was never the same after that. Worse, Thea discovers that she was supposed to have been the target. This defining experience drives Thea to become one of the top operatives in the field of kidnap-and-ransom consultancy. Nicknamed “Liberata,” she travels the globe trying to bring hostages home — mostly through negotiation, but occasionally through more forceful means. She is very good at her job — until her worst nightmare comes true when her father is kidnapped, and the only way to rescue him may involve an unthinkable sacrifice.
Adult Nonfiction
“Being Elvis: a Lonely Life,” by Ray Connolly
On the 40th anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death, rock journalist Ray Connolly takes a fresh look at the career of the world’s most loved singer, placing him — not in the garish neon lights of Las Vegas — but back in his mid-20th-century, distinctly southern world. Connolly, who interviewed Elvis in 1969, re-creates a man who sprang from poverty in Tupelo, Mississippi, to unprecedented overnight fame, eclipsing Frank Sinatra and inspiring the Beatles along the way. Juxtaposing the music, the songs, and the live concerts with a personal life that would later careen wildly out of control, Connolly demonstrates that Elvis’s amphetamine use began as early as his touring days in the late 1950s, and that the financial needs that drove him in the beginning would return to plague him at the very end. With a narrative informed by interviews with John Lennon, Bob Dylan, B.B. King, Sam Phillips and Roy Orbison, Connolly creates a portrait of the cultural phenomenon known as Elvis.
