In this “finely paced mystery,” a lawyer and amateur detective thinks he’s found the case that will make him—but it just might break him instead (Publishers Weekly). Now working as a criminal defense attorney in Oakland, Leo Maxwell thinks he’s found a new client after a mysterious woman knocks him off his bicycle with her car. She just so happens to have a brother who needs defense on a murder charge. Leo readily agrees and dives right into the investigation. After taking a series of photographs that seem to blow the lid on corruption in the police department, Leo quickly discovers he’s been had. His client already has representation—one of Oakland’s most renowned gangland lawyers—and claims he doesn’t have a sister. Drawing the ire of criminals and crooked cops alike, Leo is soon framed for murder. Just as he thinks he’s getting closer to the truth, danger is getting even closer. “Full of intelligent plot twists . . . should appeal to any fan of good writing.” —Publishers Weekly “Smith has created a wonderfully readable pair of brothers in Teddy and Leo Maxwell. . . . Lion Plays Rough is as good as Bear Is Broken, which is high praise indeed.” —Huntington News

Travis Rayne Pickering argues that the advent of ambush hunting approximately two million years ago marked a milestone in human evolution, one that established the social dynamic that allowed our ancestors to expand their range and diet. He challenges the traditional link between aggression and human predation, however, claiming that while aggressive attack is a perfectly efficient way for our chimpanzee cousins to kill prey, it was a hopeless tactic for early human hunters, who—in comparison to their large, potentially dangerous prey—were small, weak, and slow-footed. Technology that evolved from wooden spears to stone-tipped spears and ultimately to the bow and arrow increased the distance between predator and prey and facilitated an emotional detachment that allowed hunters to stalk and kill large game. Based on studies of humans and of other primates, as well as on fossil and archaeological evidence, Rough and Tumble offers a new perspective on human evolution by decoupling ideas of aggression and predation to build a more realistic understanding of what it is to be human.

From an award-winning author, a crime thriller with “some of the sharpest courtroom cut-and-thrust since Presumed Innocent” (Kirkus Reviews). The Maxwell brothers both became lawyers, following in their father’s footsteps. But their father, Lawrence, had his career come to a screeching halt over two decades ago—when he was convicted of killing his wife. Now, faced with evidence of stunning prosecutorial misconduct, a San Francisco judge has ordered a new trial for Lawrence. Soon after, a prison snitch and potential key witness turns up dead, and Lawrence’s son, Leo, finds himself trying to defend his father against murder charges both old and new—and confronting the darkness at the center of his own life, as he struggles to do right by both the law and his blood. From the author of Bear Is Broken, which won the Shamus Award and was a Kirkus Reviews best book of the year, this novel in the Leo Maxwell series is “a sharp-edged legal thriller with the deep emotional undertones of family drama and tragedy” (New York Times–bestselling author Reed Farrel Coleman). “Superlative . . . Smith is masterly in creating realistic courtroom scenes, including the subtleties of witness examination.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “The line Maxwell family members walk between innocence and guilt becomes more blurred with every step and turn of the page.” —Library Journal, starred review

Melissa visits Africa for animal conservation, but a cast of unlikely characters teaches her about grief, fear, and ultimately life.