New releases for week of Dec. 23

  It's still a slow time for new releases, but there is one book coming out that might be of interest to locals.
  "The Strip" by E. Duke Vincent centers around Nick Conti, producer of the Las Vegas TV show "The $trip." A local mobster seeks to extort money from Nick's show, and the blackmail operation unearths old skeletons and has Nick's bosses asking questions. That's not all the bad news for Nick, his own mafia past comes back to haunt him and an old girlfriend reappears in town on the arms of another mysterious mobster.
  If that doesn't do anything for you, former U.S. senator and presidential nominee George S. McGovern offers insight into how Abraham Lincoln sometimes went astray in regard to restrictions on civil liberties, and also how the 16th president turned the Civil War into a moral crusade in “Abraham Lincoln: The 16th President.”
  Also hitting shelves: “Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street” by Michael Davis; “Far from You” by Lisa Schroeder; and “Need” by Carrie Jones.