Monthly Archives: January 2010

by | January 29, 2010 · 1:47 pm

Don Glander. Beyond Borders: Murder and High Crime on the Waterway. United States: American Imaging, 2006.

Matt and Lindy are two retirees living a quiet life on the coast in Brunswick County.  Matt is happy to catch and cook blue crabs, listen to jazz, and shoot the breeze with the neighbors. Lindy prefers a more active life, and she is in town most days working as a volunteer translator at the health clinic and other county offices.  Their quiet life is changed when Matt discovers the body of a Mexican immigrant in the water near his crab pots.  The young man has been murdered in what appears to be a professional hit.  Another murder follows.  Although the murders appear to have been done by a local policeman, the police chief thinks that they were the work of someone else, possibly an outsider.  Matt and Lindy find confirmation of that hunch when a desperate immigrant that Lindy knows through her translating work takes refuge with Matt and Lindy.  Soon they are all in the gun sight of the local boss of a Mexican crime syndicate in this novel that wraps the subject of illegal immigration into a fast-paced thriller.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Brunswick, Coast, Glander, Don, Suspense/Thriller

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by | · 1:46 pm

Edward Vaughn. The Paths of Glory. Charleston, SC: BookSurge, 2009.

The reader is introduced to Mac McDermott as he is contemplating suicide. Although he once led a happy, successful life, Mac’s nasty divorce from his vindictive second wife, Martha, his estrangement from his son and two stepsons, and the loss of his high-paying job has led to a deep depression. The mounting bills and his dependence on alcohol have not helped his situation, and he concludes that a boating accident is his best way “out.” While at sea, Mac is mysteriously saved by the spirit of his stepfather, who encourages Mac to abandon his plans. That night, Mac wins the lottery. The $40 million prize takes care of his money problems, and he finds a new lease on life, which includes trying to make peace with his former wives.

Things are going well for Mac and his girlfriend, Loretta, until Martha is found dead in her swimming pool the day after Mac’s visit. He is immediately suspected of her murder, and after a quick trial, the jury finds him guilty. Z, the private investigator Mac enlisted before and during the trial, will not rest after Mac is put on death row, and he continues searching for clues. Z reaches the conclusion that Martha faked her death to collect her life insurance money and that she had no problem incriminating Mac in her scheme. Her plan almost works, but Z finds justice for Mac, and he is once again able to find contentment.

The Paths of Glory is Edward Vaughn’s fourth novel in his “Cumberland County Series.”

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Novels in Series, Suspense/Thriller, Vaughn, Edward

by | January 25, 2010 · 8:53 am

Jean Reynolds Page. The Last Summer of Her Other Life. New York: Avon, 2009.

Julie Maries (Jules) Fuller returns to her hometown of Ekron, North Carolina to be with her mother who is dying.  Jules has put her life in the film industry in Los Angeles on hold to nurse her mother, but she also hopes her mother will show her how to be a good mother to the baby she is carrying.  Jules’ mother dies too quickly to help her, and Jules soon finds that she is facing a challenge greater than single parenthood.  A young boy who is in a class where she has been a guest teacher accuses her of making sexual advances.

The accusation against Jules spreads fast across the little town.  The locals start to talk, not just about this incident, but also about other things about the Fullers that have been problematic to some people: Mr. Fuller’s drinking and accidental death, Jules’ “wild” youth, her brother Lincoln’s homosexuality. Jules has her defenders, including her brother, her high school boyfriend, and the uncle of the boy making the accusation.  Soon the reader finds that the men and their families are connected to Jules’, and that the Fullers are not the only family in Ekron with turmoil and secrets.

The author handles some difficult material–family violence, child sexual abuse, intolerance, and the cruelty of gossip–with grace, producing a rewarding novel in which several characters find their way to emotional maturity and peace with the past.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Coast, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Page, Jean Reynolds

by | · 8:48 am

Fern Michaels. Vanishing Act. New York: Kensington Publishing Corp., 2009.

The women of the Sisterhood hate to see innocent individuals suffer. When Harry Wong, boyfriend of Sisterhood member Yoko Akia, discovers that his entire life savings has vanished due to identity theft, the women are upset.  Their concern turns to anger when they learn that the criminals behind Harry’s misfortune are the ringleaders of an enormous enterprise that involves stealing the identity of foster children. The Sisters go undercover in Washington, D.C. to catch the thieves. Those thieves will pay for taking the savings of their friend and countless others, and for putting those innocents in the financial hell of a compromised identity, false credit cards, and low credit scores.

This is the fifteenth novel in Fern Michaels’ Sisterhood Series, but not all of the novels in the series are set in North Carolina.

Check out this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Michaels, Fern, Mountains, Novels in Series, Suspense/Thriller, Yancey

by | · 8:47 am

Wyatt Harvey. Blood Rains: A Mick Priest Novel. New York: Eloquent Books, 2009.

Mikhael (Mick) Priest has a fabulous spread in Durham County–a large chateau on ten acres, with room for horses.  Good work for a private detective turned novelist.  Mick is proud of what he has achieved through hard work, patience, and religious faith.  It could be an idyllic life, but Mick, like Hamlet, has bad dreams.  As the novel opens, Mick has a dream of a former friend who has been brutally murdered.  Shortly after waking, another of Mick’s old friends, a police detective in Wilmington, calls.  Yes, Amanda Kenan, the woman in the dream, has been murdered.  The detective asks Mick to come to Wilmington to help with the investigation.

Wilmington is full of traps for Mick–old girlfriends, former colleagues, old enemies, a reporter looking for a big story.  And there might be a very big story.  Amanda is just the latest well-to-do local woman to have been murdered on a rainy night.  It appears that a serial killer is picking off women from some of Wilmington’s oldest, best families, women who are connected through a group called the Violettes.  But there is also evidence that the killer may have been inspired by London’s infamous Jack the Ripper.  Are these murders tied to the past, or is the motive for the crimes something quite ordinary? As Amanda continues to appear to Mick in dreams, Mick struggles to maintain his equilibrium and find the killer.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Coast, Harvey, Wyatt, Mystery, New Hanover, Suspense/Thriller

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by | January 22, 2010 · 11:16 am

James McConnaughey. Village Chronicle. New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1936.

For many of us, Chapel Hill is indeed “the southern part of heaven” but in this novel our little college town has its share of sinners.  Professors preen and jockey for position; their wives gossip while maids do the housework, and students just wanna have fun.  Except for one student, Lyman Caine, who writes a short story about an inter-racial tryst.  Liberal young graduate instructor Joel Adams comes in for a lot of criticism for encouraging Caine, but the consequences for the student are worse. Lyman Caine’s fatigue leads to a diagnosis of sickle-cell anemia.  In an era before student medical records were truly private, this news travels fast. Caine acknowledges his multi-racial heritage; the racial policies of the university at the time call for Caine’s expulsion.

Adams feels some discomfort about his student’s situation, but he is preoccupied by his own concerns–finishing his degree, his father’s death, his relationship with his wife, how much to buck the system in town and at the university.  Joel Adams is the central character of the novel, but his wife, Eleanor, and his father, a local newspaperman, are far more likable characters.  Eleanor’s good influence helps Joel ride out the storm of controversy even as she forgives his personal failings.

Chapel Hill is called “Churchill” in this novel, but most of the campus buildings retain their true names.  Longtime local readers may recognize variations on some early 20th century faculty names, but most reviewers professed not to be able to identify particular characters with real people.

Check for this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 1930-1939, 1936, McConnaughey, James, Orange, Piedmont

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by | · 11:14 am

Fern Michaels. Razor Sharp. New York: Kensington Publishing Corp., 2009.

The United States of America finally has a female president, and members of the Sisterhood could not be happier.  The group, which seeks justice for mistreated women at any cost, is thrilled that their friend, Martine Conner, is the new commander-in-chief.  However, when Martine asks the Sisters not to prosecute members of her cabinet and other influential Washington politicians who are involved in an illicit prostitution ring, the women question her judgment.  Although they do not want the first female president’s term to be overshadowed by a sex scandal, the Sisters also do not want the “johns” to get off scot-free while “the girls” are charged with crimes.  As the women search for more clues, they discover that the vice president is behind the entire scandal; it is part of his plan to succeed the shamed Martine.  The Sisterhood must return to Washington, D.C., from Big Pine Mountain in Yancey County to put the disgraced politicians where their careers are headed: in the Dumpster.

This is the fourteenth novel in Fern Michaels’ Sisterhood Series, but not all of the novels in the series are set in North Carolina.

Check out this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Michaels, Fern, Mountains, Novels in Series, Suspense/Thriller, Yancey

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by | · 11:11 am

Fern Michaels. Under the Radar. New York: Kensington Publishing Corp., 2009.

When it comes to fighting injustice, distance and danger never deter the Sisterhood. In Michaels’ thirteenth installment of the Sisterhood series, the women and their posse travel from their Yancey County hideaway to rural Utah. Former Supreme Court Justice Pearl Barnes is a friend to the Sisters whose retirement activities involved establishing an underground railroad for battered women and their children. While on a mission, Pearl discovers fourteen pregnant teenagers in a broken down bus on the side of the road. Fearing for their safety, she picks them up with plans to help them escape. However, because they are members of the local polygamous sect, Heaven on Earth (HOE), her initial plan is thwarted when their leader finds them. With the Sisterhood’s full attention, Pearl is able to help the young women she finds – and many more victims. As the Sisters discover many lewd and illegal aspects of the HOE, they work tirelessly to put an end to the injustice.

This is the thirteenth novel in Fern Michaels’ Sisterhood series, but not all of the novels in the series are set in North Carolina.

Check out this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Michaels, Fern, Mountains, Novels in Series, Suspense/Thriller, Yancey

by | January 19, 2010 · 9:13 am

Fern Michaels. Collateral Damage. New York: Kensington Publishing Corp., 2008.

The women of the Sisterhood are at it again. Although this group of vigilante women has done good in ridding the world of evil individuals, their unlawful methods have forced them to go into hiding. Now back at their secret Yancey County retreat on Big Pine Mountain, the fugitives are tempted to get back to work after being promised a presidential pardon. Donor databases of both the Democratic and Republican parties have been hacked, and with the election just a year away, both organizations approach the Sisterhood for their help. The thought of being free again is tantalizing to the women, but they soon realize that the deal is simply a ploy by the unpopular incumbent president to have them arrested. With the FBI hot on their trail, the women must travel to Washington, D.C. to kidnap the president’s chief of staff and an important GOP fundraiser, the two men at the center of the scandal. Once they have the criminals, the Sisterhood transports them to the CIA’s Harvey Point location in Hertford where the women position the crooks right where they belong: dangling twelve inches above a quicksand pond in the Great Dismal Swamp. Once again, the Sisters prove that they can protect themselves and their enterprise.

This is the eleventh novel in Fern Michaels’ Sisterhood Series, but not all of the novels in the series are set in North Carolina.

Check out this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Coastal Plain, Michaels, Fern, Mountains, Novels in Series, Perquimans, Suspense/Thriller, Yancey

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by | January 13, 2010 · 5:33 pm

Bob Terrell. Get Rufus! Alexander, NC: Land of the Sky Books, 2008.

Rufus Raby was an easy-going mountain lad until his friend Sid Hollifield was murdered.  Rufus is a good tracker, helping Sheriff Clure find people missing in the mountains of Jackson County.  (In return, the sheriff overlooks Rufus’s moonshining.)  Seeing Sid’s battered and snake-bitten body changes Rufus.  Finding Sid’s killer becomes his mission, but the search is also a journey for Rufus.  As his heart warms to Sid’s widow, he learns to read and write, control his impulse for revenge, and combine his new knowledge of town ways with his backwoods talents.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Jackson, Mountains, Terrell, Bob

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