Category Archives: Suspense/Thriller

by | December 21, 2012 · 12:36 pm

Barbara Arntsen. High on the Hog: A Peri Mason Mystery. United States: CreateSpace, 2012.

Reporter Periwinkle “Peri” Mason is looking forward to a relaxing Carolina fall. Earlier in the year she narrowly avoided becoming a victim while unexpectedly solving a slew of murders on Myrtle Beach, and in her opinion, once was enough. Unfortunately, the universe has other plans for the tough journalist from fictional Lofton, North Carolina.

While walking along the Neuse River in Wayne County near Lofton, Peri’s spirited Jack Russell terrier discovers something truly grisly– a body floating in the shallows. The corpse is that of Curtis Ganner, who was missing for several days. Mysteriously, his truck was found miles upriver, making murder the likely cause of his demise. Curtis worked for the McKeel Processing Plant, which is one of the largest pork producers in eastern North Carolina. The plant’s human fatality rate begins to rise when another missing employee is also found murdered. When a third victim’s head is found among some porcine remains, Peri can’t help herself– she starts investigating.

As she digs into the soft underbelly of the pork industry the intrepid reporter finds not only murder, but industrial espionage. Soon she is knee-deep in pig excrement (literally and figuratively), and more in danger than ever. Will Peri make it out alive this time?

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

Comments Off on Barbara Arntsen. High on the Hog: A Peri Mason Mystery. United States: CreateSpace, 2012.

Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Arnsten, Barbara, Coastal Plain, Duplin, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Suspense/Thriller, Wayne

Tagged as , ,

by | December 16, 2012 · 3:12 pm

Colleen Coble. Tidewater Inn. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2012.

Libby Holladay is an archaeological historian. Together with her business partner Nicole, she restores historical properties for their wealthy new owners. More than anything, Libby wants to own one of the houses to which she devotes her time and expertise, but at millions of dollars, they are far beyond her means. That is, until Nicole travels to a small island called Hope Island off the coast of North Carolina, where she makes a startling discovery about Libby’s family.

When Libby was growing up, her mother always told her that her father died when she was five. But when Nicole mentions Libby’s name to a local attorney assisting with the acquisition of some property, he wastes no time in informing her that he’s been searching for a Libby Holladay for months. Ray Mitchell, Libby’s father, did not die when she was five, but lived on Hope Island until his death just a few months ago. In his will, Ray left his estranged daughter a rundown but historic building, the Tidewater Inn, which stands on a substantial piece of land. Libby is stunned and delighted by her new good fortune, but even more important to her is the discovery that she has two half-siblings. Unfortunately Brent and Vanessa are are neither thrilled to discover they have an older half-sister, nor glad that their father left her what they see as a substantial part of their inheritance. Brent in particular had big plans for the property, involving sale to a major developer who would turn Hope Island from a remote fishing town without access to the mainland into the next Ocracoke.

It seems as though Brent’s plans are foiled by Libby’s inheritance, but things aren’t going to well for Libby, either. Nicole is kidnapped by some rough looking men, and a hurricane is bearing down on the Outer Banks. Will she find Nicole in time? And will the Tidewater Inn survive the storm? Most importantly, will Libby mend the bad blood between her and her newly found siblings, and finally have the family she’s always wanted?

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

Comments Off on Colleen Coble. Tidewater Inn. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2012.

Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Coast, Coble, Colleen, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Romance/Relationship, Suspense/Thriller

Tagged as ,

by | · 3:03 pm

Shirley Lerch Crum. Nailed!!! Baltimore, MD: PublishAmerica, 2006.

Cathy Cleveland and her best friend Linda Tate almost died last summer when they inadvertently got involved in a diamond smuggling scheme.  Since then Linda has been living life to its fullest, and she is about to be married to dapper airline captain David Sokol.  Cathy has a wonderful man in her life, handsome FBI agent Peter Channing, but she is keeping him at arm’s length.  As a cancer survivor, Cathy is aware that that life can take some cruel turns, so she is reluctant to let Peter, whose wife died from cancer, know how she feels about him.

John Marley has provided Cathy with a nice diversion.  Marley is a visiting professor at the college where Cathy teaches, and she enjoys his company when he is in town.  But Professor Marley is out of town quite a bit, guest lecturing at a number of colleges in the Carolinas.  He’s quite the showman, demonstrating scientific principles in exciting lectures that sometimes include walking on hot coals or lying on a bed of nails.  As this novel opens, Cathy goes by campus to pick up Marley so that they can spend the evening together.  She finds that Marley has been murdered–someone tampered with his bed of nails.

As the person who found the body, Cathy is a suspect.  But Cathy saw Peter Channing on campus shortly before Marley’s murder, and she fears that he might have been jealous enough of Marley to kill him.  The mutual distrust prevents Cathy and Peter from cooperating, and puts Cathy and Linda in danger.  John Marley’s academic career was just a cover for a sinister conspiracy to destroy a number of beach communities.  In chapters that alternate between Cathy’s activities and those of the conspirators, author Crum reveals the details of the conspiracy, the self-interests and double-dealing of the conspirators, and the reasons that Cathy’s life is in danger.  The action-packed finish takes place during the Wrightsville Beach Holiday Flotilla.

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

Comments Off on Shirley Lerch Crum. Nailed!!! Baltimore, MD: PublishAmerica, 2006.

Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Coast, Crum, Shirley Lerch, New Hanover, Suspense/Thriller

Tagged as ,

by | December 3, 2012 · 8:32 am

Brian Lee Knopp. Naked Came the Leaf Peeper. Asheville, NC: Burning Bush Press of Asheville, 2011.

What happens when you mix twelve of western North Carolina’s most adept storytellers with one impossible plot? The answer is Naked Came the Leaf Peeper, a merry and mysterious game of literary tag among the likes of Vicki Lane, John P. McAfee, Tony Earley, and Alan Gratz. Brian Lee Knopp, the mastermind behind this zany novel, begins the plot: high on an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway, a man falls to his death…helped by a young assassin armed with a potato gun. Improbable? Absurd? The fun is only just beginning.

Garnell Lee Ray, assassin-for-hire, is out to avenge her mother and father, murdered for their land by greedy developers and their compatriots. She has knocked off three of the four with her simple, yet effective style: the use of gravity. A man overbalances on an overlook, helped along by a stray potato. Another is crushed by a conveniently placed tree. Gunning down the first was a mistake, but not one that the savvy Garnell will make again. Now the only one left is rapacious State Senator Andy Micheaux…and Garnell is coming for him. Unfortunately, someone gets to Garnell first, and she is highly annoyed to find herself passing out from a gunshot wound at her campsite in Linville Falls. She survives, but getting shot raises questions, even in the Appalachians. Relocated Yankee detective J.D. Kontz has a lot of questions for the attractive Miss Ray, but she escapes from the hospital before providing any real answers. Still, Detective Kontz begins to piece together Garnell’s tale, despite the clumsy ministrations of his dim-witted deputy, Marshall Harris. In fact, if he didn’t know better, Kontz would suspect the Fife-like deputy to be purposely misleading him.

Buckle up as this story weaves through the switchbacks at breakneck speed in a plot including (but not limited to): llamas, Baptists, golf, the Blue Ridge Parkway, moonshine, first love, runaway wives, pigs, tourists, heathen Yankees, beagles, ladies selling Mary Kay, gun-toting grannies, the SBI, ravens, backstabbing relations, secret agents of all different kinds, camping, and folk tunes. So grab some biscuits and red-eye, y’all, and gather round for the tallest tale ever told!

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

This is our 1000th post. We’ll be celebrating and hope that you will too.

Comments Off on Brian Lee Knopp. Naked Came the Leaf Peeper. Asheville, NC: Burning Bush Press of Asheville, 2011.

Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, Avery, Barrett, Linda Marie, Buncombe, Caldwell, Wayne, Chappell, Fred, Cheek, Gene, Clapsaddle, Annette Saunooke, Earley, Tony, Gratz, Alan, Hays, Tommy, Knopp, Brian Lee, Lane, Vicki, Madison, McAfee, John P., Mitchell, Mountains, Mystery, Reinhardt, Susan, Romance/Relationship, Suspense/Thriller

by | November 26, 2012 · 11:53 am

J. J. Oxendine. Intentional Stranger. United States: CreateSpace, 2012.

It’s commonly believed that the death of a child is the hardest blow that a person can experience.  For Grace Trenton, her son’s death comes after a disruptive move from Atlanta to the mountains of North Carolina and as her marriage is crumbling.  It’s no wonder that Grace’s husband, Mark, recommends that she see Claire Matthews, a therapist in the little town of Swift River.  Grace makes progress toward accepting her son Ben’s death, but she also senses that something is going on between her husband and Claire Matthews.  It comes as no surprise to Grace when Mark asks her for a divorce.

It’s not therapy that pulls Grace out of her sadness, it’s a job at the local coffee shop.  Jo, the shop’s owner becomes not just an employer but also a friend and confidante.  She even gives Grace a secure, inexpensive place to live.  Grace’s life is back on an even keel until she is visited one morning by FBI agent Gatlin Rawls.  Rawls is investigating a money-laundering ring that may include Mark.  Rawls soon realizes that Grace knows nothing about this part of her ex-husband’s life, but Grace’s ignorance will not protect her from ruthless criminals who will do anything to cover their tracks.  The ring acts swiftly, and even after the investigation ends, Grace is still not out of danger; in a final showdown Grace finds a treasure she thought she had forever lost.

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

Comments Off on J. J. Oxendine. Intentional Stranger. United States: CreateSpace, 2012.

Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Mountains, Oxendine, J. J., Suspense/Thriller

Tagged as

by | November 19, 2012 · 5:16 pm

Donna Ball. The Dead Season. Mountain City, GA: Blue Merle Publishing, 2012.

Raine Stockton and her energetic golden retriever Cisco are back in action in this, the sixth novel in the Raine Stockton Dog Mysteries. Their latest adventure opens on a snow-bound Hansonville, North Carolina in January, in the middle of what the locals call “the dead season.” There are no tourists, no holidays to look forward to, and no one feels like venturing very far beyond the cozy heat of his or her wood stove. Raine Stockton is going out of her mind with boredom. So when the director of a local hiking organization for troubled teenagers called New Day Wilderness Program asks her to join his staff temporarily for a winter hike, she can’t resist going along. She and Cisco will be joining Paul Evans, his wife Rachel, a young counselor named Heather, and five teens enrolled in the program as they embark on a trust-building journey into the mountains.

At first, Raine is excited. She’ll get to teach the youngsters about wilderness survival, and Cisco will perform some search and rescue demonstrations. But as the expedition progresses, it becomes increasingly apparent that New Day holds some dark and ugly secrets. Paul and Rachel’s approach to team building often seems more cruel than instructive, and Heather is still traumatized by the recent, unexplained death of her boyfriend, a fellow New Day counselor. Cisco brings joy and life to the trail as usual, but when an unexpected blizzard blows in, the tension and the cold both begin to snap. Will anyone get out of the mountains alive? And will Raine end up needing Cisco’s rescue skills in earnest? Join the savvy woman and dog duo as they follow this mystery’s trail to its gripping conclusion.

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

Comments Off on Donna Ball. The Dead Season. Mountain City, GA: Blue Merle Publishing, 2012.

Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Ball, Donna, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Suspense/Thriller

Tagged as , ,

by | · 1:48 pm

Lucy Arlington. Buried in a Book. New York: Berkley Prime Crime, 2012.

Lila Wilkins has worked at the Dunston Herald for twenty years, so she is shocked and enraged when, at age forty-five, she finds herself jobless. But Lila isn’t one to lie around and wait–within a few minutes of finding out about her layoff, she’s on the phone interviewing for an internship with nearby publishing house, A Novel Idea. An internship may seem like small potatoes to a seasoned journalist, but the ad states that she could be promoted to full-fledged literary agent within three months, so Lila dives in.

A Novel Idea has revitalized the small, neighboring village of Inspiration Valley. Bentley Burlington-Duke, director of the agency, is a North Carolina native who made her money in New York City. Now she’s determined to make North Carolina the hub of publishing in the South. Bentley isn’t an easy person to get along with, however– A Novel Idea’s interns only seem to stay a short time, despite the promise of a permanent position. Lila is going to have to stiffen her spine in order to achieve the coveted status of literary agent. It doesn’t help that on her first day, a prospective client dies in the foyer. Marlette Robbins was a local ne’er do well with a bad reputation, but something about his death strikes Lila as odd. Soon she’s embroiled in the investigation, to the (slight) annoyance of attractive local policeman Sean Griffiths. But soon Lila is in deeper than she realized, and it’s possible that her very life could be on the line. Will she survive? And more importantly, will she ever be a literary agent?

Check out this first book in the Novel Idea Mystery series in the UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog.

 

Comments Off on Lucy Arlington. Buried in a Book. New York: Berkley Prime Crime, 2012.

Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Arlington, Lucy, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Suspense/Thriller

Tagged as , ,

by | October 19, 2012 · 8:45 am

David C. Corbett. A Good Marine’s Murder. New York: iUniverse, 2006.

When Colonel Jack Adams’s Harriet jet crashes while on a routine training mission, the brass at the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, North Carolina tap Colonel Dan Breakheart to lead the investigation.  Moments before the crash, Col. Adams reported that the engine was decelerating.  When the standard emergency procedures failed to correct the problem, Adams knew he had to eject, and that’s when he found out that the ejection seat didn’t work.  Breakheart thinks that the probability that one plane would have two such problems is low, so he suspects sabotage.  While Breakheart and his team painstakingly examine the remains of the plane, another officer is murdered.  Once again, Breakheart does not believe that this is a coincidence. Dogged investigation and a bit of daring-do enable him to crack the case.

David Corbett flew fighter jets for twenty-eight years, and readers who share this background will appreciate the details, terminology, and slang related to flying that are embedded in the storytelling.  At the back of the book, the author thoughtfully provides definitions for those unfamiliar with flying terminology.

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

Comments Off on David C. Corbett. A Good Marine’s Murder. New York: iUniverse, 2006.

Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Coast, Corbett, David C., Craven, Mystery, Suspense/Thriller

Tagged as

by | · 8:36 am

Kay Hooper. Haven. New York: Berkley Books, 2012.

Jessie Rayburn is having nightmares. Which is even worse than one might think, because as a psychic, all of Jessie’s experiences with human emotion are amplified. She’s safely ensconced in Haven, the FBI’s Special Crimes Unit headquarters in New Mexico, but visions of young women being tortured in Baron Hollow, North Carolina are leaping out at her as clear as if she were really there. Unsurprising, perhaps, since Baron Hollow is her hometown, but Jessie knows something is wrong. Disguising her intent by arranging for a vacation home, Jessie drives across the country to the town, and sister, she ran away from fifteen years ago.

Emma Rayburn is surprised when Jessie announces her visit. They never had much in common, especially since Jessie, the elder, was psychic. Two sisters with wildly different personalities under one roof is hard enough, but when one sister can read the other’s thoughts? That’s a recipe for disaster. Since Jessie left, Emma has turned their palatial ancestral home into a popular bed and breakfast, and has been running it with a steady hand. But a riding accident a few weeks ago has disturbed Emma’s peace– she’s been having horrible nightmares about young women being tortured, and has no way to explain their existence. Jessie is the psychic one, so these dreams can’t mean anything…can they?

The first rule all psychics know is that coincidences are rare. While the sisters’ relationship may be fraught with tension, a black cloud rests on Baron Hollow, and that supersedes all other concerns. Young, female hikers have been mysteriously disappearing for years, and somehow no one has noticed. Could it be that the killer is not only very careful but also skilled in more subtle modes of mental deception? Could it be that the killer is also a psychic? Emma and Jessie, along with several other Haven operatives,  work to solve the case before anyone else goes missing, but this killer is smart, deadly, and tangled in their own personal histories.

Kay Hooper provides a thrilling continuation in this, her thirteenth novel in the Bishop/Special Crimes Unit series. Divided into sub-trilogies featuring different psychics on the team, each novel can be enjoyed independently, as a part of its own trilogy, or as a part of the overall series. Haven is a fast-paced, exciting addition this repertoire.

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

Comments Off on Kay Hooper. Haven. New York: Berkley Books, 2012.

Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Hooper, Kay, Mountains, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Suspense/Thriller

Tagged as , , , , ,

by | August 13, 2012 · 5:49 am

Suzanne Adair. Regulated for Murder.[United States: CreateSpace], 2011.

It’s 1781 in Wilmington, North Carolina, and Lieutenant Michael Stoddard has just kicked down the door of a traitorous land agent named Horatio Bowater, when his commanding officer abruptly pulls him away. Michael is furious, especially since his role as chief investigating officer will now go to his young assistant, but Major Craig is adamant that he needs Stoddard for something else. Unfortunately, Michael’s new mission is that of a lowly courier: Craig wants him to deliver a message to a man working for Lord Cornwallis in Hillsborough, far away from the bustling seaport of Wilmington. So Stoddard reluctantly disguises himself for the dangerous journey across a colony in the throes of a revolution. But this mission will be far less simple, and far more perilous, than he thought.

When Michael arrives in Orange County, he finds the man he’s supposed to meet, a Mr. Griggs, has been murdered. More than that, the county sheriff is a corrupt and devious man, and he’s bent on finding out who Michael is and why he has come to Hillsborough. Michael takes refuge with a local woman and her daughter, posing as a nephew, but he doesn’t have much time to find out what happened to Griggs before the sheriff discovers his true identity. Unfortunately, an old nemesis picks this as the perfect time to come to town: the sadistic Duncan Fairfax of His Majesty’s Seventeenth Light Dragoons. The last time they met, Stoddard barely escaped with his life…and Fairfax remembers him all too well. Will Michael solve Griggs’s murder and avoid his own?

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

 

Comments Off on Suzanne Adair. Regulated for Murder.[United States: CreateSpace], 2011.

Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, Adair, Suzanne, Coast, Historical, New Hanover, Orange, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller

Tagged as