Regan Landry is a journalist working on a profile of Lester Ray Barnes, who had just been released from death row after it was learned that he was convicted on faulty evidence. Now, long after Landry begins her profile, Barnes disappears at the same time a string of grisly crimes are committed on the Outer Banks. Landry teams up with an FBI officer and they travel to the North Carolina coast to investigate.
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Comments Off on Mariah Stewart. Final Truth. New York: Random House, 2006.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Coast, Novels in Series, Stewart, Mariah, Suspense/Thriller
Double Dead is the first in an anticipated mystery series from Charlotte native, Terry Hoover. Former reporter Steve Harlan has been hired by a defense attorney to work as a private investigator on the murder of a bank executive’s mistress. Set in Charlotte in the early 1960s, the story is rich with references to local culture and landmarks.
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Comments Off on Terry Hoover. Double Dead. Waterville, ME: Five Star, 2007.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Hoover, Terry, Mecklenburg, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont
When it looks like ghosts are haunting a cemetery in Boone Creek, N.C., science writer Jeremy Marsh comes to town to investigate. Marsh expected to find a plausible explanation for the ghostly visions, but did not plan on falling for a local librarian, who also happens to the granddaughter of the town psychic. Marsh finds himself questioning his own beliefs and must figure out how much he will let the budding romance affect his life and career.
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Comments Off on Nicholas Sparks. True Believer. New York: Warner, 2005.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2005, Novels in Series, Sparks, Nicholas, Watauga
The rural community of Trent, N.C., a fictional town between Fayetteville and Wilmington, is shaken when a local gay teenager is found murdered after a high school party. Thomas Edgecombe, owner of the town’s weekly newspaper, begins to report on the case and is horrified to learn that his two sons may be suspects. The Edgecombe boys do not help their case when they disappear, running away to Washington, D.C. The novel follows the three Edgecombes as they struggle to understand the crime, its consequences, and each other.
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Comments Off on Michael Parker. Virginia Lovers. Harrison, N.Y.: Delphinium, 2004.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2004, Coastal Plain, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Parker, Michael
Best-selling novelist Patricia Cornwell sets this mystery in Charlotte, “a city of ambition and change.” During an especially hot summer in the Queen City, a number of tourists are gruesomely murdered, and all are left with the same mark of an hourglass on their bodies. A serial killer is clearly at work. Police chief Judy Hammer and her deputy Virginia West battle city politics while they work with young Charlotte Observer reporter Andy Brazil to uncover the facts of the case. As the police procedural unfolds, Cornwell describes the physical and cultural landscape of North Carolina’s largest city.
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Comments Off on Patricia Cornwell. Hornet’s Nest. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1996.
Filed under 1990-1999, 1996, Cornwell, Patricia, Mecklenburg, Mystery, Piedmont
When John Pavlak’s wife is murdered, he isn’t satisfied to just sit back and let somebody else handle the investigation. Especially when he becomes a suspect himself. Pavlak is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam conflict, and the athletic director at a small college that sounds a lot like Davidson. He races to keep just ahead of the police, following the investigation to Berlin when it looks like his wife’s work as an investigative journalist may have led to the discovery of sensitive Cold War secrets. In the end, the trail leads him right back to North Carolina.
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Comments Off on Kurt Corriher. Someone to Kill. New York: St. Martin’s, 2002.
Filed under 2000-2009, 2002, Corriher, Kurt, Davidson, Mecklenburg, Mystery, Piedmont
