Tag Archives: Policewomen

by | May 11, 2009 · 10:03 am

Joyce and Jim Lavene. Last One Down. New York: Avalon Books, 2004.

When Sheriff Sharyn Howard leaves Diamond Springs to attend a law enforcement training retreat, her staff must solve a murder and deal with a sniper in town.  Meanwhile, Sharyn has her own problems.  One of her deputies is seriously injured when he falls down an old mine shaft, another man is found dead in the woods, and several others are killed when a car explodes.  Unfortunately, the retreat is in an abandoned mining town on isolated Sweet Potato Mountain, their radio is broken, and a vicious storm begins flooding the area streams.  This is the tenth book in the series of Sharyn Howard mysteries.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2004, Lavene, Jim and Joyce, Montgomery, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont

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by | April 20, 2009 · 10:06 am

Joyce and Jim Lavene. One Last Goodbye. New York: Avalon Books, 2000.

According to local legend, Navy Captain Billy Bost crashed his plane into Diamond Mountain Lake in 1944. More than 50 years later a Pulitzer Prize winning author comes to the mountain town of Diamond Mountain determined to find the plane, but he disappears and is found dead a few days later. Once the plane is raised, the police discover that the World War II pilot died of a gunshot wound, not the crash. Now Sheriff Sharyn Howard has to discover who killed the pilot and who killed the author writing about him. This is the second book in the Sharyn Howard series of mysteries.

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

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Filed under 2000, 2000-2009, Lavene, Jim and Joyce, Montgomery, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont

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by | February 19, 2009 · 9:27 am

Joyce and Jim Lavene. Last Dance. New York: Avalon Books, 1999.

It definitely isn’t Stephen King, but the plot of Jim and Joyce Lavene’s Last Dance does feature a girl named Carrie whose prom experience is less than stellar. In fact, Carrie Sommers, prom queen of Diamond Springs High School, is murdered in the school’s parking lot. Sheriff Sharyn Howard believes that the case is similar enough to a prom-night murder that her father investigated 10 years ago that she reopens the old case. With the original murder suspect on death row, local and state politicians getting involved, and her mother worried about damage to her father’s reputation, Sharyn has her hands full in this book, the first of the Sharyn Howard Mysteries set in the fictional Uwharrie Mountain town of Diamond Springs.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1999, Lavene, Jim and Joyce, Montgomery, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont

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by | January 30, 2009 · 4:55 pm

Cheris F. Hodges. Cautious Heart. 2nd ed. Columbus, MS: Genesis Press, 2008.

Caprice Johnson, a second generation police officer, will tell you that it was the cold weather that drove her out of Chicago, but it really was a broken heart. Her man, Damien King, just wouldn’t be true, so Caprice left Chi-town for a job as a police officer in Charlotte. Her new work partner, Nathan Wallace, is smart, fit, friendly, and maybe the type of honest, faithful man that Caprice has despaired of ever finding. Tough cases and Caprice’s reluctance to begin a new relationship are obstacles enough on the road to romance, but there are additional challenges to face. Nathan’s brother, Cordell, is a petty criminal who has moved on to bigger things. Caprice’s old love, Damien, moves to Charlotte to start a new business and woo her back. When Damien is murdered, Caprice is the number one suspect. Suspended from the force, she tries to unravel the mystery of Damien’s death and her complicated feelings for Nathan.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Hodges, Cheris F., Mecklenburg, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship

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by | July 11, 2008 · 8:00 am

Joyce and Jim Lavene. Last Fires Burning. New York: Avalon Books, 2003.

In Last Fires Burning, the seventh mystery in this series, Sharyn Howard finds herself busily fighting fires–both literal and figurative. While her (fictional) Uwharrie Mountain town of Diamond Springs is threatened by wildfires, Sheriff Howard faces a tough reelection campaign and has two fire-related murders to solve. And her problems are not just professional; she is also dealing with ongoing disagreements with her mother, a new romance that she’s trying to keep out of the local press, and a deputy who’s in love with her.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2003, Lavene, Jim and Joyce, Montgomery, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont

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by | April 17, 2008 · 10:14 am

J.D. Rhoades. Good Day in Hell. New York: St. Martin’s, 2006.

Fayetteville-based bounty hunter Jack Keller returns in this sequel to The Devil’s Right Hand. Teamed up with his new girlfriend, a local sheriff’s deputy, Keller pursues a couple of murderers across the state.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Cumberland, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Rhoades, J.D., Suspense/Thriller

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by | April 14, 2008 · 11:34 am

J.D. Rhoades. The Jack Keller Thrillers.

Jack Keller, a veteran of the first Gulf War, still experiences violent flashbacks and other symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, but he has found a job that suits him. As a bounty-hunter for H&H, a Fayetteville-based bail bonds company, he earns his paycheck tracking down fugitives. In each book, Keller not only tangles with bail jumpers on the lam, but also gets drawn into stopping murderers and kidnappers. The series also features Keller’s boss–the reclusive but beautiful Angela–and local sheriff’s deputy Marie Jones.

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Filed under Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Novels in Series, Rhoades, J.D., Series, Suspense/Thriller

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by | March 13, 2008 · 9:58 am

Joyce Lavene and Jim Lavene. The Sharyn Howard Mysteries.

Sharyn Howard is the sheriff in fictional Diamond Springs, N.C., a picturesque town in the Uwharrie Mountains. In each novel, Sharyn is on the case of a local murder that bears an eerie resemblance to, and usually proves to be connected to, a long-unsolved crime.

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Filed under Lavene, Jim and Joyce, Montgomery, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont, Series

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by | · 9:58 am

James W. Hall. Forests of the Night. New York: St. Martin’s, 2005.

Miami detective Charlotte Monroe takes off for the mountains of western North Carolina in pursuit of her daughter, who has run off with the man at number eight on the FBI’s most wanted list. Charlotte and her husband quickly become entangled in a mystery that has its roots in the history of the region, and seems to be tied to the fate of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2005, Coast, Hall, James W., Mountains, Mystery, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship

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by | · 9:58 am

Patricia Cornwell. Hornet’s Nest. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1996.

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.

Check this title’s availability in the UNC Library Catalog.

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1996, Cornwell, Patricia, Mecklenburg, Mystery, Piedmont

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