Night Shadow by Cherry Adair

Night Shadow by Cherry Adair 

Alex Stone, agent for the international antiterrorism agency T-FLAC, tracks down dangerous global criminals.  Lexi Stone, not related, switches from an Internal Affairs desk to become an agent herself.  Danger and suspense combined with romance as Lexi takes on an undercover mission while on assignment to Alex’s team to .  Paranormal abilities enable the team to follow a European terrorist who kidnap and then ransoms people.  The twist is that they brutally massacre their hostages as they then vanish into thin air.  Can Alex and Lexi stop the terrorists in time to avoid further causalities? 

     As a stand alone, this book is an action packed fun read.  The first books in the trilogy Night Fall and Night Secrets are next on my reading list.

Review by Sherry Woods, a Southwest Page Turner member 

The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly

The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly

 

When the LA Times announces crime reporter Jack McEvoy will be released from it’s staff in two weeks time, Jack decides to go out in style with one final big write-up.  As his investigation of a murder, he discovers the real murder is not the person the police have arrested.  Jack links this murder to another murder.  On the hunt for the truth, Jack, his life in peril, follows the trail of bodies.  With every twist and turn, will Jack’s search lead to the real killer?

I Alex Cross by James Patterson

Detective Alex Cross thinks that his life is finally going to calm down until he discovers that his beloved niece is brutally murdered. As Alex hunts down her killer and discovers her secret life, he also has to confront a fear of his own: his grandmother. James Patterson has done it again! His writing style and research that puts into it will make you want more.

Review by Tina Bullock, SW

The Mercedes Coffin: a summer reading club review

The Mercedes Coffin by Faye Kellerman: Wealthy Genoa Greeves ties a cold case of 15 years with a present day crime. She enlists the LAPD to reopen the case and search for the connections that ties the two cases together. After all, both murder victims are found in the trunk of a Mercedes!

 Written by Sherry Woods, Southwest Page turners member

The Edge: a summer reading club review

Catherine Coulter, well known for her romantic novels, once again proves in The Edge she is a master of mystery and suspense novels. FBI agent "Mac" MacDougal journeys to the Oregon town of Edgerton to be with his sister following a car wreck that has placed her into a coma. His sister Jilly disappears shortly after his arrival. Mac searches for answers and helps local law inforcement in trying to solve an unusual murder of a local resident. Mac's journey in finding his sister becomes hair raising. Coulter has writter a novel that keeps the reader burning the midnight candle.

Written by Sherry Woods, Southwest Page turners member

Kindred in Death: a summer reading club review

Kindred in Death: J. D. Robb's futuristic Lieutenant Eve Dallas continues her battle against killers. This time it is the daughter of one of the high rank officers in the New York PSD who is found murdered. A series of grizzly murders having the same MO lead Lt. Dallas and her sidekick Detective Peabody down a nightmarish path that mirrors some of her own past. With the aid of her charismatic husband and unusual group of friends, the team unravels the master plan to take out beloved family members of the persons responsible for the perceived death of the killer's mother.


Once more, Robb makes the the year 2060 come to life. This book is a must for Robb fans.

Written by Sherry Woods, Southwest Page turners member

Dark of Night by Suzanne Brockman

Dark of Night: The Troubleshooters are back in action as Decker deceives the others by faking Nash’s death in an effort to divert attention elsewhere. Decker finds the Troubleshooter’s receptionist Tracy has strength of her own to battle the deadly forces. Brockman’s romantic suspense is a good read! The deadly action keeps you turning pages to see what happens next. For Troubleshooter fans, this is a must read full of action.
Written by Sherry Woods, Southwest Page Turners member

Charlaine Harris is coming to a town near us

I know its not really near us, but I got an email that Charlaine Harris is going to be in Dallas this weekend at the Borders on the corner of Preston and Royal. Make sure to get a hold on her newest that was just released last weekend, Dead in the Family. I'm in line and pretty close to being able to read the next installment. And of course, the third season of True Blood is just a couple of weeks away!

Mystery and sci fi combined

I was running out of books to read this past week so I raced over to the new book section to see if I could find a good book to read. The Domino Pattern by Timothy Zahn stuck out to me because the cover was pretty, I liked the font, and I knew I recognized the author's name, although I was pretty sure I'd never read any of his books. Star Wars fans will recognize his name because of his many books about Admiral Thrawn and Han Solo. Domino Pattern features Frank Compton, a loner detective, on a train, solving a murder. Sounds pretty Agatha Christie (re: the train) or Dashell Hammet (re: loner detective), right? Well you would be right, except the people murdered are aliens, and the train is a sort of supergalactic highway across space run by a species of spiders. I really enjoyed the melding of the traditional "must solve the mystery before the end of the train ride" and the mixing of alien cultures, including an alien/human hybrid "Girl Friday" for Compton. Compton was once a cop for Westali, which would be the European Union for us, but was blacklisted due to irritating his superiors by uncovering a plot funneling money to another world. Unfortunately for him, his superiors were the ones doing the money laundering and the cover up.

About halfway through the book I realized that yes, once again I had picked up a book that was the fourth in the series of books that started out back in 2005 with Night Train to Rigel. I went ahead and went back and read the first three including The Third Lynx and Odd Girl Out (I'm in the middle of it right now). Even though the whole series has a futuristic bent, my favorite part by far is the humanity of the characters amidst the strange backdrop. In fact one of his publishers, Random House, has a blurb for him that sums this up, that he is "known for pitting realistic human characters against a well-researched background of future science and technology." Each of the books has a murder at the center of it, while intergalactic politics and intrigue are scattered throughout, making these some of the most enjoyable books I've read in awhile.

Robert B. Parker 1932-2010

Robert B. Parker died of a heart attack at his desk Monday, at the age of 77. He was the author of 60 novels, with the majority of them being about Spenser, a character that ushered in a new brand of hardboiled detective. Split Image, a Jesse Stone novel, is due out in February.

Obsessions, mysteries and bones

I dislike mysteries. Did I say it loud enough? I DON'T LIKE MYSTERIES. Obviously this view is not represented by the library as a whole or even my other colleagues at the library: see here, here, and here. I can never figure out who did it and it always makes me feel like a less than knowledgable person. Also blood and guts and gore are not my thing. I have read a couple of mysteries that aren't blood and guts and I've got problems with them as well. Since these rely on personalities we have 20 people vying for the right to have a cameo in each book (I'm talking to you Qwilleran's friends [and mustache]!).

This hatred also extends to TV shows. No CSI for me (in any incarnation). No police procedurals. No psychic detectives (although I did flirt with Pushing Daisies which featured a detective). You can see the depths of this. What you probably can't see is how I came across my current obsession, Bones.

That is right. How can a mystery hating, gore abhorring gal like me start obsessively watching a gore obsessed, mystery entrenched show? It all has to do with this other television series that started up this year about a mystery writer who hangs out with the police and helps them solve crimes. I loved the main actor in Serenity and Firefly, and thought for sure I would like him in this. So I DVRed it. And I didn't.

Was it him or the show or me? I set to find out, catching an episode of Bones to compare it to. And instantly fell in love with it. Its a procedural with a lively FBI agent and a repressed logical forensic anthropologist with every single person in the cast of characters interesting.

While the television show's main character has the same name as the Dr. Temperance Brennan in Kathy Reich's Bones series, the character on the show is loosely based on the author's life. And since the library had the first three seasons for me to quickly catch up on the show I was able to thoroughly enjoy last nights season finale. And I will watch it when it comes back on tv in the fall.

Deweying it by the numbers: 300s

The 300s division in the Dewey Decimal System in my opinion wins the "why are these books next to each other?" award out of all of the Dewey numbers. 300s represent the social sciences. This means anything from immigration to shopping to fairy tales can be found in the 300s. By far, the most popular section of 300s for adult readers seems to be the true crime section. From organized crime to Lincoln's assassination, even true crime is incredibly varied.

My most recent foray into the genre was reading Patricia Cornwell's Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper case closed. A lot of people did not like it because of what some considered to be shoddy research, but I thought it was interesting, if only because Cornwell's writing is so good. If you want a true crime that Patricia Cornwell is actually in, check out Twisted Triangle. Cornwell has stated that her role in the lives of the FBI agents involved was minimal. Other true crime books can be found at Dewey Decimal number 363 and 364.

So many books-so little time!

by Linda, Central Reference Librarian

It's almost spring and lots of my favorite authors have new books coming out soon-Jacqueline Winspear, Nancy Atherton and Joanne Fluke this month! Winspear writes about the psychologist and detective Maisie Dobbs in post World War I Britain-I think it's her insights into human nature that attract me the most, Maisie sees behind all the pain that the war caused and right into the person's soul. Nancy Atherton's mostly happy (sometimes nobody dies!) cozy mysteries featuring Lori Shepherd and the ghostly Aunt Dimity are charming-set also in Britain (the Cotwolds). Lori is a usually level headed mom of twins-but she does talk to dead Aunt Dimity thru a blue notebook. Joanne Fluke's mystery solving baker-Hannah Swensen lives in Lake Eden, Minnesota and has a cast a likable characters-mostly Hannah's hilarious family! Fluke always includes lots of great recipes-I've made several of her cookie concoctions and my family and friends love them.If you want to keep up with your favorite author, checkout the Coming Soon link on the library's web page-you can find it under Find Library Books and more.