Author Archives: Eileen McGrath

April 5, 2013

Robert Heffner. Alma’s Prayer. Indianapolis, IN: Dog Ear Publishing, 2012.

alma Now that we’re in the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, we’re being treated to movies, websites, and articles about the politics and battles of that sad war.  But all wars have a home front, and the Civil War home front is the setting for Alma’s Prayer.  Alma is Alma Hawkins, a widow living the the mountains of western North Carolina.  Despite Alma’s pleas, her oldest son, Virgil, left their mountain farm to join the Confederate army. Virgil volunteered for a six month enlistment, but as the novel opens CSA President Jefferson Davis has just signed a new conscription act which calls all men eighteen and over into service and cancels all discharges.

Virgil’s letter telling his family that he’s not coming home reaches them shortly after his wife Jenny announces her pregnancy and Virgil’s brother, Luke, discovers the violence inflicted on a neighboring family whose husband deserted the army.  Luke’s concern for his mother and sister-in-law compels him to visit Virgil’s camp to ask him to come home.  Soon both brothers are on the run from the very posse who so brutally dealt with their neighbors.  This crisply-written novel covers some of the same literal and figurative territory as Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain.  It is a timely reminder that in wartime sacrifice, fear, cruelty, and bravery are not confined to the battlefield.

 

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Heffner, Robert, Mountains

Tagged as

March 26, 2013

Karen E. Bender. A Town of Empty Rooms. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2013.

empty roomsWhen you grow up someplace, or live there for a very long time, you don’t notice the things like the weather, the food, the buildings, or the shared cultural expectations that make your  hometown distinctive.  But any of those can be jarring to an outsider.  That’s the case for Serena Hirsch and Dan Shine, a married couple who move with their two young children from New York City to the (fictitious) town of Waring, North Carolina.  Both Serena and Dan are deeply unsettled by the death of a close relative and by the inexplicable crime committed by Serena that precipitated their move from New York.

Dan, ever optimistic, believes that his new job in Waring will work out and that the family will eventually feel at home in the town.  To help his son Zeb fit in, Dan and Zeb join the Boys Scouts.  Dan is thrilled to become an assistant troop leader under the direction of his next-door neighbor, Forrest Sanders.  But Serena’s experience of Forrest is different from that of her husband, and her uneasiness about Forrest only deepens the chasm between her and Dan.

Serena hopes that she has found her place at Temple Shalom, the only Jewish synagogue in Waring.  In no time at all, she is working part-time at the synagogue and is on the board.  Her work with the temple strengthens her religious identification and gives her the resolve to push back against the Christian cultural hegemony that she and her children experience.  But all is not well at the temple, and Serena is buffed by conflicts within the congregation.

A Town of Empty Rooms is at its center a novel about the messages that we carry inside ourselves from our upbringings and the imperfect ways we struggle to make sense of our place in the world.  Setting Serena and Dan’s struggle in North Carolina allows long-time Tar Heels to consider their state anew.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Bender, Karen

Tagged as ,

March 14, 2013

Chris Cavender. Killer Crust. New York: Kensington Books, 2013.

killer crustAs regular readers of this series know, the bottom line at A Slice of Delight pizzeria is mighty thin, so it’s no wonder that Eleanor jumps at the chance to enter a pizza-making contest with a  $25,000 prize.  The contest organizer, the misnamed Laughing Luigi, is a bit of a snake, but Maddy’s fiancé, lawyer Bob Lemon, says the contract looks on the-up-and-up, so the sisters sign on the dotted line.

Things soon go very wrong.  Eleanor and Maddy are thrilled to be ensconced, at Luigi’s expense, at the new luxury resort where the cook- off will take place.  But it’s clear that the three other cooking teams all have histories–bad ones–with Luigi.  Luigi seems to be using the contest to settle scores but before he can do much damage, he’s dead.  Unfortunately for Eleanor, Luigi choked on a piece of her pizza. Despite Luigi’s death, the contest goes on.  Can Eleanor can score a double–win the cooking contest and catch the murderer?  With so many good suspects, Killer Crust is a classic who-done it.  As with other books in this series, the author includes a tasty recipe at the end.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Cavender, Chris, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series

Tagged as

February 28, 2013

Peggy Dern. Peacock Hill. New York: Arcadia House, 1960.

Since the early twentieth century, the mountains around Asheville have been home to a mix of longtime mountain families and wealthy newcomers.  The contrasting lives of those two groups are on display in Peacock Hill.  Robin and Kirke Bryant are a sister and brother with deep mountain roots.  Robin is a young woman who has never been far from home. Her brother, Kirke, saw a bit of the world when he was in the military and later when he worked for a large oil company in Saudi Arabia.  His work for Big Oil left him with enough money to allow him and his sister to continue to live on their family’s land.  The Bryants may be financially secure, but not on the same scale as Ezra Calloway, the owner of Peacock Hill.  Mr. Calloway lives in a large mansion on a gated manor, with servants and a secretary to help him with his historical research.  He and his secretary dress in white tie and tails for dinner, and they never have guests.  That changes when Calloway’s great niece, Brooke Hildreth, arrives unannounced.  Brooke is young,  wealthy, and recently widowed.  Uncle Ezra opens his house and heart to her, and Brooke considers staying on with her uncle.  But Brooke’s prior life follows her to Peacock Hill.  While the household at Peacock Hill remains unruffled by the complications that Brooke brings, Brooke and people from her circle unsettle the routines–and even the lives–of Robin and Kirke.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 1960, 1960-1969, Dern, Peggy, Mountains

February 22, 2013

Sharon Wildwind. Loved Honor More. Detroit, MI: Five Star, 2012.

This book opens in early May, 1975, a time when television sets across America were full of frightening and heartbreaking scenes from Vietnam as North Vietnamese forces took Saigon and American forces and their allies evacuated the country by any means possible.  The images trouble Vietnam veteran Elizabeth Pepperhawk, leaving her particularly vulnerable when she is visited by a stranger who tells her that her love, Colonel Darby Baxter, has died at the U.S. embassy in Saigon.  Along with that devastating news, the woman brings Elizabeth a baby–Darby’s baby?– and a demand for $3,000 to compensate her for her expenses and the risks she took getting the child out of Vietnam.  Elizabeth turns to her housemates Avivah Rosen and Saul Eisenberg to raise the money to give the woman.  Within a day of receiving Elizabeth’s payment, the woman who brought the baby to Elizabeth is dead.  This disturbing development puts Avivah, now an Asheville police lieutenant, in an awkward situation.  Can she investigate this murder when she had prior dealings with the victim and when she herself might be an accessory in the illegal transport of a baby?

Elizabeth plans to find a Vietnamese couple to adopt the child and soon learns that there is a small community of Vietnamese refugees nearby.  But Elizabeth can tell that things don’t add up–at the hatchery where the refugees live and work, at the clinic where Elizabeth works and the woman died, and with the Army whose story about Colonel Baxter’s death doesn’t match the evidence that Elizabeth received from the dead woman.  Elizabeth and Avivah try to sort this out even as anti-refugee sentiment flares in the community, their friend Benny’s boss goes missing, and Elizabeth’s boss–who is married to Avivah’s boss–appears to be hiding something that may or may not be related the woman’s death.

While all this is going on, major life events occur for some of the recurring characters in this series–Benny and Lorraine have a child and Avivah and Saul set a date for their wedding.  Author Wildwind is tying up loose end in this novel, the last book in the Elizabeth Pepperhawk/Avivah Rosen Mystery Series.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Buncombe, Madison, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Wildwind, Sharon

Tagged as ,

February 14, 2013

Jessica Beck. Illegally Iced. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2013.

James Settle was a newcomer to April Springs but with his easy going style he fit right in.  He was a blacksmith and many people, including Suzanne Hart, were delighted to have the lovely things that he made.  Everyone in town knew that Suzanne and James were friends, but that doesn’t prevent Gaby Williams from fingering Suzanne as the murderer when James is stabbed in the city park across from Suzanne’s donut shop. Yes, Suzanne and James did have a public argument the morning that he died, but a little bit of smoke wafting into the donut shop wouldn’t have spoiled their friendship.

Suzanne has an alibi for the time of the murder, but she knows that she will be under a cloud of suspicion until the murderer is found.  As in similar situations in the past, Suzanne turns to her friend Grace to help with the sleuthing. The friends discover that James was estranged from the other members of his very wealthy family, so greed could been the motive for his murder. But we all know that the other common motive for murder is that nasty mix of love/jealousy/revenge. Which is it in this case? As Suzanne and Grace add to and subtract from their list of suspects, it is fun to see how their minds work and how they navigate Suzanne’s delicate relationship with April Springs Police Chief Martin who is still courting Suzanne’s mother.

Readers will also enjoy the scene in which Suzanne’s book group discusses The Killer’s Last Bite, a book in a long running series of mysteries. The women ask some of the same questions that readers might ask about this series. Can we assume that the answers are the author’s?

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Beck, Jessica, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places

Tagged as

February 5, 2013

Douglas Quinn. Swan’s Landing. Elizabeth City, N.C. : White Heron Press, 2012.

In this the third novel in the Webb Sawyer mystery series, Webb’s son Preston has moved from the Outer Banks to New Zealand, but Preston’s ex-girlfriend, Sunshine Bledsoe, still keeps in touch with Webb.  Sunshine is aptly named–she’s a pretty, cheerful young woman whose sunny nature belies her difficult family life.  When Sunshine’s parents divorced, her dad moved to Richmond, but her mother, a recovering drug addict, remained in the area.  Isabeau and Sunshine’s relationship is a reverse of the traditional mother-daughter one: it is Sunshine who checks in on Isabeau, a waitress with a tenuous hold on financial and emotional stability.

As this novel opens, Sunshine is convinced that her mother is in trouble.  Isabeau’s employer, restaurant owner Amy Overton, has a note from Isabeau saying that  she’s taking a few weeks off for a vacation, but Sunshine doesn’t think her mom had the money for a trip.  Initially, Webb is not inclined to take Isabeau’s disappearance very seriously. Webb is more interested in working on his off-again, on-again relationship with pub owner Nan Ftorek, which is now back on.  Still, Sunshine is someone he is fond of and when he learns that another of Ms. Overton’s employees is also missing, his investigation kicks into high gear.  Webb follows a twisted trail that involves a shady minister, a local developer with a past, and a sadistic cop.  The body count gets high before Webb and the local sheriff bring the bad guys and their enablers to justice.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Coast, Dare, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Quinn, Douglas

Tagged as

January 18, 2013

Douglas Quinn. The Webb Sawyer Mysteries.

Webb Sawyer threw away his career as a military investigator when he shot a Serbian war lord in his jail cell.  Now Webb is separated from the United States Army and living in the remote Outer Banks community of Blue Heron Marsh. The ex-soldier is looking forward to a quiet life of fishing and boating that will allow him to put his personal demons behind him.  But the community around him has its demons too, and when his neighbors encounter trouble they turn to Webb knowing that they’ll need his investigative skills and fearlessness. The cases they ask his help with show him again the darker elements of human nature–racism, sexual obsession, greed, the thirst for revenge. People are not always what they appear to be, and the linkage between the present and the past is not always a pleasant one.  Interwoven with the search for sexual predators, serial killers, and the like are the ins-and-outs of Webb’s daily life–his attempts to develop a better relationship with his son, his on-again, off-again romance with a local pub owner, and his enjoyment of the water and natural beauty in this little part of the North Carolina coast.

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2000-2009, 2010-2019, Coast, Mystery, Novels in Series, Quinn, Douglas, Series, Suspense/Thriller

January 16, 2013

Casey Mayes. A Grid for Murder. New York: Berkley Prime Crime, 2012.

It’s natural that Savannah Stone is a prime suspects after Joanne Clayton is poisoned.  Savannah had the opportunity: half of Asheville saw Savannah having tea with the dead woman just hours before she died.  And the police think that Savannah had a motive: Joanne arranged to meet with Savannah so she could brag to her that she had gotten one of her puzzles in a newspaper that had repeatedly turned down Savannah’s.  Savannah senses that her story doesn’t seem convincing to the state police investigator handling the case, the chilly Captain North, so she decides that she’ll have to offer the police a more promising suspect.

Savannah is a relative newcomer to the area, so she relies on her closest friend, hardware store owner Rob Hastings to help her develop a list Joanne’s enemies.  It’s quite a long list! Savannah knows that she’s making enemies for herself with all her noisy, pointed questions.  She’s also aggravating her husband, Zach.  Zach, the retired chief of the Charlotte police department, is assisting Captain North with her investigation.  The two investigations–the professional one and the amateur–crisscross in a cozy mystery that shines a light on the good and the bad in small town life.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Buncombe, Mayes, Casey, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series

January 11, 2013

Mark Schweizer. The Treble Wore Trouble. Tryon, NC: SJMP Books, 2012.

There is never a dull moment in the (fictitious) little town of St. Germaine, North Carolina.  In this latest installment in the Liturgical Mysteries series, a body is found in the alley behind the town beauty parlor, and a young child is kidnapped.  Are these two events related?  Police Chief Hayden Koning thinks so, but before he gets far in his investigations, a singer is electrocuted during a service at St. Barnabas Church.  (It isn’t a Liturgical Mysteries book unless a death occurs in or near St. Barnabas.)  This, the tenth book in the series, contains the same cast of characters and many of the usual elements (another new rector, conflicts over the church’s liturgy, interesting minor characters) along with a few zany new additions–a truffle hunting pig and a Christian astrologer.

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

Leave a Comment

Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Humor, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Schweizer, Mark, Watauga

Tagged as