Author Archives: Eileen McGrath

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.

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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

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December 28, 2012

Erin McCarthy. Fast Track.

The motorsports industry is reported to pump $4 billion into the economy of the Charlotte metro area–that means lots of jobs beyond just racers and their pit crews.  That wider circle of racing is present in Erin McCarthy’s Fast Track series.  The drivers—all hot, hot, hot—share their high-pressure world with journalists, PR consultants, team owners, sponsors, hangers-on, and even a few academics.  Each book features two people who are clearly attracted to each other but whose path to happily-ever-after is complicated things such as professional jealousies, previous relationships, pride, and Mars/Venus misunderstandings.  Snappy repartee and sexy scenes are standard elements of this series, but some of the novels include as plot elements serious subjects such as adult illiteracy and alcoholism.  The novels are loosely connected in that some characters–especially the Monroe brothers–appear in several books, but each book can stand on its own–and each one is a wild, fun ride.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2010-2019, Cabarrus, McCarthy, Erin, Mecklenburg, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship, Series

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December 26, 2012

Mia Ross. Circle of Family. New York: Love Inspired, 2012.

When Ridge Collins comes to Harland, North Carolina for his friend Matt’s wedding, he has no intention of staying in the sleepy little farming community.  Ridge’s dramatic entrance–he lands a vintage biplane in a field on the Sawyer farm just hours before the wedding–annoys the wedding organizer, Matt’s older sister Marianne.  Marianne likes everything predictable and orderly, and she is distrustful of showy men.  You can’t blame her.  Her ex-husband, Peter, was a good-looking wheeler-dealer who took advantage of Marianne’s trusting nature, and then dumped her when it suited him.  Only through self-discipline and sacrifice, and help from her extended family, has Marianne been able to make  a good life for her herself and her two children, Kyle and Emily.

Circle of Family unfolds the way that readers expect a romance to proceed.  Ridge stays on to help with the farm while his friend Matt is on his honeymoon.  He is a genial, handy person, and members of the Sawyer clan–including Marianne’s son and daughter–take a liking to him.  Marianne and Ridge spar over her suspicious, cautious nature and his vagabond ways.   Yet Marianne can see the good that Ridge is doing–working in the fields, fixing equipment, coaching the peewee football team, mentoring her son–and Ridge realizes that he is falling in love Marianne and falling out of love with a life without commitments or even a permanent address.  Matters come to a head when Peter, a deadbeat dad who has not seen his children in five years, shows up at the farm demanding to have regular visits with his son.  Marianne fears that Peter will demand full custody of young Kyle, but Peter’s game is more complicated than it appears.  To thwart Peter, Ridge makes an unexpected sacrifice that secures happiness for Marianne and the family that he hopes will soon be his.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship, Ross, Mia

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December 21, 2012

Margaret Maron. The Buzzard Table. New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2012.

It’s hard to believe that the war on terror has come to Colleton County, but that’s what PAT–Patriots Against Torture–thinks.  Its members believe that the county airport is being used  to fly terrorism suspects out of this country to secret prisons in Europe where they will be tortured.  As this novel opens, Jeremy Harper, a local high school boy in the group who trespassed at the airport, appears in Deborah Knott’s court to answer the charges against him.  Because Jeremy does not have a record, he is given community service time.  He will use his talents as a photographer to document the stories of local veterans.  His activities will be directed by a local minister and Anne Harald, a noted photojournalist who is in town to attend to the needs of her dying mother, local grande dame Mrs. Lattimore.

Anne Harald is the mother of NYPD detective Sigrid Harald, who has also come to Colleton County to be with Mrs. Lattimore.  Even though Mrs. Lattimore is fading fast, she insists that the family entertain a long-lost nephew who is in the area doing research on buzzards.  Against her will, Deborah is roped in to dining with the Lattimore clan.  Deborah has already met the nephew and has been put off by his bad manners and excessive desire for privacy.  Later, when an attractive realtor is murdered and her body dumped near the birder’s research site, Deborah is suspicious, as is Sigrid.

But this is a case for the county sheriff, and Deborah’s husband, sheriff’s deputy Dwight Bryant, suspects that a jealous husband or spurned lover committed the crime.  The murder of a stranger at a local motel sets both Dwight and the reader to ponder whether the two murders are connected.  While Dwight works on the cases, Deborah keeps the home fires burning, cementing her relationship with her stepson Cal.  As the novel ends they are more a family, even as Deborah realizes that there are things about Dwight’s past that she does not–and may never–know.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Coastal Plain, Maron, Margaret, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places

December 16, 2012

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.

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

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December 13, 2012

Virginia Kantra. Carolina Home. New York: Berkley Sensation, 2012.

In Carolina Home, the first novel in Virginia Kantra’s Dare Island series, readers are introduced to the Fletcher family. Tom Fletcher, the family’s patriarch, is a former Marine and retired fishman.  Tom and his wife Tess now run an inn on the island.  Tom’s family has been on the island for generations.  Tess was a Chicago girl whom Tom met when he was in service, but she took to the island and happily raised her family there.  She is a rock to her family, always ready to share love and to adjust the family’s resources to accommodate one of her children’s needs.  As she did many years ago when her college-age son Matt came back from North Carolina State with a baby and a broken heart.

Matt’s baby, Josh,  is now a teenager, bright but indifferent to school work.  Josh’s language arts teacher, Allison Carter, a newcomer to the island, hopes to break through his indifference, but it is Matt, not Josh, who is interested in this attractive woman.  Carolina Home focuses on the romantic dance between Allison and Matt.  She’s trying to break free from her wealthy parents, be a good teacher, and not make waves at her new workplace.  Matt hasn’t had the time or the inclination to have a serious romance–he’s been raising his son, running a charter fishing business, and happily enjoying a series of summer romances with women who leave for the mainland at the season’s end.  Matt doesn’t understand Allison’s fear of gossip any better than he understands why he feels that this woman may not be like all the others.  The outline of the story is a familiar one, but Kantra fills it in in a charming way.  The classroom discussions of The Scarlet Letter will bring smiles to many readers’ faces, and Hawthorne’s old classic has relevance to the character’s lives.

While Matt and Allison are the focus of this novel, it is easy to discern that other members of the Fletcher family–mother Tess, sister Meg, who lives in New York, brother Luke, a Marine, and the newest family member–Luke’s ten year old daughter Taylor (unknown to the Fletchers until her mother died)–will play more central roles in future books in this series.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Coast, Dare, Kantra, Virginia, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Romance/Relationship

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November 30, 2012

Mia Ross. Hometown Family. New York: Love Inspired Books, 2012.

Matt Sawyer left Harland, North Carolina as soon as he graduated from high school.  He knew that he didn’t want to be a farmer like his father and he felt stifled by the closeness that his father and siblings expected from each other.  But it was his unspoken bitterness and grief over the early death of his mother that set him on a life of rambling, a life with no commitments, not even to his kin.  But now his father has died, and Matt finds that he has to stay in Harland to save the family farm and the way of life that is so dear to his siblings.  Matt agrees to stay long enough to get the harvest in; once that’s done, he’ll go back to his work as a mechanic in Charlotte.

But Matt didn’t count on meeting Caty McKenzie, or, really, meeting her again.  She was three years behind him in school and his awareness of her was slight.  He knew little about her other than that his brother John was clearly sweet on her.  But now Caty is a lawyer–his father’s lawyer.  It’s Caty who breaks the news to the Sawyer siblings that the farm has been left to all of then, with the stipulation that all decisions about it must be unanimous.  Matt can’t imagine that he and his sister Marianne can agree on anything, and he feels guilty knowing that his brother John has only worked on the family farm, nowhere else.

Matt’s clearly got some work to do: get over his guilt about leaving his family, his distaste for farming, and his habit of running from uncomfortable feelings–like his romantic interest in Caty McKenzie.  In contrast, Caty seems like she has an uncomplicated life.  She loves being back in her hometown and is looking forward to restoring the house that she grew up in.  But Caty’s childhood included the tragic death of her mother, and in restoring her childhood home she comes face-to-face with a secret from the past.  Will she be able to face that, especially after a house fire undoes her restoration work and almost kills her?  Over the course of the novel her faith, her hometown friendships, and Matt Sawyer’s growing love for her allow them both to see a life in Harland that neither expected.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2012, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship, Ross, Mia

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