In Suzetta Perkins’ earlier novel, Behind the Veil,  Margo Myles is betrayed by her closest confidants: her husband of twenty-five years, her long-term next door neighbor, and her very best friend in the world. In  Déjà Vu, Angelica Barnes (Margo’s best friend) is at the center of the drama.  Recently released from prison after being caught up in the “Operation Stingray” that got Margo’s husband into trouble, Angelica is trying to get her life back on track and to mend broken relationships.  However, she finds that making a new life in North Carolina will be too difficult; everyone in Fayetteville knows all about her past.  Angelica decides to move to New York City after being offered a job as a model, but the turmoil from her previous life follows her.  Robert Santiago, the ringleader of the criminal organization Operation Stingray finds her so that she can “repay her debt” to him.  Angelica, her family, and her friends are in danger as Santiago terrorizes and kills those who undid his schemes five years ago.  Angelica hopes that Margo will forgive her and help her, but Margo is struggling to reconnect with her husband who has just been released from prison.  Finally, it takes intervention from an outsider who is not what he appears to be to prevent Santiago from harming more people.

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

Posted: November 26th, 2009 under 2000-, 2009, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Perkins, Suzetta, Suspense/Thriller.
Comments: 1

Life in the suburbs of Fayetteville is not necessarily what it seems to be.  For the Myles family, their seemingly perfect life is about to be turned upside down.  Jefferson and Margo have a marriage that has lasted a quarter century, four grown, adoring children, thriving careers, and a cozy house in a nice, friendly neighborhood.  To Margo’s horror, she discovers that Jefferson has embezzled some of his clients’ funds and is heavily involved in the dangerous “Operation Stingray.”   This criminal organization is stealing ammunition from Fort Bragg to sell to Honduran rebels (all with the help of insiders and dirty cops).  Jefferson’s mistakes have put his family and friends in peril.  As if that’s not enough, Jefferson is having a steamy affair with the next-door neighbor, Linda–whose husband has just been murdered.  Margo must find the strength to protect her family while searching for a way to cope with her husband’s destructive misdeeds.

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

Posted: November 10th, 2009 under 2000-, 2006, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Perkins, Suzetta, Suspense/Thriller.
Comments: none

Murders involving the medical personnel at Fort Bragg.  No, it’s not the Jeffery MacDonald case.  This is a much more straightforward who-done-it set during World War II.  The plot is standard Crime Club fare, but the atmosphere of the base and the surrounding area are authentically portrayed.

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Posted: September 10th, 2009 under 1940-1949, 1942, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Hoke, Moore, H. F. S., Mystery.
Comments: none

Although time-traveling Claire Fraser knows that the Revolution is coming, she and her husband Jamie decide to make a new life in the American colonies. They make their way from Charleston to Cumberland County, North Carolina, where Jamie’s wealthy aunt owns a plantation, and then eventually travel to the mountains where they begin setting up a community on the fictional Fraser’s Ridge. Their daughter, Brianna, is living in 1960s Boston, but she goes back in time to find her parents. Roger, her friend and would-be husband, follows her. This is the first book in the 2nd Outlander trilogy and the first of the series to take place in North Carolina.

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Posted: January 21st, 2009 under 1990-1999, 1997, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Gabaldon, Diana, Historical, Mountains, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Novels in Series, Romance/Relationship, Science Fiction/Fantasy.
Comments: none

Numerous colorful characters populate this book, set at Fort Bragg in the 1950s.  The main character, Lt. Sy Margolin, left a comfortable assignment with NATO to become a paratrooper.  The rigors of training are just part of what he has to contend with.  Anti-Semitism is not much below the surface on base, off base life is wild and woolly, and at times the Army seems to value tradition above all else.  Secondary characters–diverse, sly, fun-loving, evil–round out the picture of Fort Bragg in the period between the Korean War and the start of the Vietnam Conflict.

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

Posted: November 26th, 2008 under 2000-, 2006, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Hoke, Singley, William P..
Comments: 1

Being a pastor’s wife is a hard row to hoe, so the Pastors’ Wives Alliance was formed. The women meet each Saturday to share their frustrations over demanding church members, expectations of extreme propriety, endless fund raising, their husbands’ long hours, and the ups and downs that most couples endure. This particular Saturday the meeting become more serious when one of the group announces that she is leaving her husband and shares the reasons why.

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

Posted: September 12th, 2008 under 2000-, 2007, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, McNeill, Georgia Hooker.
Comments: none

Jack Keller is back in this novel, the third of the Rhoades-penned thrillers focused on the North Carolina bounty hunter. This time Jack is chasing something other than murderers and bail jumpers, he is looking for a kidnapped child. Her father–a Delta Force commando–is the first suspect, but when he disappears as well, Jack must face criminals, military bureaucracy, and his own personal demons in order to find the girl.

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

Posted: May 13th, 2008 under 2000-, 2007, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Novels in Series, Rhoades, J.D., Suspense/Thriller.
Comments: none

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.

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Posted: April 17th, 2008 under 2000-, 2006, Cumberland, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Rhoades, J.D., Suspense/Thriller.
Comments: none

• The Devil’s Right Hand. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2005.
• Good Day in Hell. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006.
• Safe and Sound. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007.

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.

Posted: April 14th, 2008 under Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Novels in Series, Rhoades, J.D., Series, Suspense/Thriller.
Comments: none

Elizabeth Pepperhawk has just come back from Vietnam to serve at the army hospital at Fort Bragg. She had barely arrived when she comes across the dead body of a solider who was supposed to have died overseas two years before. When the Military Police are hesitant to pursue the case through to the end, Pepperhawk enlists the help of officer Avivah Rosen and the two women track the clues on their own. The story is told from the alternating perspectives of Pepperhawk and Rosen and is a rich glimpse into life on a military base in the early 1970s.

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

Posted: March 13th, 2008 under 2000-, 2005, Cumberland, Wildwind, Sharon.
Comments: none