People who have been in this area for some time will be delighted to see that Alexandra Sokoloff is bringing the work of J. B. and Louisa Rhine to the attention of a new generation.  From the 1920s to 1965, the Rhine parapsychology research lab at Duke University added the spice of parapsychology to the local intellectual scene.  The Rhines investigated ESP, psychokinesis, and poltergeists.  In The Unseen, Laurel MacDonald has left heartbreak in California and moved east to join the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University.  Professor MacDonald’s area of research involves Myers-Briggs typology, but when a library exhibit rekindles her interest in the work of the Rhines, she moves out of her safety zone in more than one sense.  She and a handsome co-worker enlist two exceptional students to help duplicate earlier investigations of poltergeists.  The four move to Folger House, an estate in Moore County and the site of poltergeist manifestations decades before. The tensions and suspicions among the researchers are nothing compared to what they encounter at Folger House.

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

Posted: September 29th, 2009 under 2000-, 2009, Coastal Plain, Durham, Moore, Piedmont, Sokoloff, Alexandra, Suspense/Thriller.
Comments: none

The Charlotte and Triangle Coalitions of were-cheetahs do not get along. When the Charlotte group sabotages an amusement park ride, an innocent human woman and her three year-old niece are injured. In order to save the little girl, Triangle-based were-cheetah healer Rio Velasquez bites her and turns her into a shape-shifter.  The aunt, Sinclair, was already fighting for custody of the little girl, but now she finds herself caught in the middle of the were-cheetahs’ war and falling for the hunky Rio.

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

Posted: June 29th, 2009 under 2000-, 2008, Colette, Marcia, Durham, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship, Science Fiction/Fantasy.
Comments: none

As an expert in abnormal psychology working for the FBI, Dr. Alex Cross is used to calmly solving gruesome crimes, but in Kiss the Girls the case is personal.  His niece–a law student at Duke–is kidnapped while on campus, and he comes to the Triangle to try to help find her.  The North Carolina police and FBI are dealing with “Cassanova,” a man who is collecting beautiful and talented female victims.  There is also a second predator on the loose, a killer on the west coast with the nickname “The Gentleman Caller.”  A break in the case comes when one of Cassanova’s victims, a UNC med student, fights her way free of her captor.  This is the second book in the Alex Cross thriller series and the only one set in North Carolina.  It inspired a 1997 film of the same name starring Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd.

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

Posted: May 6th, 2009 under 1990-1999, 1995, Durham, Novels in Series, Orange, Patterson, James, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller.
Comments: 2

Frank arrives in San Francisco looking for a missing woman and he convinces his former girlfriend Samantha to help out with the investigation. Samantha, a lawyer suffering from severe insomnia, has just begun an experimental treatment to help her sleep.  After she starts to notice connections between the murders and her sleep clinic, she wonders if she might be the next victim.  The plot with Samantha and Frank takes place in San Francisco, but a series of flashbacks within the story take place in North Carolina locations like Chapel Hill, Durham, and Wilmington.

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

Posted: May 1st, 2009 under 2000-, 2004, Coast, Durham, Fahy, Thomas, Mystery, New Hanover, Orange, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller.
Comments: none

It’s easy to loose faith in yourself and faith in God’s goodness when your marriage breaks up.  When Yvonne Fountain Copeland’s husband of fifteen years leaves her for no good reason, Yvonne is shattered.  Yvonne takes her two daughters from Richmond and moves back to her hometown of Durham.  There she finds a nurturing family, a mixed community of sinners and faith-filled people, and the handsome Curtis Parker.  Coach Parker is the successful basketball coach at a local university.  As Yvonne and Curtis fall in love they also come to realize that they need to give God a more central place in their lives.

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

Posted: April 26th, 2009 under 2000-, 2009, Bowen, Michele Andrea, Durham, Piedmont, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship.
Comments: none

The second book in the Fat City mystery series opens with Durham TV reporter Kate Gallagher enjoying both personal and professional success, but once again struggling with her weight. In order to win her diet battle, she signs up for a boot-camp style fitness program run by an old friend in the mountains. When her young roommate is found dead on the obstacle course, Kate finds out that this is not the first death at the camp and starts investigating.

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

Posted: April 16th, 2009 under 2000-, 2008, Durham, Humor, Lilley, Kathryn, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont.
Comments: none

Dr. David Tennant works in the Research Triangle Park as the ethicist for a secret government project focused on creating a quantum supercomputer with the memory and processing power of the human brain. As the project gets closer to realizing its goals, loyalties become divided, its team of famous scientists begins to experience different neurological symptoms, and one member is found dead. David–who is suffering from narcolepsy and disturbing dreams–tries unsuccessfully to shut the program down and ends up fleeing NSA security forces with his beautiful psychologist in tow.

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

Posted: April 8th, 2009 under 2000-, 2003, Durham, Iles, Greg, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller.
Comments: none

Sassy P.I. Casey Jones takes a job bodyguarding a tobacco scientist who has been receiving death threats. When he’s killed after only one day on the job, Casey takes it personally. She’s just considering looking into his murder when his fiancé hires her to find out two things: first, was he cheating on her before his death, and second, did her rich tobacco magnate father have him killed. Her complicated investigation takes her into the some very different settings, including Triangle high society and the rural countryside. This is the third book in the Casey Jones mystery series.

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

Posted: March 31st, 2009 under 1990-1999, 1999, Durham, Munger, Katy, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont.
Comments: none

After being laid off from her Boston-based TV producer job, Kate Gallagher dreams of becoming an on-air investigative reporter. To do so she needs to lose some weight, so she uses her severance pay as a down-payment for a 12-week weight-loss program at the Hoffman Clinic in Durham. She also agrees to produce a story about her transformation for the local news to pay for the balance. Within 24 hours of arriving in the “Diet Capital of the World,” Kate finds the dead body of the clinic’s founder and she starts using her investigative skills to find the killer. This is the first book in Kathryn Lilley’s Fat City mystery series.

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

Posted: March 5th, 2009 under 2000-, 2007, Durham, Humor, Lilley, Kathryn, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont.
Comments: none

In the second book of the Casey Jones series, it is Casey’s client who is running out of time. Gail Honeycutt is on death row for killing her husband, her appeals are pretty much exhausted, and she only has a month before her execution, but she continues to declare her innocence. Unfortunately, Gail’s husband was a cop (maybe a dirty one) and Casey’s investigation into his death puts her on the wrong side of the local P.D., including her non-boyfriend Bill. Fingers are pointed at Casey when people connected to the case start dying and the donut-loving private detective has to find the killer before she is framed for his work.

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

Posted: February 5th, 2009 under 1990-1999, 1998, Durham, Humor, Munger, Katy, Mystery, Novels in Series, Orange, Piedmont, Wake.
Comments: 2