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

The “trouble” in the title is murder.  The atmosphere should be one of happy anticipation at Fort House, for Dorothy McGregor and Dr. Lewis Parker are to be married in two days.  But the house is inhabited by poltergeists, an invalid aunt who just might oppose the marriage, and her nurse who has a mysterious past.  When Dr. Parker asks Dr. Gaskell, another local physician, to look in on Aunt Mary, they argue over her condition.  The next morning, when Dr. Gaskell is found dead, the soon-to-be bridegroom is the prime suspect.

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

Posted: October 2nd, 2009 under 1920-1929, 1922, Coastal Plain, Moore, Mystery, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Novels to Read Online, Poate, Ernest M..
Comments: none

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

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.

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

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

Beware the handsome stranger.  On a winter night a good looking young man shows up in a small North Carolina town.  He has a winning manner, but when bad things begin to happen in the town, some come to suspect he has brought evil with him. The author takes readers into the mind of a man warped by his performances in a huckster’s revival shows. It’s a hellish place.

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

Posted: August 13th, 2009 under 1960-1969, 1961, Coastal Plain, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Suspense/Thriller, Wicker, Tom.
Comments: none

Lots of people drive down I-95 on their way to Florida and for most it’s an uneventful trip.  Not for Chris Sandige, a political operative from Washington, D.C.  Chris swerves to avoid a dog, looses control of his car, and finds himself marooned in Lumberton for a weekend.  It could have been a quiet weekend, but Chris makes the mistake of inviting a pretty and mysterious woman to join him at dinner. While Chris is enjoying dinner, the sheriff’s department is investigating the murder of a local banker and his wife.  The two threads of the story come together in the person of the lady, as Chris is drawn into a web of oil profiteering, money laundering, and political corruption.

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

Posted: August 4th, 2009 under 2000-, 2008, Coastal Plain, Robeson, Suspense/Thriller, Terrell, P. M..
Comments: none

Just outside of Marion (a town that might be Lumberton, Hamlet, or Rockingham), a farmer is murdered.  A young African American man is accused of the killing, but newspaperman Sandy Martin thinks he is innocent. The murder itself is gruesome, but what Martin uncovers during his investigation is worse: political corruption, personal betrayals, witchcraft. This is a dark picture of a small southern town in the last days of one party rule and Jim Crow.

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

Posted: August 1st, 2009 under 1950-1959, 1957, Coastal Plain, Mystery, Wicker, Tom.
Comments: none

Annie Peregrine never knew her mother. On Annie’s seventh birthday, her dad abandoned her. Moments before he left, he gave her a plane–not a toy plane, but a real airplane, a Piper Warrior. Annie is brought up by her aunt and uncle, and she is visiting them on her twenty-sixth birthday when she receives a call from the Miami Police Department.  It seems Annie’s dad has had quite a career as a con man.  The FBI is on his trail because they think he has a stolen Cuban relic.  In short order, Annie’s dad, Jack, calls too.  He wants Annie (now a Navy pilot) to fly that old gift plane to him.  “Meet me in St. Louis” says dad, who also claims to be dying. St. Louis is just a way station, as Annie soon heads to Miami and points south. Her goals are to help her dad and learn the name of her mother. Annie doesn’t get all that she wants, but she does have some great adventures and she finds true love. While Annie takes center stage, the book also contains stories of other members of Annie’s colorful extended family.

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

Posted: June 18th, 2009 under 2000-, 2009, Coastal Plain, Malone, Michael.
Comments: none

Few of us like to think about getting old, so old that we’ll have to move to a facility for the frail and elderly.  But who is there now–either living there or working to make life better for the residents?  This book tells us who’s there.  Todd Johnson gives us the voices of nursing home residents Margaret Clayton and Bernice Stokes. Margaret and Bernice still have a lot of life in them. They break the rules, stirring things up at the home and rattling the staff, but also earning the affection of their nurse Lorraine and Rhonda, a beautician who comes to the facility once a week.  Each woman, along with Lorraine’s daughter April, tells her story in alternating chapters.  Through their stories we see how interesting these “ordinary” women are and what a great balm true friendship can be.

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

Posted: May 15th, 2009 under 2000-, 2009, Coastal Plain, Johnson, Todd.
Comments: none

The teenage years are hard for everyone, but they are especially tough for Elisa Matthews.  Her family is comfortably middle class, she has good grades, and she has dreams for future.  These things set her apart from many of the other African American teens in her small home town. When her best friend, Rachel, joins the clique that calls her an “Oreo”, Elisa  starts to feel that she doesn’t have a friend in the world. But she does. Jen has had Elisa’s back when the clique has mocked her, but when Elisa starts spending time with a new boy, Scott, it’s Jen who feels vulnerable.  The novel is in Elisa’s voice; the technique nicely captures her thought processes and her growth.

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

Posted: May 8th, 2009 under 2000-, 2003, Children & Young Adults, Coastal Plain, Rountree, Wendy Alexia.
Comments: none