Category Archives: 1990-1999

1990-1999

Clay Harvey. A Flash of Red. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1996.

While Tyler Vance is in the drive-through for his local bank one day, a fleeing bank robber points a gun at him and demands he hand over his truck.  In that instant, Vance’s unique, deadly, and very secret military training takes over.  He shoots and kills the robber, not knowing that the dead man has some “family” ties to international drug dealers, gun runners, and racketeers.  Tyler’s life as a freelance writer, recent widower, and single father quickly turns dangerous as the mobster’s connections try to exact vengeance upon him.  He turns to friends, family, and old army connections for help surviving the attacks and keeping his son safe.  Author Clay Harvey, like main character Vance, lives in North Carolina and writes articles and books about guns.  A Flash of Red is the first book in Harvey’s series about Vance.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1996, Harvey, Clay, Mecklenburg, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship, Suspense/Thriller

James Patterson. Kiss the Girls. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995.

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.

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1995, Durham, Novels in Series, Orange, Patterson, James, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller

Margaret Maron. Southern Discomfort. New York : Mysterious Press, 1993.

When she was running for the open district judge position in Colleton County, Deborah Knott commented to a meeting of the local WomanAid group that she wished she could take time out of campaigning to help with their work.  Now that she has been appointed to the seat, the group has come to claim her weekends and she starts working with a group of women building a house for a needy single mom and her kids.  On top of her new duties and the construction project, the new judge also faces violence in her community and in her family.  Before the house is finished, the group’s electrician (who also happens to be Deborah’s niece) is attacked, the accused attacker is found dead, and the girl’s father is poisoned.  This is the second in the series of Judge Deborah Knott mysteries.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1993, Coastal Plain, Maron, Margaret, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places

Jan Karon. A Light in the Window. Elgin, IL: Lion Pub., 1995.

In the second of the Mitford novels, Father Tim must deal with a variety of women in his life. The recently widowed Edith Mallory is pursuing him in a not-so-subtle manner that includes delivering delicious casseroles to his home. The life-long bachelor doesn’t mind the food, but he is in love with someone else: his neighbor, the lovely children’s book author Cynthia Coppersmith. Unfortunately, he isn’t sure how to proceed on that front. He also has his bossy assistant Edith meddling in his life and a mysterious female cousin from Ireland comes to stay in his house. Barnabas the unruly dog also makes appearances, as does young Dooley, whose troubles at school distress Tim.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1995, Karon, Jan, Mountains, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship

Toni L.P. Kelner. Dead Ringer. New York: Kensington Pub., 1994.

In the second book in the Laura Fleming mystery series, Laura and her husband Richard return to the small town of Byerly for her family reunion. Her calm vacation is quickly livened up with amateur sleuthing when a stranger is shot to death at the town’s mill and she discovers that her aunt is being blackmailed.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1994, Catawba, Kelner, Toni L. P., Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont

Katy Munger. Money to Burn. New York: Avon Books, 1999.

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.

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1999, Durham, Munger, Katy, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont

Margaret Maron. Bootlegger’s Daughter. New York: Mysterious Press, 1992.

Lawyer Deborah Knott is a modern southern woman, but as the only daughter of a notorious, retired bootlegger, she still has one foot in the traditions of the old south. After one of the local judges is particularly and unnecessarily harsh on one of her partner’s clients, she decides to run for a seat as district judge in Colleton County. The campaign is a hard one, but Deborah is also distracted by her large family and gets tangled up in trying to resolve the 18-year old unsolved murder of a neighbor. The first in the Deborah Knott series of mysteries, Bootlegger’s Daughter also won four of the major mystery awards: the Edgar, Anthony, Agatha, & Macavity Awards.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1992, Coastal Plain, Maron, Margaret, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places

Joyce and Jim Lavene. Last Dance. New York: Avalon Books, 1999.

It definitely isn’t Stephen King, but the plot of Jim and Joyce Lavene’s Last Dance does feature a girl named Carrie whose prom experience is less than stellar. In fact, Carrie Sommers, prom queen of Diamond Springs High School, is murdered in the school’s parking lot. Sheriff Sharyn Howard believes that the case is similar enough to a prom-night murder that her father investigated 10 years ago that she reopens the old case. With the original murder suspect on death row, local and state politicians getting involved, and her mother worried about damage to her father’s reputation, Sharyn has her hands full in this book, the first of the Sharyn Howard Mysteries set in the fictional Uwharrie Mountain town of Diamond Springs.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1999, Lavene, Jim and Joyce, Montgomery, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont

Toni L.P. Kelner. Down Home Murder. New York: Kensington Pub., 1993.

Laura Fleming left North Carolina years ago to attend MIT, but is summoned back to her western North Carolina hometown when her grandfather is badly injured in an accident at the town’s mill. But was her Paw’s “accident” really an attempt on his life? Laura (or Laurie Ann, as her family calls her) sees connections between his case and the murder of a local woman. Although she has her hands full investigating the incident, she also has to deal with a slew of her kooky relatives. This is the first of the Laura Fleming Mysteries, all of which are set in the fictional town of Byerly.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1993, Kelner, Toni L. P., Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places

Katy Munger. Out of Time. New York: Avon Books, 1998.

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.

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1998, Durham, Humor, Munger, Katy, Mystery, Novels in Series, Orange, Piedmont, Wake