Tag Archives: Movies & TV

Robert Wilder. Written on the Wind. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1946.

Money can’t buy you love, but it can buy fancy cars and a whole lot alcohol.  This novel, loosely based on stories about the Duke and Reynolds families, follows the grandchildren of tobacco magnate Andrew Whitfield as each makes a hash out of his or her life.  Grandson Cary is married to the actress Lillith, who truly loves Cary but who has found that she takes second place to Cary’s carousing.  Cary’s sister Ann-Charlotte also lives a fast life; her early start on this contributes to her father’s death.  Only Reece Benton, someone brought into the family circle by Cary and Ann-Charlotte’s mother, seems to have the potential to make sense of his life, but his relationship with the Whitfields almost undoes him.

When it was published the book , a racy melodrama, was recognized as natural movie material.  In 1956, the novel, set now among the oilmen of Texas, was made into a film staring Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, Robert Stack, and Dorothy Malone.

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

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Filed under 1940-1949, 1946, Wilder, Robert

Kathy Reichs. Bare Bones. New York: Scribner, 2003.

Medical examiner Tempe Brennan never gets to take a break! She is back in North Carolina and planning on taking her first non-family vacation in years (with her Montreal detective-boyfriend, Andrew Ryan), but those plans are ruined by the appearance of a string of bodies that may be connected. The first is a baby found in a drug dealer’s house, and then human and bear remains surface while she is at a pig pickin’ with her daughter. A small plane crash and the discovery of more human and bear bones increase the mystery. Brennan’s dog features prominently in this novel, the 6th in the Temperance Brennan mystery series.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2003, Mecklenburg, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Reichs, Kathy

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

Alexander Key. Escape to Witch Mountain. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968.

Tony and Tia are teenagers with special powers: Tony is telekinetic and Tia–who speaks using an ultrasonic communication only her brother can hear–can unlock doors and talk to animals. Unfortunately, they also have no idea where they came from and after their foster “Granny” dies the teens are sent to a bleak juvenile detention home. When a creepy man shows up falsely claiming to be their uncle, the children begin to remember their history and they run away. Following a map they find in Tia’s star box, they travel toward Witch Mountain in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, hoping to find answers at the end of their journey. Helping them along the way are the kindly Father O’Day and Tia’s cat, Winkie. To date, Escape to Witch Mountain has inspired 5 films: Escape From Witch Mountain (1975, remade in 1995), Return to Witch Mountain (1978), Beyond Witch Mountain (1982), and Race to Witch Mountain (2009).

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

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Filed under 1960-1969, 1968, Children & Young Adults, Key, Alexander, Mountains, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Science Fiction/Fantasy

Catherine Marshall. Christy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.

After hearing a missionary doctor speak about his work in the Great Smokies, nineteen year-old, Christy Huddleston volunteers to be a mission teacher. She leaves her home and well-to-do family in Asheville and travels to the remote Cutter’s Gap, a place that does not take easily to outsiders. She faces numerous challenges related to both the place and the people of rural Appalachia–including the lack of modern conveniences, the influence of folk beliefs and superstitions, moonshining, and the community’s abject poverty–but her faith sustains her. Miss Alice, the missionary who founded the school, helps her and she is romantically torn between two men: minister David and the locally-born Dr. MacNeill. Most of the book’s action takes place in Cutter’s Gap, which is actually based on the community of Morgan Branch, located just over the border in Tennessee in the Cherokee National Forest. Based on the life of the author’s mother, Christy has inspired a television series of the same name, as well as several TV movies.

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

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Filed under 1960-1969, 1967, Buncombe, Historical, Marshall, Catherine, Mountains, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship

Kathy Reichs. Deadly Decisions. New York: Scribner, 2000.

Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is caught in the middle of an outlaw biker gang-war in Deadly Decisions, the fourth book in Reich’s series of mysteries. While investigating the deaths of both bikers and innocents caught in their crossfire, Tempe finds a connection to a North Carolina teenager’s death in 1984. In the midst of her investigation she also has to deal with three very different men: a sleazy TV reporter who keeps hanging around, her cop boyfriend who has been arrested for dealing in drugs and stolen property, and her 19-year-old nephew who is fascinated by all things motorcycle-related.

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

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Filed under 2000, 2000-2009, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Reichs, Kathy, Suspense/Thriller, Wake

Kathy Reichs. Death du Jour. New York: Scribner, 1999.

The second in Reich’s series of Temperence Brennan mysteries, Death du Jour opens with Tempe in Quebec looking for the remains of a long-dead nun…but the body is not where records say it should be. Then she discovers that a deadly house-fire was used to cover up multiple murders. A third addition to her caseload is the disappearance of a university teaching assistant. Tempe’s three investigations eventually begin to connect to one another and she travels to the North Carolina coast to try to find more answers.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1999, Coast, Mystery, Novels in Series, Reichs, Kathy

Kathy Reichs. Devil Bones. New York: Scribner, 2008.

In this, the eleventh Temperance Brennan novel, our favorite forensic anthropologist is back in Charlotte.  When a plumber working on a home renovation discovers a sub-cellar where some obscure religious rites appear to have taken place, Tempe is called in.  The small space contains cauldrons, statues, beads, bones, candles, a chicken carcass, and a human skull.  It’s not long before news of the discovery appears in the Charlotte Observer. When a headless body with ritual markings is found near the Catawba River, an opportunistic preacher-politician takes to the airwaves to warn of Satanism in the Queen City.  While the police try to stem an incipient witch hunt, Tempe struggles to learn the identity of the victims and the circumstances of their deaths. There’s a lot going on in Charlotte–voodoo, Santeria, dirty politics, male prostitution.  Tempe confronts it all, while dealing with the return of ex-lover Andrew Ryan and some unexpected campus politics.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Mecklenburg, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Reichs, Kathy

Kathy Reichs. Fatal Voyage. New York: Scribner, 2001.

The fourth Temperance Brennan mystery, Fatal Voyage, opens with Temperance arriving on the scene of a commercial airline crash in the mountains of Swain County. As a member of the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, she is charged with identifying bodies and investigating the crash, but her discovery of a leg that does not belong to any of the deceased passengers complicates things. She splits her time between investigating the crash and the leg, but soon finds herself accused of misconduct by a local politician. Canadian Detective Andrew Ryan, a frequent fixture in Brennan’s other investigations, also makes an appearance, trying to solve a third mystery.

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2001, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Reichs, Kathy, Swain

Louise Shivers. Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail. Winston-Salem: John F. Blair, 2003.

Roxy Walston is a young wife and mother on a Tarborough, N.C. tobacco farm in 1937. Farmlife is simple and tough, and Roxy feels restless, especially when Jack Ruffin is hired to help with the harvest. Roxy feels an instant attraction to Jack and is soon faced with choices that could change her forever. When Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail was first published in 1983, it was praised for its tender evocation of life on a tobacco farm and was named the best first novel of the year by “USA Today.” It was also made into the North Carolina-filmed movie Summer Heat in 1987.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2003, Edgecombe, Historical, Shivers, Louise