Chief Warrant Officer Sam Blackman lost a leg in the Iraq War and, after testifying in Congress about the treatment of veterans, was sent where they figured he wouldn’t be able to cause any more trouble: Asheville, NC.  He is almost finished with his rehab when a local woman visits him and offers him a job with her security company.  She promises to visit again, but is murdered before she can do so.  After her death, a diary written by 12 year-old Henderson Youngblood in 1919 is found hidden in her apartment … and Sam’s name is on it.  Sam leaves the VA hospital and begins his civilian life by helping the deceased woman’s sister investigate the modern crime and its connections to a death in the diary.  This is the first book in de Castrique’s series of mysteries featuring the Sam Blackman character.

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

Posted: June 12th, 2009 under 2000-, 2008, Buncombe, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, deCastrique, Mark.
Comments: none

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.

Posted: May 28th, 2009 under 1990-1999, 1996, Harvey, Clay, Mecklenburg, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship, Suspense/Thriller.
Comments: none

Ocracoke Island is always a good setting for a story about loners, misfits, and star-crossed lovers.  In this book, Ocracoke is called Blackie’s Landing.  Andy McBride, a World War II veteran and former world traveler, retreated to Blackie’s Landing in the mid-1950s.  It’s now 1969.  Andy has made some friends on the island, especially young Bobby Ainsworth, but Andy is slipping into melancholy and heavy drinking.  When a fierce winter storm strands a mainland girl on the island, she takes refuge at Andy’s house. Andrea Bonelli is the best thing that has happened to Andy in a very long time.  She edits and types his memoirs, shakes him out of his self-pity, and shows him how he might regain the woman who was love of his life.  Bobby Ainsworth helps with this too, and in the end all the characters find the love and acceptance that they had been missing.

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

Posted: February 27th, 2009 under 2000-, 2007, Coast, Hyde, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Taylor, Joyce Marie.
Comments: none

This is one of those stranger-comes-to-town tales, but since it’s a Nicholas Sparks novel, it’s also a romance.  Logan Thibault is a veteran who believes that a photograph that he found in Iraq is his lucky charm.  When he comes back to the states, he searches for the woman in the photograph.  She is Elizabeth, a divorced mom living in Hampton, near the North Carolina coast. Elizabeth’s grandmother runs a dog training facility in town, where Thibault soon gets a job.  Thibault, a veteran of many battles during his years in the Marines, has his demons, and his interest in Elizabeth can be misconstrued.  Elizabeth’s ex-husband, Keith Clayton, sets out to discredit Logan.  The conflict between Thibault and Clayton builds, putting Elizabeth and her son Ben in danger.  In a raging storm the men battles for their lives, and for Ben’s.  Thibault’s dog, Zeus, helps to save the day.

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

Posted: November 25th, 2008 under 2000-, 2008, Coastal Plain, Romance/Relationship, Sparks, Nicholas.
Comments: none

Barry Clayton, a funeral director in fictional Gainesboro, N.C., is back after appearing in de Castrique’s earlier novel, Dangerous Undertaking. Clayton’s business is thrust into the national spotlight when the body of a Montagnard man reknowned for helping American soldiers in Vietnam is stolen. Clayton must deal with the grieving family, angry Vietnam veterans, and powerful politicians while he pursues the case.

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

Posted: April 16th, 2008 under 2000-, 2006, Mountains, Mystery, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Novels in Series, deCastrique, Mark.
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

Jack Keller is a bail bondsman and a veteran of the first Gulf War. Still scarred by memories of battle, his life doesn’t get any easier when he’s caught in the middle of a violent struggle in Fayetteville. Jack is on the trail of an elusive bail-jumper who has just murdered a local Lumbee man whose vengeful sons compete with Jack to see who can catch the fleeing killer first. To make things even more complicated, the Fayetteville police department seems to have it in for Jack, so that while he pursues his quarry he’s forced to stay one step ahead of the law. This is the first in Rhoade’s series of Jack Keller thrillers.

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

Posted: March 13th, 2008 under 2000-, 2005, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Novels in Series, Rhoades, J.D., Suspense/Thriller.
Comments: none

Price’s widely acclaimed first novel is the story of Rosacoke Mustian and her unshakable adoration for the rakish Wesley Beavers. Rosacoke’s patient and unselfish love appears wasted on Wesley, a motorcycle- riding skirt-chasing Navy veteran who simply seems too impatient to settle down. The setting in rural eastern North Carolina is carefully and lyrically described.

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

Posted: March 13th, 2008 under 1960-1969, 1962, Coastal Plain, Price, Reynolds, Warren.
Comments: none

Ninety-nine year old Lucy Marsden spins an epic tale that covers the Civil War, slavery, marriage, and death. With an energetic and humorous style, she tells the story of her remarkable life. Married at fifteen to a Confederate veteran thirty-five years her senior, Lucy has survived long enough to be the oldest living Confederate widow. The novel alternates between past and present, telling the story of Captain Marsden’s experiences in the war, Lucy’s childhood, her close friendship with a former slave, and her life at present, where she is living in a nursing home in fictional Falls, N.C., a town in the eastern part of the state probably based on the author’s hometown of Rocky Mount.  The book was made into a movie/miniseries in 1994.

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

Posted: March 13th, 2008 under 1980-1989, 1989, Gurganus, Allan, Historical, Novels Set in Fictional Places.
Comments: none

When John Pavlak’s wife is murdered, he isn’t satisfied to just sit back and let somebody else handle the investigation. Especially when he becomes a suspect himself. Pavlak is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam conflict, and the athletic director at a small college that sounds a lot like Davidson. He races to keep just ahead of the police, following the investigation to Berlin when it looks like his wife’s work as an investigative journalist may have led to the discovery of sensitive Cold War secrets. In the end, the trail leads him right back to North Carolina.

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

Posted: March 13th, 2008 under 2000-, 2002, Corriher, Kurt, Davidson, Mecklenburg, Mystery, Piedmont.
Comments: none