Category Archives: Terrell, Joseph L. S.

Joseph L. S. Terrell. Undertow of Vengeance. Rock Hill, SC: Bella Rosa Books, 2014.

undertowHarrison Weaver isn’t even over jet lag from his recent trip to Paris with his girlfriend Elly when a friend alerts him to a body in Nags Head Woods.  His friend, Linda Shackleford, had been in the woods photographing its natural beauty; only later, when she was reviewing her photos, did she notice what appears to be a human arm.  Linda fears returning to the woods by herself, so she asks Harrison to accompany her.  Harrison knows he shouldn’t–the local district attorney resents his involvement in some previous high-profile investigations–but after he alerts Odell Wright, his friend in the sheriff’s department, he agrees to go.

Weaver, Shackleford, and Wright find not one body, but two–a man and a woman.  Each was shot just once, in a manner that suggests a cool, methodical killer.  When a third person is killed in a similar manner, and Harrison receives taunting phone calls from the killer, Harrison knows that this killer won’t stop on his own.  Because all the victims have a connection to a new church in town, Harrison and his friend SBI Agent Ballsford Twiddy focus in on the pastor and his deacons. But what would make one of these God-fearing people become a killer? Only when one victim escapes alive, does Harrison have the clue he needs.

This is the fourth title in the Harrison Weaver Mysteries series.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2014, Coast, Dare, Mystery, Novels in Series, Terrell, Joseph L. S.

Joseph L. S. Terrell. Not Our Kind of Killing. Rock Hill, SC: Bella Rosa Books, 2013.

not our kindCrime writer Harrison Weaver made a frustrating trip to the North Carolina mountains in April.  A young woman had been murdered and left hogtied in her own car.  Harrison’s editor asked him to head up to the mountains to get the story but when Harrison found out that the crime was poorly investigated and the woman’s body cremated without an autopsy, there was not much he could do.  This was one crime that would remain unsolved.  Now it’s May and Harrison is thinking about other things, like his relationship with Elly Pederson. Elly is a widow who works for the county and through her Harrison has gotten to know many locals. After two years on the Outer Banks, he is starting to feel like he might fit in.

But Harrison does not fit in with everyone–not all the county deputies appreciate his style or the way he pokes his nose into police business, and District Attorney Rick Schweikert is especially antagonistic toward him.  So when Harrison finds a young woman’s body near a local kayaking spot, he has some explaining to do.  Not everyone wants to hear about how much this murder resembles the earlier murder in the mountains. But Harrison’s friend SBI agent Thomas Twiddy is open to the connection. As they investigate the local crime, Harrison remembers what the mountain people said about that murder being “not our kind of killing.”  Following this thought leads him to a pair of serial killers.

This is the third Harrison Weaver mystery. The series begins with Tide of Darkness.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2013, Coast, Dare, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Terrell, Joseph L. S.

Joseph L. S. Terrell. Tide of Darkness. Rock Hill, SC: Bella Rosa Books, 2010.

Harrison Weaver is a writer whose stories have been published in a  number of true crime magazines.  But Weaver is tired of murder and the lowlifes and psychos he meets in his work, so he’s getting away from it all by renting a house on the Outer Banks. Unfortunately for Weaver, he arrives in Manteo just as the body of Sally Jean Pearson is found.  Sally was a college student, in Manteo for the summer working as a stage hand and extra in The Lost Colony production.

Sally’s murder is eerily similar to the murder of another Lost Colony actress four years earlier.  Weaver wrote about that murder, making both friends and enemies in the process. Manteo has changed little in the past four years, and soon the investigative team that worked on the first murder is together again to work on the Pearson case.  Weaver’s buddy, SBI Agent Thomas Twiddy, is back, but so is Rick Schweikert, the county prosecutor who has it out for Weaver.  Schweikert and some other locals think it’s just too much of a coincidence that Weaver arrived in town the day Pearson’s body was found–could it be that the crime writer knows something the local police don’t?  When a sheriff’s deputy leads people to think that Twiddy and Weaver are about to break both cases open, Weaver finds himself in danger.  But before long it’s clear that the killer feels backed into a corner and that Weaver is not the only one whose life is in danger as this novel moves to a dramatic conclusion.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Coast, Dare, Mystery, Novels in Series, Terrell, Joseph L. S.