Category Archives: Durham

Durham

by | August 18, 2008 · 12:14 pm

Katy Munger. Legwork. New York: Avon Books, 1997.

Casey Jones wants to be a private detective, but due to a felony conviction in the distant past she cannot get a license. Instead, she does the next best thing and works for a legitimate P.I., answering his phone, bodyguarding, and doing the legwork on some of his cases. In Legwork, the first novel in the Casey Jones series, Casey’s bodyguarding client is arrested for murdering a powerful and lecherous real estate developer. The arrestee is political candidate Mary Lee Masters–a “New Southern Woman” who could be the first female U.S. Senator from N.C–and she offers Casey twice her normal pay to find out who’s trying to frame her.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1997, Durham, Munger, Katy, Mystery, Novels in Series, Wake

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by | July 31, 2008 · 9:37 am

Lewis Shiner. Black & White. Burton, MI: Subterranean Press, 2008.

Robert Cooper has lived in Texas most of his adult life, so why does he come to the VA hospital in Durham to die? His son, Michael, senses that there is something that Robert has kept to himself but now wants told. Michael hopes that his father’s deathbed revelations will clear up certain mysteries regarding his birth and his parents’ estrangement from his mother’s North Carolina relatives. Robert’s construction work in Durham in the 1960s is the key to these mysteries, and the novel links the Cooper family story to the larger tale of the destruction of Durham’s Hayti neighborhood. This is a satisfying work that is a thriller, a study of family dynamics, and a meditation on race.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Durham, Mystery, Piedmont, Shiner, Lewis

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by | April 14, 2008 · 2:31 pm

Michele Andrea Bowen. Holy Ghost Corner. New York: Warner, 2006.

Theresa Hopson’s business, Miss Thang’s Holy Ghost Corner and Church Women’s Boutique in Durham, is a success and she feels fulfilled by her church and community activities, but her romantic life is more of a disappointment. Her only previous prospect has been assistant pastor Reverend Parvell Sykes. A second option presents itself in Lamont Green, but his reputation as a player and his backsliding ways make Theresa wary. When a developer threatens to turn the property containing Theresa’s store into expensive condominiums, she enlists the help of her friends and church members to save their neighborhood and the two men show their true colors.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Bowen, Michele Andrea, Durham, Piedmont, Religious/Inspirational, Romance/Relationship

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by | March 13, 2008 · 9:58 am

Katy Munger. The Casey Jones Novels.

Casey Jones is a sassy, irreverent Durham-based detective. Due to a previous record she can’t get a private investigator’s license, so Jones operates with forged credentials, careful to keep just ahead of the law. All of the novels are set in North Carolina’s Research Triangle (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill), and Jones frequents many familiar places in Durham. In her description of the series, Munger promises that the novels all feature elements of classic hardboiled detective stories: “cussing, chasing, rescues, gun fights, drinking and sex.”

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Filed under Durham, Munger, Katy, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Series