Tag Archives: FBI

by | April 9, 2010 · 2:07 pm

Henrietta F. Ford. Murder on the OBX. Baltimore: PublishAmerica, 2006.

Travis White and Sam Barnett are two good friends looking forward to a vacation.  Their jobs as Alcohol Beverage Control agents in Northampton County, North Carolina are not particularly trying, but each man has suffered a loss in his personal life.  The Outer Banks is part of their territory, but this trip is meant to be strictly a vacation. Their first night in Nags Head they do all those vacation things–eat local seafood, have a few beers, checkout their fishing spot for tomorrow–but those relaxing moments are are about all they get.

When the daughter of a local restaurateur is a hit-and-run victim, Tavis and Sam want to investigate the crime.  Dare County law enforcement officials don’t welcome their help.  That changes when an old bootlegger, Maynard Drane, turns up dead on the beach.  Now local officers Shucks Twine and Nona Godette are eager to work with the two friends who knew Drane from way back.  The team is just making progress when the FBI, INS, and ATF swoop in and attempt to muscle the locals out of the investigation.  Maybe this case isn’t just about bootlegged liquor.  Agency rivalries and sexual attractions complicate the case.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2006, Coast, Ford, Henrietta F, Mystery

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by | April 5, 2010 · 7:29 am

Sharon Wildwind. Soldier on the Porch. Detroit: Five Star, 2007.

For the past two years, former military policewoman Avivah Rosen has been trying to make a new life in Asheville, North Carolina and to forget about her role in a scandal in Vietnam. However, after a deadly explosion at the Veterans Affairs hospital where she works as a security guard, Avivah’s life is in grave danger. When she is approached by the F.B.I. and offered protective custody, Avivah realizes that the ugly truth will surface. In Long Bien, Vietnam, Avivah’s major ordered his four officers to kill six American soldiers – all Black and Hispanic. Now, Avivah is the only surviving officer with knowledge of the crime.

Elizabeth Pepperhawk, also known as Pepper, is a nurse at the VA hospital and Avivah’s housemate and best friend. After coming into work intoxicated on the night of the explosion, Pepper also finds herself at risk – of losing her job. To keep her job Pepper agrees to attend workshops led by the hospital’s personnel department. She meets an interesting cast of characters in class, but Pepper often butts heads with the Director of Personnel and the session leader. When a team-building outing in the mountains goes wrong, the lives of Pepper and her classmates are put at risk.

Avivah and Pepper’s stories merge as the F.B.I investigates the explosion and the two women, along with their friends, explore why Avivah’s former major was in Asheville. As their lives become increasingly more at risk, the women realize that they can trust no one. They must figure out who is killing people close to them – before they become the next victims of an unlikely perpetrator.

Soldier on the Porch is the third novel in Sharon Wildwind’s Elizabeth Pepperhawk/Avivah Rosen Vietnam Veteran Mystery Series.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Buncombe, Madison, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Suspense/Thriller, Wildwind, Sharon

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by | January 22, 2010 · 11:14 am

Fern Michaels. Razor Sharp. New York: Kensington Publishing Corp., 2009.

The United States of America finally has a female president, and members of the Sisterhood could not be happier.  The group, which seeks justice for mistreated women at any cost, is thrilled that their friend, Martine Conner, is the new commander-in-chief.  However, when Martine asks the Sisters not to prosecute members of her cabinet and other influential Washington politicians who are involved in an illicit prostitution ring, the women question her judgment.  Although they do not want the first female president’s term to be overshadowed by a sex scandal, the Sisters also do not want the “johns” to get off scot-free while “the girls” are charged with crimes.  As the women search for more clues, they discover that the vice president is behind the entire scandal; it is part of his plan to succeed the shamed Martine.  The Sisterhood must return to Washington, D.C., from Big Pine Mountain in Yancey County to put the disgraced politicians where their careers are headed: in the Dumpster.

This is the fourteenth novel in Fern Michaels’ Sisterhood Series, but not all of the novels in the series are set in North Carolina.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Michaels, Fern, Mountains, Novels in Series, Suspense/Thriller, Yancey

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by | January 19, 2010 · 9:13 am

Fern Michaels. Collateral Damage. New York: Kensington Publishing Corp., 2008.

The women of the Sisterhood are at it again. Although this group of vigilante women has done good in ridding the world of evil individuals, their unlawful methods have forced them to go into hiding. Now back at their secret Yancey County retreat on Big Pine Mountain, the fugitives are tempted to get back to work after being promised a presidential pardon. Donor databases of both the Democratic and Republican parties have been hacked, and with the election just a year away, both organizations approach the Sisterhood for their help. The thought of being free again is tantalizing to the women, but they soon realize that the deal is simply a ploy by the unpopular incumbent president to have them arrested. With the FBI hot on their trail, the women must travel to Washington, D.C. to kidnap the president’s chief of staff and an important GOP fundraiser, the two men at the center of the scandal. Once they have the criminals, the Sisterhood transports them to the CIA’s Harvey Point location in Hertford where the women position the crooks right where they belong: dangling twelve inches above a quicksand pond in the Great Dismal Swamp. Once again, the Sisters prove that they can protect themselves and their enterprise.

This is the eleventh novel in Fern Michaels’ Sisterhood Series, but not all of the novels in the series are set in North Carolina.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Coastal Plain, Michaels, Fern, Mountains, Novels in Series, Perquimans, Suspense/Thriller, Yancey

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by | January 8, 2010 · 11:06 am

Edward Vaughn. The Evil That Men Do. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2007.

The Ku Klux Klan was a dividing force in many southern families in the middle of the twentieth century. For the Morris-McConnell family of Cumberland County this is especially true. In a story that spans the 1930s to the early 1960s, the reader witnesses how the hate group affected relationships as well as influenced opinions. Opening on the day of LT McConnell’s birth, this novel reveals how ingrained the KKK is in the lives of Wadesville men. LT’s father, grandfather, and doctor are all members. However, LT’s strong-willed mother, Birdie, has no respect for the group, and she teaches her son to be accepting of all people. For example, one of Birdie’s best friends is Sara Willis, the black woman she insisted deliver LT, much to her husband’s displeasure. Birdie’s resolute attitude against the KKK puts her at odds with many member of the community, including her husband and father.

When LT’s father is away serving in World War II, Birdie takes over his poorly-run weekly newspaper, turning it into a respected daily publication and fulfilling her dream of a career in journalism. Because she writes with a liberal tilt and encourages Sara to write a medical column in the paper, Birdie captures the attention of the local KKK. When she and her friends find suspicious fires set on their properties, they persuade LT, who is now a Duke medical student, to infiltrate the KKK so that they will be aware of the group’s next move. Tricking his grandfather into believing that he disagrees with his mother’s “socialist” ideas, LT joins the KKK and learns that members plan to burn down Sara’s house – with her in it. With the help of the FBI, LT is able to protect his mother and her friends from danger and to shut down the local KKK. LT and Birdie are willing to take a stand against the hate group, even if it means going against his or her father’s wishes and putting their lives in peril.

The Evil That Men Do is Edward Vaughn’s first novel in his “Cumberland County Series.”

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Historical, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Vaughn, Edward

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by | December 4, 2009 · 1:42 pm

Fern Michaels. Fast Track. New York: Kensington Publishing Corp., 2008.

Fern Michael’s Sisterhood, the tight group of women who seek revenge on individuals who dodge justice, is back in the States after banishment to a Spanish villa as a result of their last adventure. Now on a remote mountaintop estate in western North Carolina – Big Pine Mountain in Yancey County, to be exact – the fugitives are faced with undertaking a new high-stakes, extremely dangerous venture. When approached by World Bank board members who are concerned with the misplacement of twenty billion dollars (yes, billion with a “b”), the women accept the challenge to find fairness for the bank’s beneficiaries… and the blank check. The Sisterhood travels to Washington, D.C. to take down the slimy Maxwell Zenowicz, who is serving as World Bank president thanks to his questionable Capitol Hill connections. The money is recovered, the corrupt playboy is punished, and the elusive group succeeds once again.

This is the tenth novel in Fern Michaels’ Sisterhood Series, but not all of the novels in the series are set in North Carolina.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Michaels, Fern, Mountains, Novels in Series, Suspense/Thriller, Yancey

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by | November 26, 2009 · 9:09 am

Suzetta Perkins. Déjà Vu. Largo, MD: Strebor Books, 2009.

In Suzetta Perkins’ earlier novel, Behind the Veil,  Margo Myles is betrayed by her closest confidants: her husband of twenty-five years, her long-term next door neighbor, and her very best friend in the world. In  Déjà Vu, Angelica Barnes (Margo’s best friend) is at the center of the drama.  Recently released from prison after being caught up in the “Operation Stingray” that got Margo’s husband into trouble, Angelica is trying to get her life back on track and to mend broken relationships.  However, she finds that making a new life in North Carolina will be too difficult; everyone in Fayetteville knows all about her past.  Angelica decides to move to New York City after being offered a job as a model, but the turmoil from her previous life follows her.  Robert Santiago, the ringleader of the criminal organization Operation Stingray finds her so that she can “repay her debt” to him.  Angelica, her family, and her friends are in danger as Santiago terrorizes and kills those who undid his schemes five years ago.  Angelica hopes that Margo will forgive her and help her, but Margo is struggling to reconnect with her husband who has just been released from prison.  Finally, it takes intervention from an outsider who is not what he appears to be to prevent Santiago from harming more people.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Coastal Plain, Cumberland, Perkins, Suzetta, Suspense/Thriller

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by | May 6, 2009 · 2:32 pm

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

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by | March 8, 2009 · 10:36 am

Kay Hooper. Blood Sins. New York: Bantam Books, 2009.

Reverend Adam Samuel is using his psychic powers to kill women and, perhaps, to endanger the whole world.  The FBI Special Crimes Unit, under Noah Bishop, tries to put a stop to Father Samuel’s villainy.  Bishop recruits Tessa Gray, an agent from a civilian organization, to pose as a vulnerable young widow who has inherited property next to Samuel’s mountain compound. Tessa has psychic powers, but she is a relatively inexperienced operative. When she arrives at Samuel’s compound, she finds herself surrounded by Samuel’s many fanatical and well-connected followers. Even when she joins forces with the local police chief (who also serves as the novel’s romantic interest), her chances for success look slim.  The back story on Reverend Samuel is horrific, but his crimes are just as troubling to contemplate. This is the second book in a planned trilogy; the first title was set chiefly in Georgia.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Hooper, Kay, Mountains, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Suspense/Thriller

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by | September 23, 2008 · 3:29 pm

J. D. Rhoades. Breaking Cover. New York: St. Martin’s Minotaur, 2008.

Author J. D. Rhoades has taken a break from his Jack Keller series to create a thriller about undercover FBI agent Tony Wolf. Wolf has been on the lam (or deeply undercover) in rural North Carolina for four years. When he intervenes to rescue two boys from a kidnapper, his cover is blown. For Wolf, it becomes a case of “no good deed goes unpunished” as a biker gang he double-crossed and his old colleagues come after him to get some answers and to settle scores.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Rhoades, J.D., Suspense/Thriller

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