Tag Archives: Mobsters

Mike Sanders. Thirsty 2. East Orange, NJ: Wahida Clark Presents, 2011.

Justice Dial is back in this bloody sequel to Thirsty, Mike Sanders’s novel about hustling on the streets of Charlotte, North Carolina. Beautiful, clever, and ruthless, Justice used to make loads of cash by seducing men, gleaning the location of their wealth, and passing on the information to her brother, Monk. But then it all went wrong, and in a terrible case of mistaken blame, her murderous, drug lord ex-boyfriend Carlos came after the brother and sister. Monk was killed, but Justice fled to Chicago.

Now Justice owns and operates a successful strip club but has never stopped plotting her revenge on Tan, the vicious drug dealer who killed her brother. The situation heats up when Justice returns to the Queen City to support her best friend Sapphire, whose mother is dying. Sapphire was a victim of a nearly fatal beating when Carlos’s crew thought she crossed them, and Carlos has been making restitution ever since he discovered her and Justice’s innocence. Sapphire has forgiven him, but Justice refuses, so Sapphire sees her best friend’s return to Charlotte as an opportunity to convince her of Carlos’s sincerity.

Meanwhile, Tandora Mendoza, daughter of the Mendoza crime family, is out for her own revenge. Robbed by Justice, Monk, and their gang, Tan has already eliminated one sibling, and now she’s waiting for her chance at Justice…before Justice can get to her first. The two women stalk one another through Charlotte and finally Chicago, surrounded by their henchmen and women. But who can they really trust? In the end, a true enemy may be the one they least expect. Justice must survive the hatred of those who want her dead, while fighting the love of the one man she swore never to forgive.

This novel contains graphic sexual and violent content.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, Mecklenburg, Piedmont, Sanders, Mike, Suspense/Thriller, Urban Fiction

John Hart. Iron House. New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, 2011.

Michael knows how to kill, possibly better than anyone else alive. He dispatches his victims without emotion or drama, a virtue that makes him nearly invisible in New York City. He is the Old Man’s silent, deadly shadow. But before New York and the Old Man, there was Iron House.

A lifetime ago, he was a small but strong boy who protected his weaker, younger brother Julian at the Iron House Home for Boys in the Smoky Mountains. But one day something horrible happened, and 10-year-old Michael became a fugitive, fleeing into the snowy wilds of a North Carolina winter. He never saw his brother again, and just as he ran from Iron House, Michael also runs from his past. He is content to kill the dishonest and criminal, to be the Old Man’s strong right arm, to leave the boy he once was at Iron Mountain…until he meets Elena.

Carmen Elena Del Portal is more than just a woman; Michael suddenly finds that she is his whole life. When she finds herself pregnant, he knows he has to start over one more time. But the New York underworld won’t give him up so easily. The Old Man may wish for Michael to find a good life with a wonderful woman, but his henchmen are a different story. In no time Michael is on the run again, back to North Carolina and the brother whose existence he tried to protect by denying it. But if he thinks that life is simpler outside the Big Apple, he’s wrong. Dead wrong.

John Hart writes lovely prose, filled with a complicated cast of mobsters, lost boys, corrupt politicians, beautiful but mysterious ladies, and witches. Iron House looms over it all, a stark presence of which Michael, for all his running, may never be free. For an immensely entertaining, complex thriller, try Iron House!

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, Buncombe, Chatham, Hart, John, Madison, Mountains, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller

Clay Harvey. A Flash of Red. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1996.

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.

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1996, Harvey, Clay, Mecklenburg, Piedmont, Romance/Relationship, Suspense/Thriller

Maddie James. A Perfect Escape. Resplendence Publishing, 2008.

Smyth Parker arrived at his Outer Banks beach house hoping for a quiet escape from the stresses of his regular life. What he found was a woman he didn’t know renting his cottage. That woman, Meg Thomas, has run away from her life in Chicago and is hiding from her cruel and abusive husband Bradford. Bradford wants to find her, not because he wants her back, but because she is a witness to his murder of a Chicago district attorney and threatens his new political aspirations. Meg and Smyth make a romantic connection, and when the mobsters catch up up with her, Smyth becomes her protector. The two hide out and dodge a sniper on the isolated Newport Island. Although there is a Newport, NC on the coast, there is not a Newport Island. The author based this fictional location on North Carolina’s uninhabited Portsmouth Island.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Coast, Dare, Hyde, James, Maddie, Mystery, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Romance/Relationship, Suspense/Thriller

Christy Tillery French. Chasing Demons. New York: Mystery and Suspense Press, 2003.

Black Mountain is a refuge for Kendra Salvatori. There she feels safe and loved, but she is haunted by the fear that her abusive husband will find her. Garth Fisher has been with Kendra from her first day in Black Mountain, giving her love and helping her rebuild physically and emotionally. Knowing that Tony Salvatori and his gang will come for Kendra, Garth and Kendra prepare for the worst. Tony comes, and they battle in the woods to the death.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2003, Buncombe, French, Christy Tillery, Mountains, Romance/Relationship, Suspense/Thriller

Karen Robards. Beachcomber. New York, Atria Books, 2003.

Christy Petrino sought a simple vacation at Ocracoke Island after breaking up with her mobster boyfriend. But when somebody makes an attempt on her life, she must figure out whether the New Jersey mob or an Outer Banks serial killer (nicknamed “The Beachcomber”) is out to get her. This romantic suspense novel teams Christy with FBI agent Luke Rand. Those familiar with Ocracoke may raise an eyebrow at Robards’s description of “cliffs on the island, tall rocky cliffs leaning out over the ocean . . . .”

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2003, Coast, Hyde, Novels in Series, Robards, Karen, Romance/Relationship

Martin Clark. The Many Aspects of Mobile Home Living. New York: Knopf, 2000.

When Judge Martin Wheeler agrees to help the no-good brother of a friend who’s up on a drug charge, he is quickly sucked into the lives of a group of oddball characters on a mission to recover a bounty of stolen cash. Set in the fictional Piedmont town of Norton, N.C., near Winston-Salem, the novel follows Wheeler and his strange new friends through the seedy underside of contemporary southern life.

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

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Filed under 2000, 2000-2009, Clark, Martin, Forsyth, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont

Wanda Canada. Cape Fear Murders. Wilmington, N.C.: Coastal Carolina Press, 2003.

Carroll Davenport, a local developer who has an unlucky habit of getting drawn into murder investigations, is back on the case when she finds North Carolina State Senator William Burriss III murdered alongside his mistress. The killers may or may not have ties to Carroll’s mafioso late husband. With the help of Ben Satterwhite, an FBI agent and possible love interest, Carroll chases criminals all over Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach in this sequel to Canada’s 2001 novel Island Murders.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2003, Canada, Wanda, Coast, Mystery, New Hanover, Novels in Series

Nancy Bartholomew. Stand By Your Man. New York: New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

Maggie Reid, a country music singer based in Greensboro, is questioned by the police when her former husband, the “Satellite Dish and Mobile Home King,” disappears. In order to clear herself, Maggie pursues the mystery on her own, becoming involved in the seedy underside of life in Greensboro, where she finds, among other strange personalities, a mysterious group called “The Redneck Mafia.”

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2001, Bartholomew, Nancy, Guilford, Mystery, Piedmont