Tag Archives: Movies & TV

by | January 26, 2009 · 10:45 am

Kathy Reichs. Deadly Decisions. New York: Scribner, 2000.

Forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan is caught in the middle of an outlaw biker gang-war in Deadly Decisions, the fourth book in Reich’s series of mysteries. While investigating the deaths of both bikers and innocents caught in their crossfire, Tempe finds a connection to a North Carolina teenager’s death in 1984. In the midst of her investigation she also has to deal with three very different men: a sleazy TV reporter who keeps hanging around, her cop boyfriend who has been arrested for dealing in drugs and stolen property, and her 19-year-old nephew who is fascinated by all things motorcycle-related.

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

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Filed under 2000, 2000-2009, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Reichs, Kathy, Suspense/Thriller, Wake

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by | January 12, 2009 · 11:47 am

Kathy Reichs. Death du Jour. New York: Scribner, 1999.

The second in Reich’s series of Temperence Brennan mysteries, Death du Jour opens with Tempe in Quebec looking for the remains of a long-dead nun…but the body is not where records say it should be. Then she discovers that a deadly house-fire was used to cover up multiple murders. A third addition to her caseload is the disappearance of a university teaching assistant. Tempe’s three investigations eventually begin to connect to one another and she travels to the North Carolina coast to try to find more answers.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1999, Coast, Mystery, Novels in Series, Reichs, Kathy

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by | November 12, 2008 · 4:24 pm

Kathy Reichs. Devil Bones. New York: Scribner, 2008.

In this, the eleventh Temperance Brennan novel, our favorite forensic anthropologist is back in Charlotte.  When a plumber working on a home renovation discovers a sub-cellar where some obscure religious rites appear to have taken place, Tempe is called in.  The small space contains cauldrons, statues, beads, bones, candles, a chicken carcass, and a human skull.  It’s not long before news of the discovery appears in the Charlotte Observer. When a headless body with ritual markings is found near the Catawba River, an opportunistic preacher-politician takes to the airwaves to warn of Satanism in the Queen City.  While the police try to stem an incipient witch hunt, Tempe struggles to learn the identity of the victims and the circumstances of their deaths. There’s a lot going on in Charlotte–voodoo, Santeria, dirty politics, male prostitution.  Tempe confronts it all, while dealing with the return of ex-lover Andrew Ryan and some unexpected campus politics.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2008, Mecklenburg, Mystery, Novels in Series, Piedmont, Reichs, Kathy

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by | July 21, 2008 · 8:05 am

Kathy Reichs. Fatal Voyage. New York: Scribner, 2001.

The fourth Temperance Brennan mystery, Fatal Voyage, opens with Temperance arriving on the scene of a commercial airline crash in the mountains of Swain County. As a member of the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team, she is charged with identifying bodies and investigating the crash, but her discovery of a leg that does not belong to any of the deceased passengers complicates things. She splits her time between investigating the crash and the leg, but soon finds herself accused of misconduct by a local politician. Canadian Detective Andrew Ryan, a frequent fixture in Brennan’s other investigations, also makes an appearance, trying to solve a third mystery.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2001, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Reichs, Kathy, Swain

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by | March 13, 2008 · 9:58 am

Louise Shivers. Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail. Winston-Salem: John F. Blair, 2003.

Roxy Walston is a young wife and mother on a Tarborough, N.C. tobacco farm in 1937. Farmlife is simple and tough, and Roxy feels restless, especially when Jack Ruffin is hired to help with the harvest. Roxy feels an instant attraction to Jack and is soon faced with choices that could change her forever. When Here to Get My Baby Out of Jail was first published in 1983, it was praised for its tender evocation of life on a tobacco farm and was named the best first novel of the year by “USA Today.” It was also made into the North Carolina-filmed movie Summer Heat in 1987.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2003, Edgecombe, Historical, Shivers, Louise

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by | · 9:58 am

Kathy Reichs. The Temperance Brennan Novels.

Dr. Temperance Brennan is a forensic anthropologist who divides her time between Charlotte, N.C. and Quebec. In each of these novels her job calls her to the scene of a mysterious murder and she has to rely on both her technical expertise and old-fashioned detective work to unravel the usually complicated story behind the crime. Reichs writes with authority – she is a professor of anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and appears regularly as an expert witness in criminal trials. Most of these novels include scenes set in Charlotte, which Dr. Brennan describes as “a poster child for multiple personality disorder, the Sybil of cities.”  This series and its author are the inspiration for the television show Bones.

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Filed under Mecklenburg, Mystery, Novels in Series, Reichs, Kathy, Series

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by | · 9:58 am

Allan Gurganus. Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All. New York: Knopf, 1989.

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.

Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All won the 1990 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction.

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

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Filed under 1980-1989, 1989, Gurganus, Allan, Historical, Novels Set in Fictional Places

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by | · 9:58 am

Charles Frazier. Cold Mountain. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1997.

Cold Mountain is the story of Inman, a deserter from the Confederate Army, and his long journey home to the mountains of North Carolina during the last year of the Civil War. The novel alternates between Inman’s struggles and those of Ada, who is at home near Cold Mountain and is able to get by only with the help of Ruby, a mountain woman unafraid to fend for herself. Cold Mountain, winner of the National Book Award in 1997, has been praised for its accuracy in portraying geographical and horticultural details, as well as the particulars of nineteenth-century life in the North Carolina mountains. The book also inspired the 2003 Oscar-winning film of the same name.

Cold Mountain won the 1997 Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Fiction.

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

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Filed under 1990-1999, 1997, Frazier, Charles, Haywood, Historical, Mountains

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