Tag Archives: Policewomen

Mark Schweizer. The Organist Wore Pumps. Tryon, NC: SJMP Books, 2010.

It’s been two years since St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in St. Germaine, North Carolina burned to the ground, and the holidays are just around the corner. Police Chief  Hayden Konig, also the organist at St. Barnabas, is looking forward to a long month of Advent music and writing bad prose between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly for those familiar with St. Barnabas, murder and mayhem intervene. First, Old Man Hiram Frost, the town grump, dies after the bank forecloses on his property. At the resulting auction, Hayden gets sucked into a bidding war with a stranger over three cases of French wine. A week later, the mystery bidder shows up again…floating face-first in Tannenbaum Lake. Additionally, St. Barnabas has a new deacon: the aptly named Donald Mushrat (that’s Moo-shrat). Deacon Mushrat is oily, overfond of the word “awesome” and obsessed with tithing. Everyone feels blessed that the beloved Rector Gaylen Weatherall will still be giving the sermons, but thanks to a terrible car accident, Rector Weatherall is put out of action for a time, opening the way for Deacon Mushrat’s pontificating. Even worse, Konig was in the car with Gaylen during the accident…and his arm is broken. A substitute organist is found, and Konig will just have to grit his teeth and endure their “creative differences.” But when another murder occurs and it becomes clear that a killer is stalking St. Germaine, the Chief finds he has bigger fish to fry.

Filled with the hilarity and quirky characters that are distinctive of The Liturgical Mysteries, this book includes a live creche, an inflammatory (literally) Christmas parade complete with a tap dancing Virgin, a scoodle of skunks, and the “liberation” of a priceless medieval reliquary by a gang of hyperactive children trapped in the church for a lock-in. It may be many things, but at least St. Germaine is never boring.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Humor, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Schweizer, Mark, Watauga

Schweizer, Mark. The Tenor Wore Tapshoes. Tryon, NC: SJMP Books, 2005.

With writing that compares the rustling of a woman’s gown to the sounds of a cockroach rooting in a sugar-bowl, it’s safe to say that Police Chief Hayden Konig will never join the greats of American literature. Still, he insists on trying, even purchasing an old typewriter that once belonged to Raymond Chandler. Mr. Chandler, and his pipe, even show up on occasion to compliment Hayden’s efforts. Poor prose and ghostly sightings notwithstanding, Konig is an excellent police chief, and a talented organist at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in the small, sleepy mountain town of St. Germaine, North Carolina.

Hayden has just settled in from his last crime-solving adventure, which included the theft of a valuable diamond, a dead chorister, and multiple trips to England. You’d think that life would resume its leisurely pace, but this is just when St. Germaine chooses to get…interesting. First, there’s the body that parishoners discover hidden in the altar at St. Barnabas. Next, the local bakery produces a miraculous cinnamon bun in the shape of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is soon stolen. Poor Hayden loses a bet with his beautiful girlfriend Meg, and is made to enroll in a program designed to help him discover his religious masculinity, known simply as the Iron Mike Men’s Retreat. As if this weren’t enough, an itinerant preacher blows into town with his large revival tent and a feathered assistant known as Binny Hen the Scripture Chicken, who helps him select passages from the Bible.

Reeling from the amount of insanity a small town can apparently inflict in such a short time, Chief Konig somehow also finds time to be troubled by the arrival of a charming attorney called Robert Brannon, who immediately worms his way into everyone’s heart, and the very center of church politics. Hayden is also perplexed by the crimes that have sprung up throughout the community–very specific crimes that seem to follow a popular hymn depicting the trials of the saints. Will Konig solve all, or any of these mysteries? More importantly, will he have time to pay attention to what, or who, really matters? And will she say yes?

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

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Filed under Humor, Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Schweizer, Mark, Watauga

Susan Whitfield. Sin Creek. London, TX: L&L Dreamspell, 2011.

UPDATE NOV. 17, 2015: Susan Whitfield’s books are now published by Studebaker Press. The covers of her books have changed since this blog post was originally published.

When she’s called to investigate a murder on the UNC-Wilmington campus, Logan Hunter certainly doesn’t look the part of a tough and capable SBI Agent. Clad in high heels and a silk dress, she comes straight from her own bridal shower. The scene she finds couldn’t be more different than the genteel high tea honoring her impending marriage. Maeve Smoltz wasn’t only killed, she was torn apart. Perhaps more troubling is the evidence of heavy sexual abuse on her body, especially for a brand-new college freshman. Agent Hunter is determined to find some answers, but the ones she uncovers point to far more terrible deeds and only raise more questions. Married quickly in the middle of the investigation, she and her new husband, handsome fellow Agent Chase Reilly, have even more to lose as they work together to bring down the perpetrators of this and other heinous acts. Will their new marriage survive? Will they?

Inspired to write this next installment in the Logan Hunter Mystery Series as a way to raise awareness of the effect the porn industry has on impressionable, often monetarily needy young women trying to make their way through college, Susan Whitfield has written a gripping and sad novel that nonetheless has a hopeful ending. Due to the explicit nature of some material, this book is recommended for mature readers only.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, Coast, Mystery, New Hanover, Novels in Series, Suspense/Thriller, Whitfield, Susan

Richard Helms. Thunder Moon. Detroit, MI: Five Star, 2011.

Police Chief Judd Wheeler is a man’s man. He would like nothing better than to have a cold beer while grilling some juicy steaks, spend quality time with his smart and sassy girlfriend, and run the small town of Prosperity in Bliss County, North Carolina with a firm yet fair hand. But during the hot summers, when the air lies like a humid weight on the wilting farmland, folks get as unpredictable as heat lightning. Teenagers have idle hands, tempers shorten, and air conditioners quit at the worst possible moments. It’s nothing Chief Wheeler can’t deal with…usually.

But this summer is different. A star football player named Steve Samples is brutally hacked to death in a home he’s renting from the mayor, who happens to be Judd’s closest friend. A convicted sex offender wants to settle down and build a home, making his neighbors uneasy. Two biker gangs, the Outlaws and the Vandals, start a turf war. Alvin Cross, an itinerant preacher, blows into town and starts riling up Prosperity’s residents over all the sin in their midst, with possibly violent consequences. Worst of all, Chief Wheeler suspects that these events are somehow related, but can’t quite see how. He knows things might get clearer if he could get his hands on the good-for-nothing Ricky Chasen, a murderous young man whose name keeps coming up in ominous ways, but Chasen is as elusive as a shadow.

Will Chief Wheeler be able to keep Prosperity from dissolving into a hotbed of crime and murder? Who killed Steve Samples? What is the preacher’s  true agenda? As the summer wears on and Judd gets closer to the truth, he finds himself living in the cross hairs of a killer…or several. Find out what happens in Richard Helms’ second Judd Wheeler mystery, the explosively named and natured Thunder Moon.

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

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Filed under 2010-2019, 2011, Helms, Richard, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont, Suspense/Thriller

Deborah J. Ledford. Snare. Kernersville, NC: Second Wind Publishing, 2010.

Steven Hawk and Inola Walela, Swain County’s best police detectives, are back in Deborah J. Ledford’s sequel to 2009’s Staccato. This time, they have bigger problems than a crazed sociopath. Katina Salvo, a young Native American emerging as the next musical megastar, is coming to Bryson City, North Carolina to perform her first live concert ever. Unfortunately, at the root of her fame lie two ominous figures determined to seek her out and silence her music forever. One, recently released from prison for a brutal crime against Katina’s family, wants to finish the job. What motivates the second is more uncertain, but no less deadly. Hawk, plagued by the demons of a recent tragedy, is determined to protect the singer no matter the cost. But when he and Katina are brutally attacked on the night of the performance, it is clear that the cost may be his life and everything he holds dear.

Ranging across the United States from Nebraska to California to North Carolina and finally the Taos Pueblo Indian Reservation in New Mexico, this gripping thriller turns on themes of family, race, and the great courage necessary for us to make our own destinies.

Due to some scenes of violence and sexuality, this book is recommended for older teens and adults only.

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

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Filed under 2010, 2010-2019, Ledford, Deborah J., Mountains, Mystery, Novels in Series, Romance/Relationship, Suspense/Thriller, Swain

Keith Spence. The Blood of Saints. Winterville, NC: Shadow Line Press, 2009.

Law enforcement is not an easy job. Especially when dealing with criminals who will kill. Or when the offenders are high-level politicians, government officials, and business executives. Add money, national security, and ego to the mix, and police work is a very dangerous field. For Mike Saville of the F.B.I. and Lowri Pritchard of the U.S. Park Police, these are moot points. Both individuals will test the limits of their careers in order to get to the bottom of difficult cases.

Although Saville and Pritchard do not know each other, they are working on the same case. A series of suspicious deaths, officially ruled suicides, occur both in Saville’s (fictional) Kendall County (near Pitt County), North Carolina, and Pritchard’s Washington, D.C. Because the victims’ autopsies suggest self-inflicted wounds, the cases are supposed to be off-limits to Saville and Pritchard. However, they believe that something more sinister has occurred. By the time their victims’ connections unite the officers, each is in the midst of a perilous situation. Saville is beginning to uncover a multimillion dollar anti-terrorism deal gone bad, and Pritchard has connected a colleague to the killings and cover-ups involved in that tainted agreement. The information that they share with each other makes them even more unsafe. When Pritchard’s co-worker discovers what she has unearthed, he holds her captive and tortures her. Saville comes to her rescue. Their agencies officially get involved, and the criminals are arrested. Saville and Pritchard’s perseverance helps them get to the bottom of high-stakes crimes, protect national security, and find each other.

Some readers may be uncomfortable with Spence’s graphic descriptions throughout the novel. The torture scene is especially disturbing.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Coastal Plain, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Pitt, Spence, Keith, Suspense/Thriller

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

Sharon Wildwind. The Elizabeth Pepperhawk/Avivah Rosen Vietnam Veteran Mystery Series.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been in the news in recent years, but the Vietnam War still has its place in the psyche of the generation that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s.  This series, set in the 1970s, follows four individuals as they transition from active service into the civilian world.  Elizabeth Pepperhawk, an Army nurse, and Avivah Rosen, a former military policewoman are the main characters.  Both women struggle with what they saw and did during their years in service, and Elizabeth is burdened with a drinking problem.  First at Fort Bragg, and elsewhere in the state in later books, Elizabeth and Avivah, and their friend Benny Kirkpatrick, support each other, confront  the demons of their pasts and make new lives, even as they stumble into death and foul deeds.  The novels capture the flavor of the era and raise issues that are still with us today.

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Filed under 2000-2009, Mystery, Novels in Series, Series, Wildwind, Sharon

Sharon Wildwind. Missing, Presumed Wed.. Detroit: Five Star, 2009.

Weddings should be happy occasions, but in the week leading up to the union between Benny Kirkpatrick and Lorraine Fulford, Benny and Lorraine and their family and friends experience fear, anger, jealousy, regret, and shame.  It starts when Benny’s mother, Grace, is abducted at the Asheville airport in the presence of a young boy who will soon be one of Benny’s stepsons.  Grace reappears the next day, but when the man who abducted her turns up dead, Grace and her husband become suspects.  It seems that Benny’s parents knew the dead man when they all lived in Alaska in the 1940s.  As the novel unfolds, readers learn that the dead man was one dirty dog and that other characters–including the bride–had reason to wish him dead.  While policewoman Avivah Rosen works on the case, her friend Elizabeth Pepperhawk attempts to smooth jangled nerves even as her composure and sobriety are tested by her relationship with the man in her life, Colonel Darby Baxter.

In Presumed Wed a large cast of characters flow into and out of the action.  It’s 1974 and the war in Vietnam, illicit Irish Republican Army fundraising, and the social ferment of the era, especially the women’s movement, figure in the plot and color the character’s inner lives.  The rich portrayal of this era is an element that adds depth to the Elizabeth Pepperhawk/Avivah Rosen mysteries.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2009, Buncombe, Madison, Mountains, Novels in Series, Wildwind, Sharon

Joyce and Jim Lavene. The First Shall Be Last. New York: Avalon Books, 2007.

What an ending to the Sharyn Howard mystery series! Sheriff Howard confounds her colleagues and family by breaking off her long-time romantic relationship with county coroner Nick Thomopolis and taking up with sleazy state senator Jack Winter.  Sharyn had previously been suspicious of Winter, seeing him as a corrupt political operative and suspecting him of involvement in her father’s death.  Now she’s his arm candy!  People give Sharyn an earful on this, but her moves are part of a plan hatched by the FBI to bring Winter to justice.  As the plan moves forward, Sharyn and her deputies contend with snow-related emergencies, office romances, and break-ins and murders that may or may not be related to Senator Winter.

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

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Filed under 2000-2009, 2007, Lavene, Jim and Joyce, Montgomery, Mystery, Novels in Series, Novels Set in Fictional Places, Piedmont