Phantom Prey

Posted on May 16, 2015 by Reena Library

Phantom Prey by John Sandford

Alyssa Austin is a wealthy widow that returns home to find a bloodstain on her wall and that her adult daughter Francis has vanished. With no body and no leads, the police can’t do much with the case. After a friend of Francis is murdered by a mysterious goth woman known only as Fairy, Alyssa turns to her friend Weather for help.

Weather just so happens to be married to Lucas Davenport, one of the top cops with Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension as well as being the governor’s chief rat catcher. Weather pushes Lucas to look into it both as a favor to her friend and to get him out of his annual post-winter funk. Lucas starts reluctantly at his wife’s nagging, but soon finds himself intrigued by the mystery of Francis’s disappearance.

Catch Me

Posted on May 16, 2015 by Reena Library

by Lisa Gardner

ISBN 978-0-525-95276-3
Copyright 2012
Hardback

At 8pm on 21st January, twenty-eight year old Charlie Grant believes she is going to be murdered and she wants Boston’s top homicide detective, D.D. Warren, to handle her death investigation.

Confronting D.D. at her latest crime scene, Charlie lays her cards on the table. For each of the last two years, one of her childhood friends has been murdered leaving Charlie as the only one of the three friends to remain alive.

But as D.D. delves deeper in to the details of Charlie’s case, she begins to question the young woman’s story. Because Charlie can now outfight and outrun anyone she meets and D.D.’s instinct is that she’s hiding a secret. A secret so explosive that Charlie herself may turn out to be the biggest danger of all…

…BUT THE SON OF A BITCH HAS GOT TO CATCH ME FIRST.

Unintended Consequences

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Reena Library

Unintended Consequences by Stuart Woods

Stone Barrington is no stranger to schemes and deceptions of all stripes—as an attorney for the premier white-shoe law firm Woodman & Weld, he’s seen more than his share. But when he travels to Europe under highly unusual circumstances, Stone finds himself at the center of a mystery that is, even by his standards, most peculiar. Two unexpected invitations may be the first clues in an intricate puzzle Stone must unravel to learn the truth . . . a puzzle that will lead him deep into the rarefied world of European ultrawealth and privilege, where billionaires rub elbows with spooks, insider knowledge is traded at a high premium, and murder is never too high a price to pay for a desired end. It soon becomes clear that beneath the bright lights of Europe lurks a shadowy underworld . . . and its only rule is deadly ambition.

July 2013 MFLibrary

At Risk

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Reena Library

At Risk by Patricia Cornwell

ISBN 0-399-15362-4
Copyright 2006
Originally published in serial form in the New York Times Magazine

Massachusetts state investigator is called home from Knoxville, Tennessee, where he is completing a course at the National Forensic Academy. His boss, the district attorney, attractive but hard-charging, is planning to run for governor, and as a showcase she’s planning to use a new crime initiative called At Risk-its motto: “Any crime, any time.” In particular, she’s been looking for a way to employ cutting-edge DNA technology, and she thinks she’s found the perfect subject in an unsolved twenty-year-old murder-in Tennessee. If her office solves the case, it ought to make them all look pretty good, right?

Her investigator is not so sure-not sure about anything to do with this woman, really-but before he can open his mouth, a shocking piece of violence intervenes, an act that shakes up not only both their lives but the lives of everyone around them. It’s not a random event. Is it personal? Is it professional? Whatever it is, the implications are very, very bad indeed . . . and they’re about to get much worse.

Dirty Blonde

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Reena Library

Dirty Blonde by Lisa Scottoline

ISBN-13-978-0-06-074290-4
Copyright 2006

Judge Kate Fante has just been appointed to a Federal Judge position, a life time appointment. She was handed a glitzy case involving the intellectual design and creation of a hit TV show “Attorneys at Law”. Mr. Marz is suing producer Art Simone for stealing his ideas. While the law is clear on this issue Judge Fante delivers a lecture to Mr. Simone when she rules from the bench, which sets a number of events into motion. While she ruled in Mr. Simone’s favor, she stated she believed the plaintive. This is a crushing blow to Mr. Marz and he attacks Mr. Simone in the court room. Court is cleared but later that night when Mr. Simone is gunned down Mr. Marz is blamed for it, especially when he turns up the victim of an apparent suicide.

Judge Fante also has a secret life that comes out to haunt her. She has been sneaking to seedy bars to have hot sex with strangers. Unfortunately someone has been following her and feeding the information to Mr. Simone who has already set out to make a spin-off of “Attorneys at Law” starting a woman Federal Judge.

A detective friend of Mr. Marz doesn’t think that he committed suicide, or that he killed Mr. Simone he thinks Judge Fante hired a lowlife porn maker to do it for her. When trying to blackmail her doesn’t work the information gets released to the press which sets into motion Judge Fante running for her life, being suspended from her job, and her determination to find out who really killed Mr. Simone.

Summary credit to http://allreaders.com/book-review-summary/dirty-blonde-33968

tough customer

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Reena Library

tough customer by Sandra Brown

Hardback
978-1-4165-6310-5
Copyright 2010

Private investigator Dodge Hanley’s daughter is targeted by a deranged stalker—the daughter he’s never met. Filled with Ms. Brown’s trademarks: edge-of-your-seat suspense; tight plotting with surprise twists and hairpin turns; and white-hot sizzle.

When a deranged stalker attempts to murder her daughter Berry, Caroline King has no doubts who to contact for help: Berry’s father, the cagey private investigator Dodge Hanley. It’s been thirty years since Dodge last saw Caroline, but the savvy real estate mogul still haunts his dreams. He has a whole bagful of grudging excuses for ignoring Caroline’s call—and one compelling reason to drop everything and fly down to Texas to protect the daughter he’s never met: guilt. As always, Dodge’s perseverance knows no bounds as he teams with Ski Nyland, a small-town sheriff, but the alarming situation worsens when the stalker claims other victims, leaving a trail of clues lethally pointing toward Berry. And Dodge—a street-smart fighter who has always put his life on the line—realizes that this time, he’s risking his heart as well…

The Intrigue at Highbury

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Reena Library

The Intrigue at Highbury (Or, Emma’s Match) – a Mr. and Mrs. Darcy Mystery by Carrie Bebris

ISBN 978-0-7653-1848-0
Copyright 2010

Mr. and Mrs. Darcy are looking forward to a relaxing stay with dear friends when their carriage is hailed by a damsel-in-distress outside of the village of Highbury. Little do the Darcys realize that gypsies roam these woods, or that both their possessions and the woman are about to vanish into the night.

The Darcys seek out the parish magistrate, who is having a difficult evening of his own. Mr. Knightley and his new wife, the former Miss Emma Woodhouse (the heroine of Jane Austen’s Emma) are hosting a party to celebrate the marriage of their friends, Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Jane Fairfax. During dinner, Mr. Edgar Churchill, uncle and adoptive father of the groom, falls suddenly ill and dies. The cause of death: poison.

When the Darcys and the Knightleys join forces to investigate the crimes, they discover that the robbery and Edgar Churchill’s death may be connected. Together they must work to quickly locate the source of the poison and the murderer’s motive–before the killer can strike again.

Unintended Consequences

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Reena Library

Unintended Consequences – A Stone Barrington Novel by Stuart Woods

Stone Barrington is no stranger to schemes and deceptions of all stripes—as an attorney for the premier white-shoe law firm Woodman & Weld, he’s seen more than his share.

But when he travels to Europe under highly unusual circumstances, Stone finds himself at the center of mystery that is most peculiar, even by his standards. Two unexpected invitations may be the first clues in an intricate puzzle that will lead Stone deep into the rarified world of European ultrawealth and privilege, where billionaires rub elbows with spies, insider knowledge is traded at a high premium, and murder is never too high a price to pay for a desired end…

Bait

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Reena Library

Bait by Karen Robards

ISBN 0-399-15202-4
Hardcover
Copyright 2004
It’s a business trip that takes attorney Maddie Fitzgerald down to New Orleans, but it’s hardly business as usual when a man breaks into her hotel room and tries to kill her. Barely escaping with her life, the sexy, stylish thirty-two-year-old brunette calls the police and finds herself face-to-face with FBI agent Sam McCabe. Unnerved by his questions-and his good looks-Maddie is told she’s been targeted by a hired killer, one who has eluded McCabe for years.

Apparently, she’s been mistaken for another woman, an FBI informant of the same name who was also staying at the hotel that night. McCabe grills her, and then disappears. Shaken, she finishes her business and returns home to St. Louis.

But days later, Maddie is attacked a second time, and again McCabe returns to question her. He convinces her that the only way she’ll ever be safe again is if the killer is caught, and the quickest way to nab him is to use her as bait. Maddie reluctantly agrees, and sparks fly and then ignite as McCabe shadows her. But their unexpected romance throws McCabe off his stride-and puts Maddie in the hands of a killer.

A bewitching combination of pulse-pounding twists and blazing romance, Bait is the remarkable Karen Robards at her best.

“I” is for Innocent

Posted on March 29, 2015 by Reena Library

“I” is for Innocent by Sue Grafton

Lonnie Kingman is in a bind. He’s smack in the middle of assembling a civil suit, and the private investigator who was doing his pretrial legwork has just dropped dead of a heart attack. In a matter of weeks the court’s statute of limitations will put paid to his case. Five years ago David Barney walked when a jury acquitted him of the murder of his rich wife, Isabelle. Now Kingman, acting as attorney for the dead woman’s ex-husband and their child (and sure that the jury made a serious mistake), is trying to divest David Barney of the profits of that murder. But time is running out, and David Barney still swears he’s innocent.

Patterned along the lines of a legal case, “I” Is For Innocent is seamlessly divided into thirds: one-third of the novel is devoted to the prosecution, one-third to the defense, and a final third to cross-examination and rebuttal. The result is a trial novel without a trial and a crime novel that resists solution right to the end.

When Kinsey Millhone agrees to take over Morley Shine’s investigation, she thinks it is a simple matter of tying up the loose ends. Morley might have been careless about his health, but he was an old pro at the business. So it comes as a real shock when she finds his files in disarray, his key informant less than credible, and his witnesses denying ever having spoken with him. It comes as a bigger shock when she finds that every claim David Barney has made checks out. But if Barney didn’t murder his wife, who did? It would seem the list of candidates is a long one. In life, Isabelle Barney had stepped on a lot of toes.

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Category Archives: Books

Phantom Prey

Catch Me

Unintended Consequences

At Risk

Dirty Blonde

tough customer

The Intrigue at Highbury

Unintended Consequences

Bait

“I” is for Innocent