Thursday, March 29, 2018

3 Female Sleuth Debuts | #MarchMysteryMadness


3 Female Sleuth Debuts (Well, technically 2).

Amazon Affiliate Links:

1.  Contents Under Pressure by Edna Buchanan: https://amzn.to/2IfoEXQ

With a police cover-up and citywide outrage brewing in the wake of a black football star's suspicious death while under police custody, Cuban-American crime reporter Britt Montero steps in to uncover the truth. Tour.

2.  The Silent Dead by Tetsuya Honda: https://amzn.to/2GlBYh6

When a body wrapped in a blue plastic tarp and tied up with twine is discovered near the bushes near a quiet suburban Tokyo neighborhood, Lt. Reiko Himekawa and her squad take the case. The victim was slaughtered brutally---his wounds are bizarre, and no one can figure out the "what" or the "why" of this crime.

3.  Blue Moon by Walter Wager: https://amzn.to/2J4NLxZ

Alison B. Gordon finds herself aiding a Mafia ganglord whose Las Vegas interests are threatened by an international terrorist group that will destroy the city's casinos and hotels if its demand for five million dollars is not met. 

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

#ReadSoulLit FauxCast | Where I'm Bound by Allen Ballard


Where I'm Bound by Allen B. Ballard on Amazon (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/2pJV0Dr

A former slave turned cavalry scout becomes a hero for an African-American cavalry regiment in the Civil War. But, as the war draws to an end, the soldier, Joe Duckett, embarks on his most dangerous mission yet-to return to the plantation from which he escaped to find his wife and daughter.A Washington Post Notable Book. Also a winner of the First Novelist Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association."The important story of black soldiers in the Union Army has finally found a writer of historical fiction equal to the occasion." James A McPherson, Professor of History, Princeton University

#MarchMysteryMadness | My 6 Eye-Burner Mystery Reads


Hi, guys.  Here are 6 mystery books within any given series that has caused my eyes to burn (more so than glisten) with tears.

All links are Amazon affiliate (the books' descriptions are from Amazon as well)...

1.  Body of Evidence by Patricia Cornwell: https://amzn.to/2IZC0Zt

A reclusive author, Beryl Madison finds no safe haven from months of menacing phone calls—or the tormented feeling that her every move is being watched. When the writer is found slain in her own home, Kay Scarpetta pieces together the intricate forensic evidence—while unwittingly edging closer to a killer waiting in the shadows.

2.  Promises in Death by J. D. Robb: https://amzn.to/2Ia4YER

Amaryllis Coltraine may have recently transferred to the New York City police force from Atlanta, but she’s been a cop long enough to know how to defend herself against an assailant. When she’s taken down just steps away from her apartment, killed with her own weapon, for Eve the victim isn’t just “one of us.” 

Eve starts questioning everyone while her husband, Roarke, digs into computer data on the dead woman’s life back in Atlanta. To their shock, they discover a connection between this case and their own painful, shadowy pasts. The truth will need to be uncovered one layer at a time, starting with the box that arrives at Cop Central addressed to Eve, containing Coltraine’s guns, badge, and a note from her killer: “You can have them back. Maybe someday soon, I’ll be sending yours to somebody else.” 

But Eve Dallas doesn’t take too kindly to personal threats, and she is going to break this case, whatever it takes. And that’s a promise.  

3. O is for Outlaw by Sue Grafton: https://amzn.to/2GdorUv

O is for once upon a time. . .
Let’s talk about Kinsey’s past. We know of the aunt who raised her, the second husband who left her, and her long-lost family up the California coast. But what about Kinsey’s husband number one? He was always a blip on the radar―until now.

4.  The Lily Bard Series by Charlaine Harris: https://amzn.to/2IVnemu

While trying to prove her innocence in the murder of her landlord, Lily Bard, karate student and cleaning service proprietor, finds plenty of skeletons in the closets of Shakespeare, Arkansas.

5.  When Death Comes Stealing by Valerie Wilson Wesley: https://amzn.to/2DZaiIQ

Struggling as a single mother to make ends meet on the mean streets of Newark, New Jersey, ex-cop-turned-PI Tamara Hayle races against time to find a murderer when someone begins killing her ex-husband's sons--and her own son might be next.

6.  Blind Descent (Anna Pigeon#6) by Nevada Barr: https://amzn.to/2GivefX

When a fellow ranger is injured in a caving accident, Anna swallows her paralyzing fear of small spaces and descends into Lechuguilla to help a friend in need. Worse than the claustrophobia that haunts her are the signs-some natural, and some, more ominously, man-made-that not everyone is destined to emerge from this wondrous living tomb. All the skills Anna has honed in the terrestrial world are called into play on precipitous climbs, exhausting treks, and descents into canyons that have never seen the sun. The terrain is alien and hostile, the greed and destructive powers of mankind all too familiar. In this place of internal terrors, Anna must learn whom she can trust, and, in the end, decide who is to live and who is to die.

#ReadSoulLit FauxCast | Ruby by Cynthia Bond


The audio quality drops mid-way.  I do apologize.  We have glitches we can't control at times.  

Ruby by Cynthia Bond (Amazon affiliate link): https://amzn.to/EBiagq

"Ephram Jennings has never forgotten the beautiful girl with the long braids running through the piney woods of Liberty, their small East Texas town. Young Ruby Bell, “the kind of pretty it hurt to look at,” has suffered beyond imagining, so as soon as she can, she flees suffocating Liberty for the bright pull of 1950s New York. Ruby quickly winds her way into the ripe center of the city—the darkened piano bars and hidden alleyways of the Village—all the while hoping for a glimpse of the red hair and green eyes of her mother. 

When a telegram from her cousin forces her to return home, thirty-year-old Ruby finds herself reliving the devastating violence of her girlhood. With the terrifying realization that she might not be strong enough to fight her way back out again, Ruby struggles to survive her memories of the town’s dark past. Meanwhile, Ephram must choose between loyalty to the sister who raised him and the chance for a life with the woman he has loved since he was a boy.

Full of life, exquisitely written, and suffused with the pastoral beauty of the rural South, Ruby is a transcendent novel of passion and courage. This wondrous page-turner rushes through the red dust and gossip of Main Street, to the pit fire where men swill bootleg outside Bloom’s Juke, to Celia Jennings’s kitchen, where a cake is being made, yolk by yolk, that Ephram will use to try to begin again with Ruby." ~ On Amazon

CHOP IT UP (FauxCast): The Medusa Pool by M. K. Wren


The Medusa Pool by M. K. Wren (Amazon affiliate link): https://amzn.to/2pKvEUZ

"Election day in Wesport, on the magnificent Oregon coast, changes everything for Deputy Cornelia Faith Jones, the only woman and the only African American in the Taft County Sheriff's Office. As a result of a write-in campaign that Neely did not encourage, she is elected Sheriff --a job she did not want.

Neely accepts, however, when Jan Koto's body is found submerged in the jellyfish display tank in the Oceanographic Center. The victim is marine biologist Jan Koto and Neely's lover.

Grief and rage drive Neely to find Jan's killer, and she learns the hard way that small towns are not exempt from racism, rape, violence, and murder --and greed. When ex-sheriff Giff Wills is also murdered, Neely discovers she is dealing with a wide-ranging conspiracy." ~ On Amazon

#ReadSoulLit FauxCast | Mama Stalks the Past by Nora DeLoach


Mama Stalks the Past by Nora DeLoach 
(Amazon affiliate link): https://amzn.to/2pNj2fR

"When my mama receives an angry visit from Nat Mixon, she learns some startling news. Nat's mother and Mama's neighbor, spiteful recluse Hannah Mixon, has just died--and left a large parcel of land to Mama! Nat is convinced Mama stole his inheritance, and to save her reputation, Mama's determined to find out why Hannah named her in her will. And when it turns out Hannah was murdered, Mama needs to find more answers. With the help of three notorious local gossips--and me--Mama uncovers a long, bloody history of greed and family betrayal connected to the land Mama's inherited. And unless she discovers the truth about this plot of land, it may become her burial plot...." ~On Amazon

CHOP IT UP: The Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron (#MarchMysteryMadness)


The Bootlegger's Daughter by Margaret Maron 
(Amazon affiliate link): https://amzn.to/2I9iAAr

This first novel in Maron's Imperfect series, which won the Edgar Award for best mystery novel in 1993, introduces heroine Deborah Knott, an attorney and the daughter of an infamous North Carolina bootlegger. Known for her knowledge of the region's past and popular with the locals, Deb is asked by 18-year-old Gayle Whitehead to investigate the unsolved murder of her mother Janie, who died when Gayle was an infant. While visiting the owner of the property where Janie's body was found, Deb learns of Janie's more-than-promiscuous past. Piecing together lost clues and buried secrets Deb is introduced to Janie's darker side, but it's not until another murder occurs that she uncovers the truth.

CHOP IT UP: Death on Demand by Carolyn G. Hart (#MarchMysteryMadness)


Death on Demand (Amazon affiliate link): https://amzn.to/2DWQJ3D

At Annie Laurance's Death On Demand bookstore on Broward's Rock Island, South Carolina, murder most foul suddenly isn't confined to the well-stocked shelves. Author Elliot Morgan's abrupt demise during a weekly gathering of famous mystery writers called the Sunday Night Regulars is proof positive that a bloody sword is sometimes mightier than a brilliant pen.With Annie in the unenviable position of primary police suspect, the pretty young mystery maven and her wealthy paramour, Max Darling, embark on an investigation into a classic locked-room mystery with high stakes. For failing to unmask a brutal and ingenious killer could mean prison for Ms. Laurance. While success could mean her death.

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