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Downeast Enigma: A Paradox Murder Mystery (affiliate link)
Steve and Amanda encounter corporate intrigue, unbridled ambition, infidelity, and murder as they investigate a computer intrusion. How did the hacker gain access to the CEO’s password a few hours after the fatal crash of his plane into the Gulf of Maine?
Steve’s investigation unravels the bank CEO’s relationships with a sexy real estate agent, a shrewd lawyer, and wealthy investors disguising ownership of waterfront property in coastal Maine. Will the bank receive a ransom demand or is the intruder camouflaging illegal activity?
The Tenderness of Noble Hearts (affiliate link)
HYPER (affiliate link)
Duck Down (Granny Appleton Cozy Mysteries) (affiliate link)
Making the bullseye isn’t the problem. Figuring out who did it is.
Paisley Pointe is a quiet farming community. Nothing much happens there. When the new director for Paisley Pointe’s recreation center announces an archery competition, Granny is all for it. But not everyone in town shares her enthusiasm, especially Early Foxman, who is very vocal about his opinions on change.
When Earl’s barn catches fire in the middle of the night, tensions flare. Was it an accident or was it arson? With the help of her two companions, Harvey and Peeper, both rescue ducks, Granny puts on her spy hat, and favorite wig, to figure it out.
Can she solve the mystery without becoming a suspect herself or becoming the next victim?
Storm Rising (Storm Thriller Series Book 1) (affiliate link)
Only one thing stands between the empire and a new world order – American agent Mako Storm.
Commonwell (The Last of the Martians Book 1) (affiliate link)
By Two and Two: The Scandalous Story of Twin Sisters Accused of a Shocking Crime of Passion (affiliate link)
When a prominent Alabama doctor is brutally killed, his wife and her twin sister are charged with conspiracy to murder. But while her twin was acquitted of the crime, Betty Wilson was charged with killing her husband.
Probing into a trial that deliberated on Betty’s promiscuity, her alcoholism and her adulterous affair with a black man rather than any physical evidence against her, critically acclaimed journalist Jim Schutze reveals how sex, politics and corruption could possibly have led to a scandalous miscarriage of justice that kept the real killer from facing full penalty for his cold-blooded deed. A fascinating true crime account, By Two and Two is a page-turning investigation into the harrowing details of a sensational murder case.
Mycroft Holmes (affiliate link)
Fresh out of Cambridge University, the young Mycroft Holmes is already making a name for himself in government, working for the Secretary of State for War. Yet this most British of civil servants has strong ties to the faraway island of Trinidad, the birthplace of his best friend, Cyrus Douglas, a man of African descent, and where his fiancée Georgiana Sutton was raised.
Mycroft’s comfortable existence is overturned when Douglas receives troubling reports from home. There are rumors of mysterious disappearances, strange footprints in the sand, and spirits enticing children to their deaths, their bodies found drained of blood. Upon hearing the news, Georgiana abruptly departs for Trinidad. Near panic, Mycroft convinces Douglas that they should follow her, drawing the two men into a web of dark secrets that grows more treacherous with each step they take…
The Mountain Story: A Novel (affiliate link)
Four lost hikers are about to discover they’re capable of something extraordinary.
Nola has gone up the mountain to commemorate her wedding anniversary, the first since her beloved husband passed. Blonde, stick-thin Bridget is training for a triathalon. Vonn is working out her teenage rebellion at eight thousand feet, driven by family obligation and the urge to escape her mistakes. Still reeling from the tragic accident that robbed him of his best friend, Wolf Truly is the only experienced hiker among them, but he has come to the cliffs on his eighteenth birthday without food or supplies because he plans to take his own life.
When a series of missteps strands this unusual group together in the wilderness, they soon realize that their only defense against the brutality of nature is one another. As one day without rescue spirals dramatically into the next, and misadventure turns to nightmare, these four broken souls begin to form an inextricable bond, pushing themselves and one another further than they ever could have dreamed possible. The three who make it home alive will be forever changed by their harrowing days on the mountain.
At Seventy: A Journal (affiliate link)
May Sarton’s journals are a captivating look at a rich artistic life. In this, her ode to aging, she savors the daily pleasures of tending to her garden, caring for her dogs, and entertaining guests at her beloved Maine home by the sea. Her reminiscences are raw, and her observations are infused with the poetic candor for which Sarton—over the course of her decades-long career—became known.
An enlightening glimpse into a time—the early 1980s—and an age, At Seventy is at once specific and universal, providing a unique window into septuagenarian life that readers of all generations will enjoy. At times mournful and at others hopeful, this is a beautiful memoir of the year in which Sarton, looking back on it all, could proclaim, “I am more myself than I have ever been.”
The Book Club (affiliate link)
In the small seaside town of Fairweather, the local book club – a tight-knit group – is still reeling in the aftermath of a tragic accident.
Lil Noonan hasn’t spoken a word since, and her grandmother Beth is worried that she plans to spend the rest of her life hidden away with only books for company. Beth, meanwhile, is trying to keep busy with the running of the local library and decides to make a fresh start by renting out her daughter’s now-empty house to a newcomer in town.
Tom McLysaght tells the book club that he’s eager to escape his high-flying life in London. Closer to the truth is that he’s hiding a much bigger secret, one he can’t escape from, no matter how hard he tries.
Body & Soul: A Novel (affiliate link)
As a boy, Claude Rawlings looks up through the grated window of his basement apartment to watch the world go by. Poor, lonely, supported by a taxi-driver mother whose eccentricities spin more and more out of control, he faces the terrible task of growing up on the margins of life, destined to be a spectator of that great world always hurrying out of reach. But there is an out-of-tune piano in the small apartment, and in unlocking the secrets of its keys, as if by magic, Claude discovers himself. He is a musical prodigy.
Body & Soul is the story of a young man whose life is transformed by a gift. The gift is not without price—the work is relentless, the teachers exacting—but the reward is a journey that takes him to the drawing rooms of the rich and powerful, private schools, a gilt-edged marriage, and Carnegie Hall. Claude moves through this life as if he were playing a difficult composition, swept up in its drama and tension, surprised by its grace notes. Music, here, becomes a character in its own right, equaled in strength only by the music of Frank Conroy’s own unmistakable and true voice.
… See the rest of today ‘s Book Picks here on page 2Page 2