Mystery

White River Burning

Filed Under: Books Read

White River Burning

White River Burning by John Verdon
Series: Dave Gurney #6
Pages: 423
Format: hardback
Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Suspense
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Synopsis

The next installment of Verdon's internationally bestselling series featuring retired NYPD detective Dave Gurney, who must solve a deadly puzzle amidst murder and racial strife in one small town.

Tensions have been running high in White River as it approaches the one-year anniversary of a fatal shooting of a black motorist by a local police officer. The economically depressed, racially polarized city is on edge, confronted with angry demonstrations, arson, and looting. In the midst of the turmoil, a White River police officer is shot dead by an unknown sniper. As the town spirals out of control, local authorities approach Dave Gurney to conduct an independent investigation of the shooting.

The situation in White River becomes truly explosive as more killings occur in what appears to be an escalating sequence of retaliations. But when Gurney questions the true nature of all this bloodshed, and zeroes in on peculiar aspects of the individual murders, his involvement is suddenly terminated. Obsessed with evidence that doesn't support the official version of events, Gurney cannot let go of the case. Despite intense opposition from the police, as well as from dangerous fanatics lurking in the shadows, he begins to uncover an astonishing structure of deception—learning that nothing in White River it what it seems to be.

White River Burning is the most provocative and timely book yet by the author hailed by the New York Times as "masterly"—furthering the adventures of Dave Gurney, a detective reviewers have compared to Sherlock Holmes.

Paper Ghosts

Filed Under: Books Read

Paper Ghosts

Paper Ghosts by Julia Heaberlin
Published by Ballantine Books on April 17th 2018
Pages: 368
Format: arc_ebook
Genres: Mystery, Suspense
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Synopsis

Carl Louis Feldman is an old man who was once a celebrated photographer.

That was before he was tried for the murder of a young woman and acquitted.

Before his admission to a care home for dementia

Now his daughter has come to see him, to take him on a trip.

Only she's not his daughter and, if she has her way, he's not coming back . . .

Because Carl's past has finally caught up with him. The young woman driving the car is convinced her passenger is guilty, and that he's killed other young women. Including her sister Rachel.

Now they're following the trail of his photographs, his clues, his alleged crimes. To see if he remembers any of it. Confesses to any of it. To discover what really happened to Rachel.

Has Carl truly forgotten what he did or is he just pretending? Perhaps he's guilty of nothing and she's the liar.

Either way in driving him into the Texan wilderness she's taking a terrible risk.

For if Carl really is a serial killer, she's alone in the most dangerous place of all . . .

Twelve years ago, Grace’s older sister, Rachel, disappeared thought to have been murdered. Grace believes that she has discovered who killed her sister and she sets up an elaborate plan to prove she is correct.

Claiming to be the daughter of Carl Louis Feldman, a once-famous photographer, now a dementia patient in a nursing home Grace decides to abduct him as she believes he murdered her sister. What ensues is a wild trek across Texas. What follows is a compelling story of a woman taking a lot of crazy risks to bring to a close the mystery of what happened to her sister.
While I had a little trouble getting into the story, once it caught my attention I had a hard time putting the book down.

The Unquiet Dead

Filed Under: Books Read

The Unquiet Dead

The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan, Peter Ganim
Published by HighBridge Company on January 13, 2015
Series: Rachel Getty & Esa Khattak #1
Format: audiobook
Genres: Police Procedural, Suspense
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Synopsis

Detective Esa Khattak is in the midst of his evening prayers when he receives a phone call asking that he and his partner, Detective Rachel Getty, look into the death of a local man who has fallen off a cliff. At first Christopher Drayton's death--which looks like an accident--doesn't seem to warrant a police investigation, especially not from Khattak and Rachel's team, which handles minority-sensitive cases. But it soon comes to light that Drayton might have been living under an assumed name, and he may not have been the upstanding Canadian citizen he appeared to be. In fact, he may have been a Bosnian war criminal with ties to the Srebrenica massacre of 1995. And if that's true, any number of people could have had reason to help him to his death.

As Rachel and Khattak dig deeper into the life and death of Christopher Drayton, every question seems to lead only to more questions, and there are no easy answers. Did the specters of Srebrenica return to haunt Drayton at last, or had he been keeping secrets of an entirely different nature? Or, after all, did a man just fall to is death in a tragic accident?

In her spellbinding debut, Ausma Zehanat Kahn has written a complex and provocative story of loss, redemption, and the cost of justice that will linger with readers long after turning the final page.