Mystery

No Fixed Line

Filed Under: Books Read

No Fixed Line

No Fixed Line by Dana Stabenow
Published by Tantor Audio on January 9, 2020
Format: audiobook
Genres: Mystery, Suspense
See it @ Goodreads


Synopsis

... though there is no fixed line between wrong and right, There are roughly zones whose laws must be obeyed.
It is New Year's Eve, nearly six weeks into an off-and-on blizzard that has locked Alaska down, effectively cutting it off from the outside world.
But now there are reports of a plane down in the Quilak mountains. With the National Transportation Safety Board unable to reach the crash site, ex-Trooper Jim Chopin is pulled out of retirement to try to identify the aircraft, collect the corpses, and determine why no flight has been reported missing. But Jim discovers survivors: two children who don't speak a word of English.
Meanwhile, PI Kate Shugak receives an unexpected and unwelcome accusation from beyond the grave, a charge that could change the face of the Park forever.

The Stranger Inside

Filed Under: Books Read

The Stranger Inside

The Stranger Inside by Lisa Unger
Published by HQ Fiction on October 1, 2019
Pages: 284
Format: ebook
Genres: Mystery, Psychological Thriller
See it @ Goodreads


Synopsis

Even good people are drawn to do evil things...
Twelve-year-old Rain Winter narrowly escaped an abduction while walking to a friend's house. Her two best friends, Tess and Hank, were not as lucky. Tess never came home, and Hank was held in captivity before managing to escape. Their abductor was sent to prison but years later was released. Then someone delivered real justice -- and killed him in cold blood.
Now Rain is living the perfect suburban life, her dark childhood buried deep. She spends her days as a stay-at-home mum, having put aside her career as a hard-hitting journalist to care for her infant daughter. But when another brutal murderer who escaped justice is found dead, Rain is unexpectedly drawn into the case. Eerie similarities to the murder of her friends' abductor force Rain to revisit memories she's worked hard to leave behind. Is there a vigilante at work? Who is the next target? Why can't Rain just let it go?
Introducing one of the most compelling and original killers in crime fiction today, Lisa Unger takes readers deep inside the minds of both perpetrator and victim, blurring the lines between right and wrong, crime and justice, and showing that sometimes people deserve what comes to them.

I am a fan of Lisa Unger and have read most of the 20 or so novels she has written.  Many of them have just knocked the wind out of me.  The Stranger Inside was not one of those books, Unger is a great author that is why I was able to finish the book.

These days,  I am having a harder time reading books that have storylines that are incredulous.  For me, the characters were just not developed enough or maybe they were over-stylized.  I did not feel any empathy towards her characters, they felt manipulated.

Nothing More Dangerous

Filed Under: Books Read

Nothing More Dangerous

Nothing More Dangerous by Allen Eskens
Published by Mulholland on November 12, 2019
Format: audiobook
Genres: Coming of Age, Southern, Suspense
See it @ Goodreads


Synopsis

A coming-of-age novel in the tradition of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter: In a small town where loyalty to family and to your people carries the weight of a sacred oath, defying those unspoken rules can be a deadly proposition. After fifteen years of growing up in the Ozark hills with his widowed mother, high-school freshman Boady Sanden is beyond ready to move on. He dreams of glass towers and cityscapes, driven by his desire to be anywhere other than Jessup, Missouri. The new kid at St. Ignatius High School, if he isn't being pushed around, he is being completely ignored. Even his beloved woods, his playground as a child and his sanctuary as he grew older, seem to be closing in on him, suffocating him.Then Thomas Elgin moves in across the road, and Boady's life begins to twist and turn. Coming to know the Elgins -- a black family settling into a community where notions of us and them carry the weight of history -- forces Boady to rethink his understanding of the world he's taken for granted. Secrets hidden in plain sight begin to unfold: the mother who wraps herself in the loss of her husband, the neighbor who carries the wounds of a mysterious past that he holds close, the quiet boss who is fighting his own hidden battle.But the biggest secret of all is the disappearance of Lida Poe, the African-American woman who keeps the books at the local plastics factory. Word has it that Ms. Poe left town, along with a hundred thousand dollars of company money. Although Boady has never met the missing woman, he discovers that the threads of her life are woven into the deepest fabric of his world. As the mystery of her fate plays out, Boady begins to see the stark lines of race and class that both bind and divide this small town -- and he will be forced to choose sides

I have enjoyed several of Allen Eskens’ books. This was a good coming of age story. 15-year-old Boady Sanden, who lives with his widowed mother in a small town in Missouri in the mid-1970s get his introduction to the complexities of adulthood.