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Mystery

Turtle Under Ice

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Turtle Under Ice by Juleah del Rosario
Published: February 11, 2020
Format: Book
Who it’s for: Teens

I am not going to lie to you, this is a sad one. From page one you can feel the loneliness and sorrow that hangs over Row, Ariana, and their home. Each one, their own island of grief.

Their mother died. Years later the grief is still with Row and her big sister Ariana. For Row, Ariana’s disappearance into a snowy night is a terrifying blow to their relationship. The novel, written in verse, is told from both Row’s and Ariana’s perspective. Without focusing on the small details that make up their lives, the novel centers on how each character copes with their grief, and how the disconnects in their relationships with each other and with their friends, keeps them from healing in order to live their lives. They both need to learn how to miss their mom while being more than the sum of their grief.

Don’t let the prospect of a sad and poignant story sway you from reading this beautifully written and hopeful portrayal of loss, love, and grief.

Find it in the Catalog

Takes One to Know One

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Takes One to Know One by Susan Isaacs
Format: eBook
Who it’s for: Adults

After fifteen years with the FBI, Corie was ready for some stability.  Enter Josh Geller:  tall, handsome, green-eyed.  Lawyer turned federal judge, Josh was rich and yet humble.  What was not to love?  Yet meeting Josh’s daughter Eliza sealed the deal.  “Teach me how you flip open your FBI badge,” she’d said.  Eliza didn’t remember her mom, who’d died suddenly years before.  She took to Corie easily.  The three of them settled down to married life together.

Corie freelanced part-time for three publishing companies.  She previewed modern Arabic works to translate to the English market.  She also met for lunch on Wednesdays with a group of home-based entrepreneurs.  Phoebe resold on E-Bay, Iris ran the Moveable Garden, Pete marketed packaging, Marcalynn wrote Republican speeches, John did landscaping drains, and Darby retouched photographs.  Corie let the others assume that she’d always been in publishing.  There was no need to blow her cover.  This kept her open for contract work with the FBI.  Only Corie’s family and best friend, Wynne, knew of her true history.

One day, Corie noticed that Pete might be more than he seemed.  Why did Pete always scout out his surroundings?  Why was he hiding his muscular physique under baggy, nondescript clothing?  Why had he hidden and then keyed someone’s car?  Was Corie reading into things?  Could you take the girl out of the FBI but not the FBI out of the girl?

This fast-paced mystery reminded me of the Stephanie Plum series.  Like Stephanie, Corie jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.  Likewise, the characters were very distinctive, such as Corie’s melodramatic actress mother.  Yet unlike Evanovich’s books, Susan Isaac’s novel had a more serious, sophisticated tone.  Had Corie found the life she loved and, if so, was she willing to risk it all?

Find it on OverDrive/Libby!

Meddling Kids

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Meddling Kids by Edgar Cantero
Format: eBook, Book
Who it’s for: Adults

In 1977, a group of precocious kid detectives and their dog solved the case of the Sleepy Lake monster. The culprit turned out to be, as was common in their cases, an old man in a mask. He would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for those meddling kids!

Years later the “Blyton Summer Detective Club” are all grown up, but only barely functioning. One committed suicide, one is a college drop out, one has been in and out of jail, and one has been in and out of psychiatric wards. Turns out they’ve all been haunted by the Sleepy Lake monster case. The truth is: they didn’t actually solve it. Yes, there was a masked man in the abandoned mansion on Deboen Isle, but there were also real live monsters that permanently unsettled them, and they’ve had enough. They are reuniting to solve the case once and for all.

When they return to their charming hometown in the Pacific Northwest they find it’s not as idyllic as their childhood memories. Otherworldly horror lurks around every corner, and only they, and their loyal dog (twice removed from their original dog), can stop it.

This book is basically Scooby-Doo meets H.P. Lovecraft meets Twin Peaks and I thought it was great. The writing style is unique, laden with meta references to popular kid detective and classic sci-fi tropes. If you love stories about young detectives, Lovecraftian horror, or small towns where things are not as they seem, you should definitely check this out from the library, or electronically on OverDrive, today!

Let Me Die In His Footsteps

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Let Me Die In His Footsteps by Lori Roy
Format: eBook, digital audiobook
Who it’s for: Adults

Would Annie Halloran go to the well?  In 1952, any fifteen and a half year girl who peered into a well that night would see the face of the man she’d marry.  Ryce Fulkerson rolled up on his rickety bike.  “Annie, will you come to the well at my house?”  “Maybe I’ll go to the well at the Baines’.  It’s closer.”  Yet nobody went near the Baines’ farm.  Old Mrs. Baines might wait with a shotgun.  All of the Baines boys had left town except for one.  That was Carl Joseph.  And he was hung, dead, and buried under the crossroads in town.

Waiting until nearly midnight, Annie crept out of bed.  “Annie?  Please take me,” begged Caroline, her sister.  “No, your turn’s next year.”  Annie left alone.  In her family’s lavender field, Annie struck a match and lit her candle.  Annie shone her small flame back towards the house.  “Ryce?”  Inadvertently, she tilted the candle.  Hot wax gutted the flame.  Wincing, Annie peered over the stone wall.  The Baines’ well was near.  “Do you want this?”  Caroline shone a flashlight.  Cursing, Annie retreated to the family barn.  At the entrance lay cigarette butts; one glowed orange.  Annie shuffled her foot to put it out.  “It’s almost time,” said Caroline, advancing up the rock fence.  “Don’t wake Mrs. Baines!”  They both peered down the well.  “Annie!  I see my future husband!”  Annie didn’t see anyone, except as they left, she saw a body sticking out from under a nearby bush.

Annie had blonde hair, black eyes, and a tall, slender build.  She looked nothing like Caroline or their mother Sarah.  Many said Annie resembled her mother’s sister, Juna, who had left town many years ago.  Would Aunt Juna return? Why did the Hallorans avoid the Baines?  Why was Joseph Carl hung?  And who was smoking by the barn that night?  Told by Sarah and Juna in 1936 as well as Annie in 1952, Let Me Die in His Footsteps is a suspenseful tale of traditions, secrets, and self-identification.

Find it on OverDrive/Libby!

Death Comes to Pemberley

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Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James
Format: eBook, digital audiobook
Who it’s for: Teens, Adults

Have you read Pride and Prejudice? Pride and Prejudice is the foundation of Death Comes to Pemberley.

Six years have passed. Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy have two young sons. Jane and Charles Bingley have twin girls and a son. Darcy’s sister Georgiana has “reached her majority.” Two men want to court Georgiana. One is Fitzwilliam, Darcy’s military cousin. The other is a young lawyer, Henry Alveston.

The Darcys, Bingleys, Fitzwilliam, and Alveston have just finished dinner at Pemberley. Fitzwilliam departs on horseback for some fresh air. A carriage careens to a stop in front of Pemberley. Elizabeth’s sister, Lydia, bursts out of the carriage, wailing that her husband, Wickham, is dead in the Pemberley forest. Elizabeth draws her sister inside to console her. Fitzwilliam returns. He commandeers the male guests and some servants to form a search party.

In the forest, they encounter George Wickham in a clearing, leaning over the bloodied body of his military companion, Martin Denny. “I killed him!” cries Wickham. Fitzwilliam and Darcy carry Denny’s lifeless body out of the forest on a stretcher. Alveston and a servant accompany Wickham back to Pemberley.

Lydia, Wickham, and Denny had traveled together in the carriage to deliver Lydia to Pemberley as an unexpected guest. Wickham, unwelcomed at Pemberley, would travel on with Denny. At the edge of the forest, Denny cried, “I won’t do it!” He jumped out of the carriage and plunged into the forest. Wickham ran after him. Shortly thereafter, Lydia heard gun shots from deep in the forest.

Did Wickham commit murder? Was Fitzwilliam’s horseback ride suspicious? What wouldn’t Denny do? Who else may have killed Denny? Death Comes to Pemberley spins a murder mystery that is true to the characters of Jane Austen’s novels. For all who love the works of Jane Austen as well as mysteries, this is a worthwhile read.

Find it on OverDrive/Libby!

Scooby Apocalypse

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Scooby Apocalypse Vol. 1 by Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, and Howard Porter
Format: eBook
Who it’s for: Adults, Teens

It’s everyone’s favorite meddling kids, re-imagined for a new generation. Meet:

Daphne Blake, host of a low rated cable TV show investigating supernatural phenomenon.

Fred Jones, Daphne’s loyal camera man, who has carried a torch for her for years.

Norville “Shaggy” Rogers, dog trainer for a mysterious science lab called The Complex.

Scoobert “Scooby” Doo, prototype of a Complex experiment to create intelligent dogs to serve in the military.

And Dr. Velma Dinkley, top scientist at The Complex, and maybe the world’s only hope at stopping an experiment gone wrong that’s turning the human race into monsters.

This unlikely gang traverse the land in a literal Mystery Machine (What is the actual purpose of this armored van they escaped The Complex in?) trying to survive… The Scooby Apocalypse.

This dark reboot of the Scooby-Doo franchise is fun for new and legacy fans alike. It’s the end of the world as they know it, but you’ll feel fine, when you check out Scooby Apocalypse on Hoopla right now!