Category: Meme

Marcia over at The Printed Page is taking a break from Mailbox Monday, and Chick Loves Lit is hosting in August.  I got quite a few more books in my mailbox this week! Here’s what I got:

The Venetian Betrayal by Steve Berry (PBS Box swap)
          After narrowly escaping incineration in a devastatig fire that consumes a Danish museum, Cotton Malone – former Justic Department agent turned rare-book dealer – learns from his friend, the beguiling adventurer Cassiopeia Vitt, that the blaze was neither an accident nor an isolated incident. As part of a campaign of arson intended to mask a far more diabolical design, buildings across Europe are being devoured by infernos of unnatural strength. Born from the ashes is a new Eastern European nation whose ruthless leader will soon draw Cotton into an intense geopolitical chess game against a shadowy cabal of power brokers. The prize lies buried with the mummified remains of Alexander the Great – in a tomb lost to the ages for more than two thousand years. Trekking from Denmark to Venice to Central Asia, Cotton and Cassiopeia are determined to solve an ancient puzzle whose solution could destroy or save millions of people – depending on who finds the lost tomb first.

Secret of the Seventh Son by Glenn Cooper (PBS Box swap)
          Nine people have been slain in New York City – nine strangers with nothing in common – the apparent victims of a frighteningly elusive serial killer. Only one thing links the dead: postcards they received, mailed from Las Vegas, announcing the day they would die. Assigned to the case is a legendary FBI profiler with a troubled past, a drinking problem, and nothing left to lose. Abandoned to a monastery is an unwanted son born under a curse on the seventh day of the seventh month of the year 777. Unprepared for a momentous discovery is a post-World War II expedition into the crypts of a clandestine medieval society. But all lead to a secret embroiled in destiny, history, evil, faith, and corruption … and one terrifying truth that no one must ever know…

The Letter of the Law by Time Green (PBS Box swap)
          Casey Jordan is a young Texas attorney with the brains and the beauty to make it big. Now Casey has just been handed a case that can make her career: the defense of her brilliant former law professor against a horrific murder charge. But while the ambitious advocate does her job flawlessly, the aftermath of the trial blows up in her face. Suddenly, Casey is caught between two dangerous men: the grief-stricken father of a young murder victim and a cunning serial killer who plots to strike again. For Casey, following the letter of the law has put her career in jeopardy. Fulfilling the spirit of the law may cost her her life…

The Book of Fate by Brad Meltzer (PBS Box swap)
          Six minutes from now, one of us would be dead. None of us knew it was coming. So says Wes Holloway, a young presidential aide, about the day he put Ron Boyle, the chief executive’s oldest friend, into the president’s limousine. By the trip’s end, a crazed assassin would permanently disfigure Wes and kill Boyle. Now, eight years later, Boyle has been spotted alive. Trying to figure out what really happened takes Wes back into disturbing secrets buried in Freemason history, a decade-old presidential crossword puzzle, and a two-hundred-year-old code invented by Thomas Jefferson that conceals secrets worth dying for.

The Tenth Justice by Brad Meltzer (PBS Box swap)
          Ben Addison, fresh from Yale Law, is a new clerk for one of the Supreme Court’s most respected justices. But when he accidentally reveals the secret outcome of an upcoming decision, a blackmailer makes millions and Ben starts to sweat. Big time. He turns to his co-clerk, Lisa, and his housemates, Nathan, Eric, and Ober, for help. Washington’s best and brightest, they offer coveted insider access to the State Department, a major Washington newspaper, and the Senate. But before they know it, their careers – and their lives – are on the line.

The Brotherhood of the Rose by David Morrell (PBS – used a credit)
          They were orphans, Chris and Saul – raised in a Philadelphia school for boys, bonded by friendship, and devoted to a mysterious man called Eliot. He visited them and brought them candy. He treated them like sons. He trained them to be assassins. Now he is trying desperately to have them killed.

Don’t Scream by Wendy Corsi Staub (PBS Box swap)
          In a remote, heavily wooded area near the Berkshires of Massachusetts, Rachel Lorant died on her birthday. But she didn’t die alone. That night, her four sorority sisters make a solemn, trembling pledge. They will never reveal what has just happened in those woods – ever. Instead, they will take their terrible secret to their graves. Now, ten years later, their secret is coming back to haunt them as each receives a card in the mail from Rachel: “Happy Birthday to Me. xoxo R.” It’s clear that someone knows what happened that night. Someone is stalking them and sending mysterious, chilling gifts that only they can understand – deadly warnings of what is to come. For the sins of the past have come back with a vengeance, and a killer will see that they all pay in blood. Brynn Costello has never felt such pure fear. She didn’t want any part in what happened so long ago, but now, the mother of two will do anything to stay alive and protect her family – even if it means matching wits with a killer she can’t see … a twisted psychopath who is closer than she thinks and who is saving her death for last…

So this week I only received three books in the mail (but please note my previous post about all the new-to-me goodies I found at the library book sale here!) Anyways, here’s what I got this week:

14 by J.T. Ellison (PBS)
          In the mid-1980s, the Snow White Killer terrorized the streets of Nashville, Tennessee. Then suddenly the murders stopped. A letter from the killer to the police stated that his work was done. Now four more bodies are found, marked with his fatal signature. The residents of Nashville fear a madman has returned, decades later, to finish his sick fairy tale. Homicide Lieutenant Taylor Jackson believes the killings are the work of a copycat killer who’s even more terrifying. For this monster is meticulously honing his craft as he mimics famous serial murders … proving that the past is not to be forgotten.

The Cold Room by J.T. Ellison (PBS)
          Homicide detective Taylor Jackson thinks she’s seen it all in Nashville – but she’s never seen anything as perverse as The Conductor. Once his victim is captured, he contains her in a glass coffin, slowly starving her to death. Only then does he give in to his attraction. Later, he creatively disposes of the body by reenacting scenes from famous paintings. Stragnely, similar macabre works are being displayed in Europe. Taylor teams up with her fiance, FBI profiler Dr. John Baldwin, and New Scotland Yard detective James “Memphis” Highsmythe – a haunted man who has eyes only for Taylor – to put an end to The Conductor’s art collection. Has the killer gone international? Or are there dueling artists, competing to creat the ultimate masterpiece?

Judas Kiss by J.T. Ellison (PBS)
          It was a murder made for TV: a trail of tiny bloody footprints. An innocent toddler playing beside her mother’s bludgeoned body. Pretty young Corinne Wolff, seven months pregnant, brutally murdered in her own home. Cameras and questions don’t usually faze Nashville homicide lieutenant Taylor Jackson, but the media frenzy surrounding the Wolff case is particularly nasty … and thorough. When the seemingly model mommy is linked to an amateur porn Web site with underage actresses and unwitting players, the sharks begin to circle. The shock is magnified when an old adversary uses the sexy secret gootage to implicate Taylor in a murder – an accusation that threatens her career, her reputation and her relationship. Both cases hinge on the evidence – real or manufactured – of crimes that go beyond passion, into the realm of obsessive vengeance and shocking betrayal. Just what the networks love.

Okay, so I haven’t participated in Mailbox Monday in ages! I received quite a few books this past week, so I thought it would be a great time to start participating again! Here’s what arrived in my mailbox this week:

The Last Suppers by Diane Mott Davidson (trade with Barbara at MysteryBookSwap on Yahoo groups)
           It should be the happiest day of Goldy’s life. The Colorado caterer is about to tie the knot with the man of her dreams, homicide detective Tom Schulz. But minutes before the ceremony is to begin, Tom phones with an urgent message: The wedding is off, and the reason is murder! Tom was on his way to the church when he stopped to pick up Father Olson – and found the rector shot and dying. Yet by the time Tom’s fellow officers arrive at the crime scene, Tom has disappeared, leaving behind a notebook that contains a cryptic message. Has the groom been abducted by the killer? Or has he gotten cold feet and walked out of Goldy’s life? For better or worse, Goldy needs to know the truth. So she puts her exquisitely decorated wedding cake on ice and begins to search for clues. What she quickly discovers is that her fiance’s life – and her future happiness – depend on her ability to deciper Tom’s note. For only it can lead her to an unsavory killer whose unholy passion may make Goldy a widow before she’s a wife.

The Next Killing by Rebecca Drake (PBS – used a credit)
           For one hundred years, the best girls have come to St. Ursula’s Preparatory Academy to learn. To achieve. To make both memories and friends. But now, it’s where they also come to die… When the first body is found, the police call it an accident – an initiation ritual gone terribly wrong. But the students know something isn’t right at St. Ursula’s. There are sounds in the darkened corridors, a figure glimpsed between the trees, locked doors somehow opened. Someone is watching them, judging them, hating them … killing them … A twisted psychopath is turning the quiet campus into a school of fear. No sins will go unpunished. No girl will escape justice. And everyone will have a chance to join a serial killer’s exclusive club…

Executive Power by Vince Flynn (PBS Box-of-Books swap) 
           Returning from a covert mission, Mitch Rapp was publicly hailed by the president for his role in the fight against terrorism. After years of working in the shadows, Rapp was caught in the media spotlight – and marked for death by virtually every terrorist in the world. Now a CIA advisor, Rapp is ready to battle terror far from the front lines. But when a Navy SEAL team in the Philippines is ambushed, all evidence points to a leak within the U.S. State Department. And a greater threat lurks – a ruthless assassin working for the most powerful men in the Middle East, who are bent on igniting a world war. With the world watching, Rapp must hold back the flames of Armageddon…

The Anatomy of Deception by Lawrence Goldston (PBS – WL book)
           In the morgue of a Philadelphia hospital, a group of physicians open a coffin and uncover the corpse of a beautiful young woman. What they see takes their breath away. Within days one of them strongly suspects that he knows the woman’s identity … and the horrifying events that led to her death. But in this richly atmospheric novel – an ingenious blend of history, suspense, and early forensic science – the most compelling chapter is yet to come, as young Ephraim Carroll is plunged into a maze of murder, secrets, and unimaginable crimes … Dr. Ephraim Carroll came to Philadelphia to study with a leading professor, the brilliant William Osler, believing that he would gain the power to save countless lives. As America hurtles toward a new century, medicine is changing rapidly, in part due to the legalization of autopsy – a crime only a few years before. But Carroll and his mentor are at odds over what they glimpsed that morning in the hospital’s Dead House. And when a second mysterious death is determined to have been a ruthless murder, Carroll can feel the darkness gathering around him – and he ignites an investigation of his own. Soon he is moving between the realm of elite medicine, Philadelphia high society, and a teeming badlands of criminality and sexual depravity along the city’s fetid waterfront. With a wealthy, seductive woman clouding his vision, the controversial artist Thomas Eakins sowing scandal, and the secrets of the nation’s powerful surgeons unraveling around him, Carroll is forced to confront an agonizing moral choice – between exposing a killer, undoing a wrong, and, quite possibly, protecting the future of medicine itself.

The Sanctuary by Raymond Khoury (PBS Box-of-Books swap) 
           Portugal, 1705: In the dungeons of a Templar castle, a dying old man bequeaths an ancient half-burned book to his young inquisitor. Keeping one step ahead of those who would kill to wrench the book’s secret from his hands, the inquisitor turns his back on his calling and sets off on an impossible journey to complete the old man’s quest.
           Baghdad, 2003: Hunting for a mysterious bioweapons scientist, an army unit discovers a concealed state-of-the-art lab where gruesome experiments have been carried out on men, women, and children. The scientist escapes, but a puzzling clue is left behind: a circular symbol of a snake feeding on its own tail.
           As the power of the symbol comes to light, revealing centuries of destruction left in its wake, one unsuspecting woman stands at the center of a conspiracy that could change the world forever…

Nemesis by Bill Napier (PBS Box-of-Books swap)
           From a remote Scottish mountain, Dr. Oliver Webb – one of the world’s great physicists – is whisked away by a military helicopter and routed to the Mexican border. Along with the leading men of physics and one sexy atom smasher, Webb is given an impossible task: identify the asteroid – codename Nemesis – that is on course to collide with and destroy America. They have five days to stop it. If they can’t, the President will strike first by ordering the U.S. military to pull the nuclear trigger…
           But when one of Webb’s colleagues is found dead, he has every reason to suspect that there is more to Nemesis than he knows. Then, he makes a staggering discovery: the secret to saving the world is hidden in a 17th century Latin manuscript that has gone mysteriously missing.
           An electrifying race against time, Nemesis spans centuries and the globe in a white-hot journey through physics, history, geopolitics – and mankind’s ultimate duel with the unknown.

Winter Prey by John Sandford (trade with Barbara at MysteryBookSwap on Yahoo groups)
           The Iceman crept up to the house on the edge of the lake. He killed the father first. Then the mother and child. And when his work was done, he set the house on fire…. Lucas Davenport had tracked killers in cities across America. But the woods of rural Wisconsin are as dark and primal as evil itself. The winters are harsher and colder. And in the heart of every mother and father there is fear… Because tonight, the Iceman cometh.

Fury by Robert K. Tanenbaum (PBS Box-of-Books swap)
           In Brooklyn, a female jogger is brutally raped; the assailants are convicted and later exonerated by the Kings County DA. Now the guilty are filing a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against the city of New York, the police, and the two Brooklyn Assistant DAs who tried the case. Caught int he glare of the media-frenzy, Butch Karp may be blinded to the lethal maneuverings of a terrorits cell plotting to bring the city to its knees by striking Times Square on New Year’s Eve. But the destruction begins far below ground, in the subway system – where Karp’s familiy may become their first victims…

Mailbox Monday

Tuesday, Nov. 24
Golden Buddha by Clive Cussler

In this first feature-length adventure, the enigmatic captain of the Oregon, Juan Cabrillo and his crew of expert intelligence and naval men must put Tibet back in the hands of the Dalai Lama by striking a deal with the Russians and the Chinese. His gambling chip is a Golden Buddha containing records of vast oil reserves in the disputed land. But first, he’ll have to locate – and steal – the all-important artifact. And there are certain people who would do anything in their power to see him fail…

Received this book as part of a two book swap on PBS. It looks interesting, I’ve only read one Cussler book before and really loved it. I hope this one is just as good.

The Eight by Katherine Neville

New York City, 1972 – Catherine Velis is a computer expert for a Big Eight accounting firm. Before heading off to an assignment in Algeria, Cat is approached by an antiques dealer with a mysterious offer: His anonymous client is trying to collect the pieces of an ancient chess service, purported to be in Algeria. If Cat can bring them back, there will be a generous reward. The south of France, 1790 – France is aflame with revolution, and two young novices – Mireille de Remy and her cousin Valentine – burn to rebel against their constricted convent life at Montglane Abbey. Now their means of escape is at hand. Buried deep within the abbey are the pieces of a chess service once owned by Charlemagne. Whoever has all the pieces can play a game of unlimited power. But to keep the Game a secret from those who would abuse it, the pieces must be scattered throughout the world.

This was the second in the two book swap from PBS and the one that I really wanted. I’ve had this one on my reminder list for quite some time and jumped at the opportunity to finally get it. I hope that it’s as good as I think it will be!

Mailbox Monday

Wednesday, Nov. 18
Gideon by Russell Andrews

Gideon. An identity shrouded in mystery – the anonymous source who holds the key to an explosive secret. In a clandestine meeting, writer Carl Granville is hired to take the pages of an old diary, articles, letters, documents in which all proper names and locations have been blacked out – and turn them into compelling fiction. He will be paid a quarter of a million dollars. But he can never tell a soul. As he is fed information and his work progresses, Granville begins to realize that Gideon’s book is more than just a potential bestseller. It is a revelation of chilling evil and a decades-long cover-up by someone with far-reaching power. He starts to have second thoughts. How will his book be used? Whose lives will be shattered? What is the truth behind the story – and who is the true storyteller? Then someone close to Granville is bludgeoned to death. Another is savagely murdered. His apartment is ransacked, his computer destroyed, all his records stolen. Suspicion falls on Granville. He tries to explain the shadowy assignment. No one believes him. He has no proof, no alibis…

I received this one today as part of a three book swap from PBS (goodness, I am addicted to the boxer feature!). This one sounds like a good book – we’ll see 🙂

No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay

Fourteen-year-old Cynthia Bigge woke one morning to discover that her entire family – mother, father, older brother – had vanished. No note, no trace, no return. Ever. Now, twenty-five years later, she’ll learn the devastating truth. …. Cynthia is happily married with a young daughter, a new family. But the story of her old family isn’t over. A strange car in the neighborhood, untraceable phone calls, ominous “gifts” – someone has returned to her hometown to finish what was started twenty-five years ago. And no one’s innocence is guaranteed, not even her own. By the time Cynthia discovers the killer’s shocking identity, it will again be too late … even for goodbye.

Received this one in the PBS swap; I have had my eye on this author for quite some time and am looking forward to giving this book a go!

The Lost Constitution by William Martin

Rare-book expert Peter Fallon and his girlfriend, Evangeline Carrington, are back for another treasure hunt through time. They have learned of an early, annotated draft of the U.S. Constitution, stolen and smuggled out of Philadelphia. The draft’s marginal notes spell out, in shocking detail, the Foundders’ unequivocal intentions – the unmistakable meaning of the Bill of Rights. Peddled and purloined, trafficked and concealed for more than two centures, the lost Constitution – if found – could forever change America’s history … and its future. Congress is fighting tooth and claw over the eternally contentious Bill of Rights, spurring a frenzied search for the missing document, which each side believes it can use to bolster its arguments. Peter and Evangeline must get to the document first, because they know that if the wrong people find it, they will burn it, stripping the nation of its constitutional moorings. The search takes Peter and Evangeline into the rich history of America. Past and present play off one another as the quest for the draft heats up until it boils over and the truth is finally revealed.

This is the last in the PBS swap. And this one looks REALLY good to me! I’m looking forward to getting to this one rather soon!

Mailbox Monday

Tuesday, Nov. 10
Die Trying by Lee Child

Jack Reacher is an innocent bystander – in the wrong place at the wrong time – when a woman is kidnapped. Now, he’s at the mercy of a group of men demanding an impossible ransom, for this mysterious woman is worth far more than Reacher ever suspected. And though she doesn’t ask for his help, he’s going to give it to her … Because ex-military policeman Jack Reacher is a hero. He’s used to saving lives. But this time he’s going to take a few before he’s through….

Ordered this one from FrugalReader. Have been wanting to try this series for a while. This is the second in the series. Hopefully it’s a new series that I can enjoy.

Killing Floor by Lee Child

Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher is a drifter, just passing through. He is in Margrave, Georgia, for less than a half hour when four policemen arrive, shotguns in hand, to arrest him for murder. All Jack knows is he didn’t kill anybody. Not in their town, and not for a long time …

Ordered this one from FrugalReader as well. This is the first in the series. Am really hoping this one is as good as I hope it will be 🙂

The Robert F. Kennedy Assassination: New Revelatios on the Conspiracy and Cover-Up by Philip H. Melanson, Ph.D.

This breakthrough book provides the basis for a major new effort to re-open the flawed investigation of the Robert F. Kennedy assassination. Melanson’s investigation has unvoered startling new evidence of a murder conspiracy – despite the fact that the supposed lone gunman, Sirhan Sirhan, was caught “red-handed.” … The numerous glaring and unanswered questions in this case, coupled with the simplistic official solution, caused this investigative researcher to question whether there was additional unexamined evidence. … With masterful research and exceptional courage, this book challenges the official history of a national tragedy. At last, we have a solid case for a re-investigation of the RFK assassination.

Ordered this one from PBS. I was a history major, and the 1960s is a favorite era of mine to study. I am especially interested in assassinations, though. (Lincoln, JFK, MLK, RFK….) So I was excited to see this book was available. I have never read anything that has dealt primarily with the RFK assassination, and I am looking forward to learning more about it.