Welcome to this special Durham Reads Together edition of NextReads.

 

Durham Reads Together 2012 puts a different spin on the “one book, one community” theme by making it “one author, one community” as we enjoy the work of a North Carolina treasure, bestselling author Margaret Maron.

 

For each major Durham Reads Together event, we will send you a list of further reading about that event's topic.

 

 

Visit the Durham Reads Together website for complete details on this, and all, Durham Reads Together events.

Diane Chamberlain pens complex, character-driven domestic fiction with a touch of mystery and suspense, frequently set in the American southeast. Drawing upon a wealth of experience from her previous career as a social worker and clinical therapist, Chamberlain crafts highly sympathetic, well-rounded protagonists. These men and women -- and often, their children along with them -- are swept up by dramatic yet plausible circumstances that force them into painful choices. Although characters experience regret, violence, bereavement, poverty, and many other obstacles to growth, ultimately their stories underscore the tremendous power of love, compassion, and forgiveness.

Publisher: Mira Books
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/24/2012
ISBN-13: 9780778313465
ISBN-10: 0778313468

Travis Brown is a good man, a grieving son, and a loving single father faced with hard choices in Diane Chamberlain's The Good Father. His mother's tragic death in a house fire leaves him with no child care for his young daughter, Bella. He leaps on a neighbor's promise of well-paid work in Raleigh, later learning to his dismay that it's actually a drug run. Torn by desperation and fear, Travis finally agrees to do it. He prevails on an acquaintance, Erin, a local barista still mourning the recent loss of her own daughter, to take Bella while he does. But the drug dealers play for keeps -- and when Travis slips up, Erin and Bella may pay the price.

First Chapter  

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, but raised right up the road in Raleigh, N.C., author Katy Munger writes mysteries that the Los Angeles Times has described as "tougher, saltier, and more Southern than Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum bestsellers." Munger wrote the Hubbert & Lil mysteries as Gallagher Gray and is also the author of the popular Casey Jones mysteries, about a fiesty, ex-con female private investigator. Credited in part for the creation of the subgenre "Tart Noir," Munger doesn't shy away from rough situations or language but offers plenty of substance and style to make her novels worth even slightly sensitive readers' while. She cites her upbringing in a large, boisterous family and the "constant parade of interesting people from all over the globe ringing the doorbell to visit my parents" as giving her an appreciation for all sorts of people who dare to be themselves, which is palpable in her memorable characters. The author is an alumna of UNC Chapel Hill and started a new series in 2009 (this one written under the name Chaz McGee), the Dead Detective mysteries, starring wandering ghost detective and ex-cop Kevin Fahey.

Publisher: Severn House
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/01/2012
ISBN-13: 9780727881311
ISBN-10: 0727881310

In this "eerie, somber" (Publishers Weekly) 3rd outing for deceased cop -- and current ghost-detective -- Kevin Fahey, the spectral sleuth investigates the murder of a teenage girl. The killing bears all the signs usually left by serial killer Otis Redman Parker...but Parker has been locked up tight in a high-security ward of the Holloway Institute for Mental Health for the past ten years. Fahey's tortured yet likeable narration pulls readers in as he influences the investigation from the other side, making Angel of Darkness a winner for fans of flawed heroes seeking redemption. The next volume in the series, Angel Among Us, publishes this November.

Brenda Witchger, who writes under the name Brynn Bonner, grew up in Alabama and now lives in North Carolina, where she is a member of Margaret Maron's writing group. Her writing reflects the places and people of the south, so it's no surprise that Southern characters and their relationships feature prominently in her stories. Under the pseudonym Brynn Bonner, Witchger's short stories have appeared in several magazines and anthologies, including Tar Heel Dead, which contains short mysteries by North Carolina authors. Brynn Bonner's new series of mystery novels, launching in March 2013, features a young genealogist who teaches people how to build scrapbooks of their family histories. The first book's title will be Paging the Dead.

Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Check Library Catalog Pub Date: 04/01/2005
ISBN-13: 9780807856048
ISBN-10: 0807856045

Found in the collection Tar Heel Dead, Brynn Bonner's short story "The Soul of Deception" revolves around an obsessive-compulsive crook and a widow who keeps a life-size, realistic doll of her late husband to provide company. The crook, "Jimmy the Nitpick," breaks silently into Mrs. Shelton's apartment, but can't leave without rearranging her tray of pill bottles -- which Mrs. Shelton immediately notices the next morning. What is Jimmy after? And how does the elderly Mrs. Shelton defend her home against the invader? The solution to this plot may remind some readers of Clyde Edgerton's writing.

First Chapter  Table of Contents