Our Year in Reading challenge for February is Thrillers!
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All the blood we share : a novel of the bloody Benders of Kansas
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Description:
Something dark and twisted has taken root at the Bender inn. At first the townspeople of Cherryvale welcome the rising medium Kate Bender and her family. Kate's messages from the beyond give them hope for their tedious dreams and her mother's potions cure their little ills--for a price. No one knows about their other business, the shortcut to a better life. And why shouldn't their family prosper? They're careful. It's only from those who are marked, those who travel alone and can easily disappear, that the Benders demand their pound of flesh. But even a gifted seer like Kate can make a misstep. Now, as the secrets festering beneath the soil of the family orchard threaten to bring them all to ruin, the Benders must sharpen their craft--or vanish themselves
Format:
Book
Call Number:
FIC Bru
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Description:
1946. Fresh from the War in Europe, hack writer Jacob Heppleman discovers a changed world back home. The pulp magazines he used to write for are dying, replaced by a revolutionary new publishing racket: paperback novels. Although scorned by the critics, the tawdry drugstore novels sell like hotcakes - or so Jacob is assured. As "Jack Holly," Jacob finds success as the author of crime novels. He prides himself on the authenticity of his work, which including picking the brain of an Irish gangster who wants a cut of the profits - or else. Meanwhile, the entire industry also comes under fire from censorious politicians out to tame the paperback jungle in the name of public morality. Targeted by both Congress and the Mob, Jay may end up the victim of his own success - unless he can write his way to a happier ending
Format:
Book
Call Number:
FIC Est
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Mother daughter traitor spy : a novel
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Description:
June 1940. France has fallen to the Nazis, Britain is next--but to many Americans, the war is still something happening "over there." Veronica Grace has just graduated from college; she and her mother, Violet, the widow of a Navy commander, are looking for a fresh start in Los Angeles, where the sun always shines and the opportunities feel riper. Having taken a misstep that cost her a prestigious career opportunity back in New York, Veronica is relieved to take a temporary typing job--only to realize that she's working for one of L.A.'s most vicious anti-Semitic propagandists. Overnight, Veronica is exposed to the dark underbelly of the place she now calls home, where German Nazis are recruiting new American members and building a bunker in the Pacific Palisades for Hitler's anticipated visit to the West Coast. After the FBI dismisses their concerns for "lack of evidence," Veronica and Violet decide to call on an old friend of Violet's late husband--who introduces them to Ari Lewis, L.A.'s anti-Nazi spymaster. At once, the two blonde-haired, blue-eyed German American women go undercover and infiltrate the heart of Nazism in Los Angeles. Risking their lives, Veronica and Violet aim to gather enough information about the California Reich to take to the authorities. But as the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor ripples through the Nazi population in Southern California, and President Roosevelt declares war, the Grace women realize that the plots they're investigating are far more sinister than they feared--and even a single misstep could cost them everything
Format:
Book
Call Number:
FIC Mac
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Description:
On the day after Pearl Harbor, shocked Americans gather around their radios to hear Franklin Roosevelt declare war. In Los Angeles, a German agent named Martin Browning is planning to kill FDR on the night he lights the National Christmas Tree. Who will stop him? Relentless FBI Agent Frank Carter? Kevin Cusack, a Hollywood script reader who also spies on the German Bund of Los Angeles, and becomes a suspect himself? Or Vivian Hopewell, the aspiring actress who signs on to play Martin Browning's wife and cannot help but fall in love with him? The clock is ticking. The tracks are laid. The train of narrow escapes, mistaken identities, and shocking deaths is right on schedule. It's a thrilling ride that will sweep you from the back lots of Hollywood to the speeding Super Chief to that solemn Christmas Eve, when twenty thousand people gather on the South Lawn of the White House and the lives of Franklin Roosevelt and his surprise guest, Winston Churchill, hang in the balance
Format:
Book
Call Number:
FIC Mar
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Description:
Laguna Beach, California, 1968. The Age of Aquarius is in full swing. Timothy Leary is a rock star. LSD is God. Folks from all over are flocking to Laguna, seeking peace, love, and enlightenment. Matt Antony is just trying get by. Matt is sixteen, broke, and never sure where his next meal is coming from. Mom's a stoner, his deadbeat dad is a no-show, his brother's fighting in Nam, and his big sister Jazz has just gone missing. The cops figure she's just another runaway hippie chick, enjoying a summer of love, but Matt doesn't believe it. Not after another missing girl turns up dead on the beach. All Matt really wants to do is get his driver's license and ask out the girl he's been crushing on since fourth grade, yet it's up to him to find his sister. But in a town where the cops don't trust the hippies and the hippies don't trust the cops, uncovering what's really happened to Jazz is going to force him to grow up fast. If it's not already too late.
Format:
Audiobook
Call Number:
FIC Par
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Author(s):
Description:
Roxie Clark has seen more dead bodies than your average seventeen-year-old. As a member of the supposedly-cursed Clark family, most of her ancestors have met tragic ends, including her own mother. Instead of fearing the curse, however, Roxie has combined her flair for performance and her gruesome family history into a successful ghost tour. But her tour never covers the most recent body she’s seen--her sister Skylar’s boyfriend, Colin Riley, found murdered in a cornfield. A year after the murder, Roxie’s desperate to help Skylar find closure and start to heal. Instead, Skylar becomes fixated on finding the killer. As the sisters dig into what really happened, they discover that more than one person has been lying about that night. And the closer they get to the truth, the more Roxie starts to wonder if some scary stories might be better left untold.
Format:
Book
Call Number:
YA FIC Dav
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Author(s):
Description:
Pete and Alastair Montague are just a couple of mystery-solving twins, living an ordinary life. Or so they thought. After a strange storm erupts on a visit to the beach, they discover there is more to their detective skills than they had thought. Their guardian, David Faber, a once prominent professor, has been keeping secrets about their parents and what the boys are truly capable of. At the same time, three girls go missing after casting a mysterious spell, which sets in motion a chain of events that takes their small town down an unexpected path. With the help of David's daughter, Charlie, they discover there are forces at work that they never could have imagined, which will impact their lives foreve
Format:
Book
Call Number:
YA FIC Pag
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Description:
Sydney Reilly has a bad feeling about going home to San Francisco before she even gets on the plane. How could she not? Her mother is Lila Shore, a film star who prizes her beauty and male attention above all else…certainly above her daughter. But Sydney’s worries multiply when she discovers that Lila is involved with the dangerous Jake, an art dealer with shady connections. Jake loves all beautiful objects, and Syndey can feel his eyes on her whenever he’s around. And he’s not the only one. Sydney is starting to attract attention—good and bad—wherever she goes: from sweet, handsome Nicco Ricci, from the unsettling construction worker next door, and even from Lila. Behaviors that once seemed like misunderstandings begin to feel like threats as the summer grows longer and hotter. It’s unnerving, how beauty is complicated, and objects have histories, and you can be looked at without ever being seen. But real danger, crimes of passion, the kind of stuff where someone gets killed—it only mostly happens in the movies, Sydney is sure. Until the night something life-changing happens on the stairs that lead to the beach. A thrilling night that goes suddenly very wrong. When loyalties are called into question. And when Sydney learns a terrible truth: beautiful objects can break"
Format:
Book
Call Number:
YA FIC Cal
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Description:
Luca Laine Thomas lives on a cursed island. To the outside world, Parris is an exclusive, idyllic escape accessible only to the one percent. There’s nothing idyllic about its history, though, scattered with the unsolved deaths of young women--deaths Parris society happily ignores to maintain its polished veneer. But Luca can’t ignore them. Not when the curse that took them killed her best friend, Polly, three years ago. Not when she feels the curse lingering nearby, ready to take her next. When Luca comes home to police cars outside her house, she knows the curse has visited once again. Except this time, it came for Whitney, her sister. Luca decides to take the investigation of Whitney’s death into her own hands. But as a shocking betrayal rocks Luca’s world, the identity Whitney’s killer isn’t the only truth Luca seeks. And by the time she finds what she’s looking for, Luca will come face to face with the curse she’s been running from her whole life.
Format:
Book
Call Number:
YA FIC Bar
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Description:
Ostracized by the elite community of Amontillado, Ohio, after the disappearance of her parents, Tress organizes a Halloween costume party at an abandoned house, where she launches a macabre plan to force a popular former friend to confess what she knows.
Format:
Book
Call Number:
YA FIC McG
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Author(s):
Description:
Nora O'Malley's been a lot of girls. As the daughter of a con artist who targets criminal men, she grew up as her mother's protege. But when Mom fell for a mark, Nora pulled the ultimate con--escape. For five years Nora's been playing at normal, but she needs to dust off her skills because she has three problems. Number 1: Her ex walked in on her with her girlfriend, and Wes didn't know about her and Iris. Number 2: They all have to meet to deposit the fundraiser money, but it goes from awkward to deadly, because... Number 3: Right after they enter the bank, two guys start robbing it. The bank robbers may be trouble, but Nora's something else entirely. They have no idea who they're really holding hostage
Format:
Book
Call Number:
YA FIC Sha
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Author(s):
Description:
When Natasha’s sister disappears, Natasha desperately turns to Della, a local girl rumored to be a witch, in the hopes that magic will bring her sister home. But Della has her own secrets to hide. She thinks the beast who’s responsible for the disappearances is her own mother—who was turned into a terrible monster by magic gone wrong. Natasha is angry. Della has little to lose. Both are each other’s only hope.
Format:
Book
Call Number:
YA FIC Wat
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The boy who followed his father into Auschwitz : a true story retold for young readers
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Description:
In 1939, Gustav Kleinmann, a Jewish upholsterer in Vienna, was seized by the Nazis. Along with his teenage son Fritz, he was sent to Buchenwald in Germany. There began an unimaginable ordeal that saw the pair beaten, starved, and forced to build the very concentration camp they were held in. When Gustav was set to be transferred to Auschwitz--a certain death sentence--Fritz refused to leave his side. Throughout the horrors they witnessed and the suffering they endured, there was one constant that kept them alive: the love between father and son.
Format:
Book
Call Number:
J 940.53 Dro
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Description:
Life is hard for Willa, Grace and Freya, and their three younger sisters. Six motherless girls working a farm, living in fear of their cruel father and the superstition that obsesses him - the Curse of Six Daughters. With the arrival of the mysterious Full Moon Fayre, there's a chance for the eldest girls to steal a moment's fun, but the day the fayre moves on, Grace vanishes. Willa goes after her, following a trail that leads into the dangerous Lost Marsh, where it is said a will-o'-the-wisp lures lost souls into the dark waters of the mire. If Willa is to survive and reunite her family, she will need to unravel the secrets her father has kept hidden, and face her own deepest fears
Format:
Book
Call Number:
J FIC Str
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Description:
After a family trip turned disastrous when their truck broke down in the middle of an old logging road in Oregon, Francie is now back in British Columbia. People try to make things as "normal" as possible for her, but they don't understand that trying to be normal in your old life that's exploded is the worst feeling in the world. Luckily for Francie, the wilderness is still soothing, and an opportunity to attend the Green Mountain Academy, a tiny boarding school perched on the side of a mountain, seems perfect. It's a new start, with new friends and a chance at a new family. But when a winter storm hits, knocking out all the power, news that a small plane has gone missing unsettles Francie. Knowing that the chance of survival in the middle of a wild nighttime snowstorm diminishes over time, Francie is compelled to leave the cozy school and set out into the icy cold, swirling snowstorm . . .
Format:
Book
Call Number:
J FIC Gre
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Author(s):
Description:
California: Akira Kristiansen is driving through the mountains with her mom when a wildfire sparks-- and in just moments, Akira and her family have to evacuate. But which way is safe with fire all around them? Churchill, Manitoba: Owen Mackenzie is running a tour for travelers who have come to see the polar bears. When Owen and his friend George see a bear too close for comfort, they end up in a fight for their lives. Miami: everyone's saying this could be The Big One, but Natalie Torres and her mom don't have anywhere to run to. When floodwater rushes through the house, Natalie is dragged out into the storm. Swept up in the global effects of climate change, each is struggling to survive their individual disasters-- unaware they are more deeply connected than they could ever imagine.
Format:
Book
Call Number:
J FIC Gra
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Description:
When the dead body of a young woman is found on the grounds of Belle Vie, the estate's manager, Caren Gray, launches her own investigation into Belle Vie's history, which leads her to a centuries old mystery involving the plantation's slave quarters
Format:
Large Print
Call Number:
LP FIC Loc
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All her little secrets : a novel
Author(s):
Description:
Ellice Littlejohn seemingly has it all as a corporate attorney with an Ivy League law degree. But everything changes one morning when she arrives in the executive suite and finds her boss with a gunshot to his head.
Format:
Audiobook
Call Number:
FIC Mor