November 2023 Book Selection

 

Join the North Providence Mystery Book Club on Tuesday November 7, 2023 as we discuss Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger. This is the first book in the Corcoran “Cork” O’Connor series set is a small Minnesota town.

The book description from the author’s website is, “Part Irish, part Anishinaabe Indian, Corcoran “Cork” O’Connor is the former sheriff of Aurora, Minnesota (population 3,752). Embittered over losing his job as a cop and over the marital meltdown that has separated him from his wife and children, Cork gets by on heavy doses of caffeine, nicotine, and guilt. Once a cop on Chicago’s South Side, there’s not much that can shock him. But when a powerful local politician is brutally murdered the same night a young Indian boy goes missing, Cork takes on a harrowing case of corruption, conspiracy, and scandal. As a blizzard buries Aurora and an old medicine man warns of the arrival of a blood-thirsty mythic beast called the Windigo, Cork must dig for answers hard and fast before more people, among them those he loves, will die.”

We will be meeting at 6:30 pm in the Second Floor Meeting Room and by Zoom. For more information, please contact Sara at the Reference Desk.

October 2023 Book Selection

 Join the North Providence Mystery Book Club on Tuesday October 3, 2023. We will be discussing Roseanna by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. This is the first of ten books, written in the 1960s and 1970s, featuring Swedish detective Martin Beck.

The book’s description from the publisher’s website is: “On a July afternoon, a young woman’s body is dredged from Sweden’s beautiful Lake Vattern. With no clues Beck begins an investigation not only to uncover a murderer but also to discover who the victim was. Three months later, all Beck knows is that her name was Roseanna and that she could have been strangled by any one of eighty-five people on a cruise. As the melancholic Beck narrows the list of suspects, he is drawn increasingly to the enigma of the victim, a free-spirited traveler with a penchant for casual sex, and to the psychopathology of a murderer with a distinctive–indeed, terrifying–sense of propriety.”

We will be meeting in the Second Floor Meeting room at 6:30 pm and on Zoom. For more information, contact Sara at the Reference Desk.

September 2023 Book Selection

Join the North Providence Mystery Book Club on Tuesday September 5, 2023. We will be discussing The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter by Theodora Goss. This is the first book in the Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club series, which features the daughters of some notorious literary figures.

The synopsis from the author’s website is, “Based on some of literature’s horror and science fiction classics, this is the story of a remarkable group of women who come together to solve the mystery of a series of gruesome murders — and the bigger mystery of their own origins.

Mary Jekyll, alone and penniless following her parents’ death, is curious about the secrets of her father’s mysterious past. One clue in particular hints that Edward Hyde, her father’s former friend and a murderer, may be nearby, and there is a reward for information leading to his capture . . . a reward that would solve all of her immediate financial woes.

But her hunt leads her to Hyde’s daughter, Diana, a feral child left to be raised by nuns. With the assistance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Mary continues her search for the elusive Hyde, and soon befriends more women, all of whom have been created through terrifying experimentation: Beatrice Rappaccini, Catherine Moreau, and Justine Frankenstein.

When their investigations lead them to the discovery of a secret society of immoral and power-crazed scientists, the horrors of their past return. Now it is up to the monsters to finally triumph over the monstrous.”

We will be meeting in the Second Floor Meeting Room at 6:30 pm and on Zoom. For more information, contact Sara at the reference desk

 

August 2023 Book Selection

 Join the North Providence Mystery Book Club on Tuesday August 8, 2023. We will be discussing, Finlay Donovan is Killing It by Ellie Cosimano. Finlay is a single mother and author, struggling to make ends meet when she is mistaken as someone else.

The synopsis from the author’s website is, “FINLAY DONOVAN IS KILLING IT . . . except, she’s really not. The new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head.

When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new novel with her agent over lunch, she’s mistaken for a contract killer and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet . . . and she soon discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart.”

We will be meeting in the Second Floor Meeting Room at 6:30 pm and on Zoom. For more information, contact Sara at the reference desk. This is a week later than usual due to the Police Department's National Night Out on August 1st at Notte Park.

July 2023 Book Selection

 

Join the North Providence Mystery Book Club on Tuesday, July 11, 2023. We will be discussing, The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill. This is the first book featuring Simon Serrailler, a detective in a small English town.

 

The description from the publisher’s website is “A woman vanishes in the fog up on the Hill in Lafferton. The police have one lead - a pair of expensive cuff-links found in her flat, with a mysterious note attached to them. Then a young girl, an old man and even a dog disappear in quick succession in exactly the same place. Young policewoman Freya Graffham and Chief Inspector Simon Serrailler are given the task of unravelling the mystery. But can they find the Hill killer before he strikes again?”

 

We will be meeting in the Second Floor Meeting Room at 6:30 pm and on Zoom. We are meeting week later than usual since the library will be closed on July 4^th. For more information, please see Sara at the Reference Desk.

June 2023 Book Selection

 

Join the North Providence Mystery Book Club on Tuesday June 6, 2023. We will be discussing, A Killing in the Hills by Julia Keller. This is the first book featuring Belfa “Bell” Elkins, a county prosecutor in a small West Virginia town.

The book description from the publisher’s website is, “What's happening in Acker's Gap, West Virginia? Three elderly men are gunned down over their coffee at a local diner, and seemingly half the town is there to witness the act. Still, it happened so fast, and no one seems to have gotten a good look at the shooter. Was it random? Was it connected to the spate of drug violence plaguing poor areas of the country just like Acker's Gap? Or were Dean Streeter, Shorty McClurg, and Lee Rader targeted somehow? One of the witnesses to the brutal incident was Carla Elkins, teenaged daughter of Bell Elkins, the prosecuting attorney for Raythune County, WV. Carla was shocked and horrified by what she saw, but after a few days, she begins to recover enough to believe that she might be uniquely placed to help her mother do her job.

After all, what better way to repair their fragile, damaged relationship? But could Carla also end up doing more harm than good—in fact, putting her own life in danger?”

We will be meeting at 6:30 pm in the Second Floor Meeting Room and on Zoom. For more information and the Zoom link, see Sara at the Reference Desk.

May 2023 Book Selection

Join the North Providence Mystery Book Club on Tuesday May 2, 2023 as we discuss Blind Goddess by Anne Holt. This is the first book featuring Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen, an officer in the Oslo, Norway Police Department.

The book’s description from the author’s website is, “A drug dealer is battered to death in the outskirts of Oslo. A young Dutch student, covered in blood, walks aimlessly through the streets of the city. He is taken into custody, but refuses to speak. Five days later a shady criminal lawyer called Hans Olsen is murdered. The two deaths don’t seem related, but Detective Inspector Hanne Wilhelmsen is unconvinced. Soon, she uncovers a link between the bodies: Olsen defended the drug dealer. But there are powerful forces working against Hanne; a conspiracy that reaches far beyond a crooked lawyer and a small-time dealer. The investigation will take her into the offices of the most powerful men in Norway – and even put her own life at risk…”

           We will be meeting at 6:30 pm in the Second Floor Meeting Room and on Zoom. For more information, contact Sara at the Reference Desk.