February 2024 Book Selection

Join the North Providence Mystery Book Club on Tuesday February 6, 2024. We will be discussing, The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman. This is the first in the Thursday Murder Club series, featuring four senior citizens living in a retirement village. The book description from the publisher’s website is: “Every Thursday, four unlikely friends meet in the Jigsaw Room at the luxurious Coopers Chase Retirement Village to solve cold cases that have been languishing on the books for years. There’s Red Ron, the infamous former socialist firebrand, still causing trouble wherever he can; gentle Joyce, widowed, pining for another resident, but surely not as innocent as she seems; Ibrahim, a former therapist who understands the darker side of human nature; and Elizabeth? Well, no one is quite sure who she really is, but she’s definitely not a woman to underestimate. Though they may be in their seventies, Elizabeth, Ibrahim, Joyce, and Ron still have a few tricks up their sleeves. When a local property developer winds up dead, The Thursday Murder Club finds themselves in the middle of their first live case—can the four catch the killer before it’s too late?”  We will be meeting in the Second Floor Conference Room at 6:30 pm, and through Zoom. For more information, please see Sara at the Reference Desk.

 

January 2024 Book Selection

Join the North Providence Mystery Book Club on Tuesday January 2, 2024. We will be discussing, Sworn to Silence by Linda Castillo. This is the first book featuring Kate Burkholder, Chief of Police in the small Ohio town which she grew up in as part of the Amish community.

 The book summary from the author’s website is, “Sixteen years ago, a series of brutal murders shattered the peaceful farming community of Painters Mill, Ohio. A young Amish girl, Katie Burkholder, survived the terror of the Slaughterhouse Killer. In the aftermath of the violence, the town was left with a sense of fragility, a loss of innocence, and for Katie, the realization that she no longer belonged with the Amish. Now, a wealth of experience later, Kate Burkholder is back. Her Amish roots and big city law enforcement background make her the perfect candidate for Chief of Police. She’s certain she’s come to terms with her past—until the first body is discovered in a snowy field. Kate vows to stop the killer before he strikes again. But to name him, she would betray both her family and her Amish past—and expose a dark secret that could destroy her.”

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

Enjoy the holidays.

 

December 2023 Book Selection

Join the North Providence Mystery Book Club on Tuesday December 5, 2023. We will be discussing Suburban Dicks by Fabian Nicieza. This is the first book featuring housewife Andie Stern and reporter Kenny Lee.

The book description from the author’s website is, “Andie Stern thought she'd solved her final homicide. Once a budding FBI profiler, she gave up her career to raise her four (soon to be five) children in West Windsor, New Jersey. But one day, between soccer games, recitals, and trips to the local pool, a very pregnant Andie pulls into a gas station--and stumbles across a murder scene. An attendant has been killed, and the bumbling local cops are in way over their heads. Suddenly, Andie is obsessed with the case, and back on the trail of a killer, this time with kids in tow. She soon crosses paths with disgraced local journalist Kenneth Lee, who also has everything to prove in solving the case. A string of unusual occurrences—and, eventually, body parts—surface around town, and Andie and Kenneth uncover simmering racial tensions and a decades-old conspiracy.”

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

 

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.