[issybird]

Let's select the book we'll read and discuss in March 2019!

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This is a poll. Vote for as many books as you'd like. Questions? FAQs | Guidelines Or just ask!

Choices:

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann
AmazonUS $11.99 | AmazonUK £5.99 | AmazonCA $13.99 | AmazonAU $16.99 | KoboUS $11.99 | $NZ18.66

Spoiler:

In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Indian Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.

Then, one by one, they began to be killed off. One Osage woman, Mollie Burkhart, watched as her family was murdered. Her older sister was shot. Her mother was then slowly poisoned. And it was just the beginning, as more Osage began to die under mysterious circumstances.

In this last remnant of the Wild West—where oilmen like J. P. Getty made their fortunes and where desperadoes such as Al Spencer, “the Phantom Terror,” roamed – virtually anyone who dared to investigate the killings were themselves murdered. As the death toll surpassed more than twenty-four Osage, the newly created F.B.I. took up the case, in what became one of the organization’s first major homicide investigations. But the bureau was then notoriously corrupt and initially bungled the case. Eventually the young director, J. Edgar Hoover, turned to a former Texas Ranger named Tom White to try to unravel the mystery. White put together an undercover team, including one of the only Native American agents in the bureau. They infiltrated the region, struggling to adopt the latest modern techniques of detection. Together with the Osage they began to expose one of the most sinister conspiracies in American history.

A true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history.

359 pp.

Wiseguy by Nicholas Pileggi (aka GoodFellas)
US$9.99, CA$9.99, £6.95, AU$14.95 Kobo/$7.59 Amazon, NZ$15.97 Kobo, OverDrive

Spoiler:

Nicholas Pileggi’s vivid, unvarnished, journalistic chronicle of the life of Henry Hill—the working-class Brooklyn kid who knew from age twelve that “to be a wiseguy was to own the world,” who grew up to live the highs and lows of the mafia gangster’s life—has been hailed as “the best book ever written on organized crime” (Cosmopolitan).

This is the true-crime bestseller that was the basis for Martin Scorsese’s film masterpiece GoodFellas, which brought to life the violence, the excess, the families, the wives and girlfriends, the drugs, the payoffs, the paybacks, the jail time, and the Feds…with Henry Hill’s crackling narration drawn straight out of Wiseguy and overseeing all the unforgettable action.

306 pp.

No Rest for the Dead Andrew Gulli, ed.
$8.99 Amazon | Kobo

Spoiler:

Contributing authors:
Jeff Abbott, Sandra Brown, Jeffery Deaver, Diana Gabaldon, Tess Gerritsen, Peter James, J.A. Jance, Faye Kellerman, Raymond Khoury, John Lescroart, Jeff Lindsay, Gayle Lynds, Phillip Margolin, Alexander McCall Smith, Michael Palmer, T. Jefferson Parker, Matthew Pearl, Kathy Reichs, Marcus Sakey, Jonathan Santlofer, Lisa Scottoline, R.L. Stine, Marcia Talley, Lori G. Armstrong

Synopsis:
When Christopher Thomas, a ruthless curator at San Francisco’s McFall Art Museum, is murdered and his decaying body is found in an iron maiden in a Berlin museum, his wife, Rosemary, is the primary suspect, and she is tried, convicted, and executed. Ten years later, Jon Nunn, the detective who cracked the case, is convinced that the wrong person was put to death. In the years since the case was closed, he’s discovered a web of deceit and betrayal surrounding the Thomases that could implicate any number of people in the crime. With the help of the dead woman’s friend, he plans to gather everyone who was there the night Christopher died and finally uncover the truth, suspect by suspect. Solving this case may be Nunn’s last chance for redemption…but the shadowy forces behind Christopher’s death will stop at nothing to silence the past forever.

256 pp.

Come, Tell Me How You Live: An Archaeological Memoir by Agatha Christie
Amazon US $8.99 | Amazon UK - £6.99 | Amazon CA $9.99 | Amazon AU $10.99 | Kobo US $8.99 | Kobo UK - £6.99 | Kobo CA $9.99 | Kobo AU $10.99

Spoiler:

Agatha Christie was already a celebrated writer of mysteries in 1930 when she married archaeologist Max Mallowan. She enthusiastically joined him on archaeological expeditions in the Middle East, providing backgrounds for novels and "everyday doings and happenings". Pre-war Syria years are remembered here, not chronologically, but in a cluster of vignettes about servants and aristocrats who peppered their lives with annoyances and pleasures.

236 pp.

Except the Dying by Maureen Jennings
AmazonUS $9.99 | AmazonUK £4.31 | AmazonCA $9.99 | AmazonAU $7.47 | KoboUS $9.99 | OverDrive

Spoiler:

From Amazon:

Turn-of-the-century Toronto makes an evocative setting for murder in Except the Dying, a skillful first novel that is interesting both for its historical accuracy and its fully realized characters. The plot concerns the murder of a young housemaid, discovered naked in a snowy lane, and the cast of suspects spans the social strata. Yet it is William Murdoch, the detective in charge of the case, who breathes life into what might otherwise have been a conventional murder mystery. As he pursues his quest for justice, Murdoch also mourns the death of his fiancée; his manner of doing both reveals a compassionate, principled man

362 pp.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
Public domain

Spoiler:

Though the novel is named after the character Edwin Drood, it focuses more on Drood's uncle, John Jasper, a precentor, choirmaster and opium addict, who is in love with his pupil, Rosa Bud. Miss Bud, Edwin Drood's fiancée, has also caught the eye of the high-spirited and hot-tempered Neville Landless. Landless and Edwin Drood take an instant dislike to one another. Later Drood disappears

Dickens' last novel is a mystery built around a presumed crime - the murder of a nephew by his uncle. Dickens died before completing the story, leaving the mystery unsolved and encouraging successive generations of readers to turn detective. Beyond the preoccupying fact of this intriguing crime, however, the novel also offers readers a characteristically Dickensian mix of the fantastical world of the imagination and a vibrantly journalistic depiction of gritty reality.

300 pp.

The Bride Wore Black by Cornell Woolrich
Amazon US $4.99 | omnibus $9.99 | Kobo US $4.99 | omnibus $9.99

Spoiler:

“Along with Raymond Chandler, Cornell Woolrich practically invented the genre of noir.”
—Newsday

"Woolrich can distill more terror, more excitement, more downright nail-biting suspense out of even the most commonplace happenings than nearly all his competitors." - Ellery Queen

"An opus out of the ordinary, highly emotional and suspenseful, with a surprise finish that turns somersaults." - The Saturday Review of Literature on The Bride Wore Black.

This novel is not to be missed by crime fiction, suspense thriller and Woolrich fans. It was the first suspense novel that Woolrich wrote following his career as a pulp fiction author. Upon publication, the Kansas City Star said it was "a delicacy for epicures" while the Hartford Courant stated it was "the most exciting experience in crime fiction this reviewer has had in some considerable time." Cleveland's Plain Dealer called it "fresh and tremendously effective." The Baltimore Sun was even more effusive with "If it doesn't freeze your blood, then you are immune to literary chills."

The story is about a woman who is obsessed with a deadly personal mission. She selects her victims with care. She dispatches them with cunningness and then she vanishes as quickly as she surfaces - out of nowhere. No one knows her identity or why she appears to undertake such ghastly deeds. We only know she has terrifying beauty and each time she appears a man dies horribly!

232 pp.

Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith
Amazon US $9.99 | Kobo US $12.79 | OverDrive, Scribd

Spoiler:

In Deep Water, set in the quiet, small town of Little Wesley, Patricia Highsmith has created a vicious and suspenseful tale of love gone sour.

Vic and Melinda Van Allen's loveless marriage is held together only by a precarious arrangement whereby, in order to avoid the messiness of divorce, Melinda is allowed to take any number of lovers as long as she does not desert her family. Eventually, Vic can no longer suppress his jealousy and tries to win back his wife by asserting himself through a tall tale of murder—one that soon comes true. In this complex portrayal of a dangerous psychosis emerging in the most unlikely of places, Highsmith examines the chilling reality behind the idyllic facade of American suburban life.

273 pp.

Fadeout by Joseph Hansen
AmazonUS $7.99 | AmazonUK £0.99 | AmazonCA $9.99 | KoboUS $8.69

Spoiler:

Dave Brandstetter stands alongside Philip Marlow, Sam Spade and Lew Archer as one of the best fictional PIs in the business. Like them, he was tough, determined, and ruthless when the case demanded it. Unlike them, he was gay.

Joseph Hansen's groundbreaking novels follow Brandstetter as he investigates cases in which motives are murky, passions run high, and nothing is ever as simple as it looks. Set in 1970s and 80s California, the series is a fascinating portrait of a time and a place, with mysteries to match Chandler and Macdonald.

In Fadeout, Dave is sent to investigate the death of radio personality Fox Olsen. His car is found crashed in a dry river bed. But there is no body - and as Dave looks deeper into his life, it seems as though he had good reasons to disappear.

202 pp.

The Sirens Sang of Murder by Sarah Caudwell
Kindle $7.99 | Kobo $7.99 | Kindle UK £3.99 | Kobo UK £3.99 | OverDrive

Spoiler:

Young barrister Michael Cantrip has skipped off to the Channel Islands to take on a tax-law case that's worth a fortune -- if Cantrip's tax-planning cronies can locate the missing heir. But Cantrip has waded in way over his head. Strange things are happening on these mysterious, isolated isles. Something is going bump in the night -- and bumping off members of the legal team, one by one. Soon Cantrip is telexing the gang at the home office for help. And it's up to amateur investigator Hilary Tamar (Oxford don turned supersleuth) to get Cantrip back to the safety of his chambers -- alive!

277 pp.