IT'S A MYSTERY TO ME - NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2024

PLEASE READ & RESPOND

Okay friends. At the end of December this will be 6 months since I tried to resurrect this group. I have gotten some responses, and I thank each of you that did that. However, the question now is, DO WE WANT TO CONTINUE THIS GROUP? Please tell me how you feel about that. Since I revived it several months ago myself and 3 or 4 other people have used it. I know that we all belong to other groups, and many of you that belong to our "Mystery & Suspense", and "Read It Track It", groups have jobs and other "life" happenings that make our lives very busy, and some people just don' t care for, or have the time to keep up with challenges. Just please let me know if I'm trying to ride the preverbal "dead horse" by continuing this in 2025. Thank you all for your continued support and friendship.

I'm going to cut the challenge down from 10 t0 5 to see if maybe less things to look for will help.

OUR BOOKS FOR NOVEMBER - DECEMBER 2024

The Killing Floor - Lee Child - (Georgia)
Jack Reacher Series Book #1
Publication Date: 1997
Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher is a drifter. He’s just passing through Margrave, Georgia, and in less than an hour, he’s arrested for murder. Not much of a welcome. All Reacher knows is that he didn’t kill anybody. At least not here. Not lately. But he doesn’t stand a chance of convincing anyone. Not in Margrave, Georgia. Not a chance in hell.


Dark State - Jack Slater - (On a train from California to Chicago)
Jason Trapp Series Book #1
Publication Date: 2022
If you come after the CIA’s most feared assassin, there’s one cardinal rule: Don’t miss. America is under attack. Thousands lie dead after simultaneous strikes across the country. The day will come to be known as Bloody Monday. Jason Trapp, codename ‘Hangman’, was a covert operative whose feats became the stuff of legend. He was the tip of the spear—the man his country unleashed when all hope was lost. Six months ago, someone sold him out. The Agency listed him as killed in action. He lost everything—and everyone—he held dear. But Trapp’s not that easy to kill. As his country reels from the deadliest terrorist attacks it has ever witnessed, Trapp’s personal vendetta leads him right back to where he started: duty to his country. The violence, the terror, the assassination of his partner… It’s all connected. And now the Hangman is coming for the guilty.


The Night Shift - Robert Enright (England)
Sam Pope Series Book #1
Publication Date February 6, 2019
Join the fight. Sam Pope was one of the UK’s finest soldiers, serving over a decade as an elite sniper. After a near fatal shooting brings an end to his career, Sam returns home to his family and a potential new career in the Metropolitan Police. When disaster strikes and his bond with his family is broken, Sam takes a job as an archive officer within the Met, hunting down criminals that have beaten the system and delivering his own brand of justice. When a terrorist attack at the London Marathon shakes the city to its core, Sam decides to open his own line of investigation. Venturing into the world of organized crime and police corruption, Sam soon finds himself as the number one target…and faces a race against time to expose the truth.


THE CHALLENGE
Remember, Mystery /Suspense/Thriller books only, please. Thank you...have fun.
1. Read any of the books featured above or any book by any of the featured authors.
2. Read a book set in Georgia, California, Illinois, or England.
3. Read a book that has a character that is a member of the military of any country.
4. Read a book that a character is in law enforcement.
5. Read a book that you would consider to be vigilante justice.

Oops! Posted a book too early.
(Note to self: It’s still October, numpty!😄)

>1 Carol420: Carol, first, let me say thank you so much for all you do on LibraryThing, it’s very much appreciated ☺️.
In my humble opinion, you probably have enough to do elsewhere on the site without giving your precious time, effort and enthusiasm here where there is minimal take up. So if you want to lay this one to rest, that’s understandable.

>4 Sergeirocks: Thank you so much for your kind words and for all the participation that you take part in. Believe me, it means a lot to me as does the friendship of all you folks that have allowed me to "serve", for lack of a better word, for all the years we've been together. I'll leave this last challenge up, but I believe that it will be the last one unless Andrew wants to try something else.

Carol Gets a Little More Help.
4/5
1. Read any of the books featured above or any book by any of the featured authors.

2. Read a book set in Georgia, California, Illinois, or England.
The Hollow Kind - Andy Davidson - 5★ (set in Georgia)

3. Read a book that has a character that is a member of the military of any country.
Another Man's Moccasins - Craig Johnson - 5★ (USMC)

4. Read a book that a character is in law enforcement.
Heaven's Keep - William Kent Kruger - 4.5★

5. Read a book that you would consider to be vigilante justice.
Valentine - Elizabeth Wetmore - 2.5★

Limestone Cowboy - Stuart Pawson 5★s (Set in England)
Trunk Music - Michael Connelly 4★s (Character in law enforcement = undercover Fed)

#5 vigilante justice

Valentine - Elizabeth Wetmore - (Texas)
Genera: Suspense/Thriller (I'm not really sure)
2.5★
Possible Triggers: Racism, Bigotry, Brutal Rape
It's February 15, 1976, when the story opens in the small Texas town of Odessa. A Mexican teenager has been raped by a young oil field worker. The story is told in 15 chapters by 7 different women who are directly or indirectly affected by the crime. We hear from: the victim herself, the farmer's wife, Mary Rose with whom she seeks and finds refuge and who has agreed to testify as a witness in the upcoming trial, the neighbor Corinne and 4 other women in the vicinity where the rape occurred. This town is not going to receiving any Chamber of Commerce hospitality awards. You would have to be desperate and trapped there, as I can't imagine anyone actually choosing to live there, especially if you are female. The book has received numerous awards so I know someone out there must have liked it... a lot...I just wasn't one of them. If you consider yourself to be a rational, fair-minded person, with even a smidgen of morals, this will have you squirming and your blood pressure in the danger zone. I cannot in all honesty say that the author is not a good writer...to tell this tale took an abundance of talent, and I know from other reviewers that I am totally in the minority, but this will really, really, disturb some people.

>8 Carol420: I will not read this book because of the subject. It is sad and I feel for the victims.
Odessa does have its problems but I always felt safe going there. My hometown is 36 miles from Odessa.
I am in Minnesota now and Minneapolis has too much crime so I do not go downtown. In fact, I changed doctors because mine was in an area where so many small kids have been shot in their cars or homes. I have stopped watching the local news.
This is hard to write because I do not want to offend anyone but I love West Texas and every place has problems.

>9 mnleona: You are right. No matter where you are there is going to be problems of some type. I can read almost anything, but this was almost too much for me.

>10 Carol420: It would be for me also and why I would not read it. The review was a good one for people to make a choice to read or not.

#3 - a book that has a character that is a member of the military of any country. (USMC)

Another Man's Moccasins - Craig Johnson - (Wyoming)
Walt Longmire Series Book #4
Genera: Mystery & Suspense
5★
Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire has been acting as rehab coach for his daughter Cady, who has been the victim of an assault. Then he has to leave as he’s called away to deal with a dead Vietnamese girl alongside the highway. The trail leads to a derelict Crow Indian by the name of Virgil White Buffalo, but the case is complicated when the photograph found in the girl’s pocket shows Walt and a young prostitute taken in the 1960s. How did she come to have this picture? Flashbacks show Walt remembering and reliving his war experiences and his then relationships, but this in no way prepared him for the arrival of Tran Van Tuyen, who claims to be the dead girl’s grandfather. Meanwhile, his deputy and friend, Virgil’s in jail, happily feasting on pizzas at the county’s expense. There are indications that Ho Thi Paquet, the dead girl, was here illegally. a “dust child,” the name given to the offspring of an American GI and a Vietnamese woman. Seems that there may have been another girl traveling with her before she died. alt realizes that the resolution will do little to help heal the Asian/American tragedies past and current. There is also a back story of racism and murder, that is riveting as well as informant. Readers who’ve come to admire Walt’s friend, Henry Standing Bear, will not only admire him, but want to give him the Medal of Honor for his war exploits. I really like this book, and learning more about Walt's past and his service in the USMC was just an added bonus.

5. Read a book that you would consider to be vigilante justice.
Finished The Vanishing Kind by Alice Henderson.
The wrong book comes up when title is clicked.

>13 mnleona: That is aggravating but here's how to make it come up right. Type the title into brackets, which you obviously have already done. When it comes up on the touchtone side of the page, click on the blue part that says "other" and it will list all the books by that title and you should see "The Vanishing Kind" and Alice Henderson listed as the author. Click on the green circle and it will put the one you want where you want it. You may have to repeat the process in all the places that you want this to happen...but it will give you the "happy feeling" of accomplishment:) The Vanishing Kind is on my January reading list.

>14 Carol420: Thank you. I gave the book a 4 star because of the violence. It was well written and I am in debate with myself if I want to read the other books in the series. I will do a review today.

#5- a character in law enforcement

Heaven's Keep - William Kent Kruger - (Minnesota/Wyoming)
Cork O'Conner Series Book #9\
Genera: Mystery & Suspense
4.5★
Cork and his wife have a disagreement one morning resulting in a shouting match, both saying things they didn't really mean, but they go their separate daily ways without reconciling. His wife goes to the airport to go on a business trip...from which she won't return afterwards as the plane crashes. Cork had nothing from her since the argument, except a short message on his e-mail mailbox. He's eons beyond grief after this painful loss that leaves him now not only a widow but also a single father. It's autumn before he discovers some new information relating to the plane crash and begins to follow his instincts as a private detective. What follows is an exciting story based around casinos, Native American Indian reservations and several nature reserves. This all comes to an end in the dead of winter in the Rocky Mountains in a fight for survival against nature. Throughout the book, the author not only focused on his essential main character, Cork O'Conner but also describing some of the hardships and problems suffered by the Native American Indians yet in these modern times. Anyone that has viewed the Rockies in any season will recognize the descriptions of the unspoiled beauty of these majestic mountains' nature and how important it is to preserve them. There is a lot to think about in this story even though it is at times heartbreaking. The story is filled with suspense; and it's difficult at times, to read, yet it also reminds us to be very, very careful with our words no matter how angry we may be, as you never know when you may never have the chance to say, "I'm sorry, I love you and I didn't mean it."

Okay...I know when to stop beating a dead horse. I gave this challenge 6 months, and I sincerely thank all that participated, and thank you to all that offered opinions to my earlier question about continuing it. I'm not going to renew it. If any of you want to try something else....