Books Abound

Innumerable contemporary mystery novels that have adventure and intrigue fill bookshelves around the world. They range from Stuart Woods's Stone Barrington series, set in New York City, to Marcia Mueller's Sharon McCone character, who flies the skies of California. Mary Higgins Clark captures the sublime East Coast royalty, and Elizabeth Peters features archaic Egypt and stuffy England protocol. All of these authors develop one character, keeping the reader entranced with the next step of their lives, as if they were part of our own family.

Stuart Woods began his career as a way to pay for his sailing hobby, and now has over twenty novels to his credit. Issues featuring Holly Barker have the word orchid in the title, those being Iron Orchid, Blood Orchid, Orchid Blues and Orchid Beach. Probably his most famous character, Stone Barrington is featured in Fresh Disaster, Reckless Abandon, and The Short Forever. John Sanford has a similar character in Lucas Davenport with the Prey series, as all eighteen of those works has the word prey in the title. The first novel released was Rules of Prey, then Shadow Prey, and the most recent was Invisible Prey. Author Janet Evanovich has chosen the children's rhyme One for the Money as her first title, followed by Two for the Dough, making it all the way to Mean Fourteen.

Public libraries could not be filled with all the contemporary mystery novels. Suspense novelist Sue Grafton's alphabet names series start with A is for Alibi through S is for Silence. Husband and wife team Johnathan and Faye Kellerman have over fifty works between them. Therapy, The Conspiracy Club, Sacred and Profane and Milk and Honey keep you spellbound.