Mystery Lovers Book Club

Mystery Lovers Book Club at Portage Public Library meets monthly to discuss current and classic mystery stories! We have read a plethora of authors (we try to find a new one every time!) and are always on the prowl for a good mystery story we haven't read, yet.

Read, enjoy, and discuss a good mystery with a group of great people! Meets the second Tuesday of each month from 1:30-2:30 PM. No registration required. Just read the book and show up!

Books are available on the Holds shelf.

Upcoming Titles for 2024:

February 13, 2024

The Perfect Couple by Elin Hilderbrand

Image
The Perfect Couple Cover

SUMMARY (from elinhilderbrand.net)

It's Nantucket wedding season, also known as summer-the sight of a bride racing down Main Street is as common as the sun setting at Madaket Beach. The Otis-Winbury wedding promises to be an event to remember: the groom's wealthy parents have spared no expense to host a lavish ceremony at their oceanfront estate.

But it's going to be memorable for all the wrong reasons after tragedy strikes: a body is discovered in Nantucket Harbor just hours before the ceremony-and everyone in the wedding party is suddenly a suspect. As Chief of Police Ed Kapenash interviews the bride, the groom, the groom's famous mystery-novelist mother, and even a member of his own family, he discovers that every wedding is a minefield-and no couple is perfect....

 

 

 

 

 

March 12, 2024

Driftless Gold by Sue Berg

Image
Driftless Gold

SUMMARY (from goodreads.com)

A migrant worker is discovered buried in a local quarry with an antique gold coin in his pocket near La Crosse, Wisconsin. Lt. Jim Higgins begins to unravel a murder that will take him back into Wisconsin’s early history. During the investigation, Higgins meets a local archaeological savant and treasure hunter who tells him a wild tale about a U.S. Army payroll that was stolen on the way to Fort Crawford in Prairie du Chien in 1866. The payroll has never been recovered. Is the coin on the dead man part of the stolen treasure? Higgins hesitates to base his investigation on a wild tale, but he has nothing else to go on. As his team desperately attempts to make sense of the facts, the killer strikes again. The investigative team realizes the wild tale may be the only explanation for the two murders. In a race against time, Jim struggles to identify the killer—and find the elusive gold treasure. 

 

 

 

 

April 9, 2024

The Western Star by Craig Johnson

Image
The Western STar

SUMMARY

Sheriff Walt Longmire is enjoying a celebratory beer after a weapons certification at the Wyoming Law Enforcement Academy when a younger sheriff confronts him with a photograph of twenty-five armed men standing in front of a Challenger steam locomotive. It takes him back to when, fresh from the battlefields of Vietnam, then-deputy Walt accompanied his mentor Lucian to the annual Wyoming Sheriff's Association junket held on the excursion train known as the Western Star, which ran the length of Wyoming from Cheyenne to Evanston and back. Armed with his trusty Colt .45 and a paperback of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, the young Walt was ill-prepared for the machinations of twenty-four veteran sheriffs, let alone the cavalcade of curious characters that accompanied them. 

The photograph - along with an upcoming parole hearing for one of the most dangerous men Walt has encountered in a lifetime of law enforcement - hurtles the sheriff into a head-on collision of past and present, placing him and everyone he cares about squarely on the tracks of runaway revenge.

 

 

May 14, 2024

The Drifter by Nicholas Petrie

Image
The Drifter Cover

SUMMARY

An explosive thriller debut introducing Peter Ash, a veteran who finds that the demons of war aren't easily left behind...

Peter Ash came home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with only one souvenir: what he calls his "white static," the buzzing claustrophobia due to post-traumatic stress that has driven him to spend a year roaming in nature, sleeping under the stars. But when a friend from the Marines commits suicide, Ash returns to civilization to help the man's widow with some home repairs. Under her dilapidated porch, he finds more than he bargained for: the largest, ugliest, meanest dog he's ever encountered... and a Samsonite suitcase stuffed with cash and explosives.

As Ash begins to investigate this unexpected discovery, he finds himself at the center of a plot that is far larger than he could have imagined... and it may lead straight back to the world he thought he'd left for good.

Suspenseful and thrilling, and featuring a compelling new hero, The Drifter is an exciting debut from a fresh voice in crime fiction.

 

Questions?

Contact our Library Assistant - Public Services, Gloria Johntel. You can e-mail gloria [at] portagelibrary.us, or call her at 608-742-4959 ext. 180.