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WEll that makes three. We can start and then who ever wants to join in can. Just to get us started, I will list a few books availabe on PBS and we can vote between now and January 31st. Next month someone else can recommend books. :)
The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry
Book Description: The ancient order of the Knights Templar possessed untold wealth and absolute power over kings and popes . . . until the Inquisition, when they were wiped from the face of the earth, their hidden riches lost. But now two forces vying for the treasure have learned that it is not at all what they thought it was--and its true nature could change the modern world. Cotton Malone, one-time top operative for the U.S. Justice Department, is enjoying his quiet new life as an antiquarian book dealer in Copenhagen when an unexpected call to action reawakens his hair-trigger instincts--and plunges him back into the cloak-and-dagger world he thought he'd left behind. It begins with a violent robbery attempt on Cotton's former supervisor, Stephanie Nelle, who's far from home on a mission that has nothing to do with national security. Armed with vital clues to a series of centuries-old puzzles scattered across Europe, she means to crack a mystery that has tantalized scholars and fortune-hunters through the ages by finding the legendary cache of wealth and forbidden knowledge thought to have been lost forever when the order of the Knights Templar was exterminated in the fourteenth century. But she's not alone. Competing for the historic prize--and desperate for the crucial information Stephanie possesses--is Raymond de Roquefort, a shadowy zealot with an army of assassins at his command. Welcome or not, Cotton seeks to even the odds in the perilous race. But the more he learns about the ancient conspiracy surrounding the Knights Templar, the more he realizes that even more than lives are at stake. At the end of a lethal game of conquest, rife with intrigue, treachery, and craven lust for power, lies a shattering discovery that could rock the civilized world--and, in the wrong hands, bring it to its knees.
Murder in the White House by Margaret Truman
Book Description: In a town where the weapon of choice is usually a well-aimed rumor, the strangling of Secretary of State Lansard Blaine in the Lincoln Bedroom is a gruesome first. White House counsel Ron Fairbanks is ordered to investigate. There are persistent rumors that the Secretary was an accomplished womanizer with ties to a glamorous call girl. There is also troubling evidence of unofficial connections with international wheeler-dealers.In death as in life, Blaine is a power to be reckoned with. For Fairbanks, who loves the President’s daughter, one point is soon clear: only a few highly placed insiders had access to the Lincoln Bedroom that fateful evening. And one of them was the president. . . .
The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie King
Book Description:In 1915, long since retired from his observations of criminal humanity, Sherlock Holmes is engaged in a reclusive study of honeybee behavior on the Sussex Downs. Never did he think to meet an intellect to match his own–until his acquaintance with Miss Mary Russell, a very modern fifteen-year-old whose mental acuity is equaled only by her audacity, tenacity, and penchant for trousers and cloth caps.
Under Holmes’s tutelage, Russell hones her talent for deduction, disguises, and danger: in the chilling case of a landowner’s mysterious fever and in a kidnapping in the wilds of Wales. But her ultimate challenge is yet to come. Soon the two sleuths are on the trail of a murderer whose machinations scatter meaningless clues…but whose objective is quite unequivocal: to end Russell and Holmes’s partnership–and their lives.
Before I say Goodbye by Mary Higgins Clark
Book Description:A young woman probing into the mysterious circumstances of her husband's death receives a message from a medium claiming to be his channel in Mary Higgins Clark's #1 bestselling thriller,BEFORE I SAY GOOD-BYE. When Nell MacDermott learns that her husband, architect Adam Cauliff, and three of his business associates have died in an explosion of his new cabin cruiser, she is not only devastated but wracked with guilt. The last time she saw Adam, they had a bitter quarrel over her plan to run for the congressional seat long held by her grandfather; she had told him not to come home. As the investigation into the boat's explosion proceeds, Nell learns that it was not an accident but a bomb. Despite her skepticism, Nell is swayed by her great-aunt Gert, a believer in psychic powers, to see a medium claiming to be Adam's channel. While trying to unravel the threads of Adam's past and his violent end, Nell consults the medium, who transmits messages to her with instructions from Adam. The story reaches a powerful climax in Nell's final encounter with the medium, in which she learns the truth about the explosion -- truth she can't be allowed to live and tell.
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
Book Description:The Maltese Falcon is considered Dashiell Hammett's finest novel. The story introduces detective Sam Spade, a man of few words who displays little emotion. Hired by a woman - Miss Wonderly - to locate her sister, Spade gives the assignment to his partner Miles Archer. Archer tails the missing sister's companion, and within a single evening both Archer and the man have been shot dead. As Spade pursues the mystery of his partner's death, he is drawn into a circle of colorful characters: Miss Wonderly, who lies prettily and pathologically about everything; a fat, well-dressed man named Gutman; a jumpy man named Cairo; and an extremely stupid, impulsive gunman. All of them are in competition to find the legendary, jewel-encrusted Maltese Falcon, hidden for many centuries. As they get closer and closer to the statue, Spade gets closer and closer to identifying the person who murdered his partner
Last Edited on: 1/23/09 10:26 AM ET - Total times edited: 2
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