July 1, 2022 - BCPL Red Hot Reads

This month we have some positively scorching stories for you! 

Check out the following list of Red Hot Reads which happen to be some of our fiction favorites. All titles are available from Brooke County Libraries, either as an ebook copy or at one of our locations.

Killer Heat by Linda Fairstein

It's August in New York, and the only thing that's hotter than the pavement is Manhattan D.A. Alex Cooper's professional and personal life. Just as she's claiming an especially gratifying victory in a rape case, she gets the call: the body of a young woman has been found in an abandoned building. The brutality of the murder is disturbing enough, but when a second body, beaten and disposed of in exactly same manner, is found off the Belt Parkway, the city's top brass want the killer found fast, before the tabloids can start churning out ghoulish serial killer headlines.

Dead Heat by Dick Francis

Max Moreton is a rising culinary star and his Newmarket restaurant, The Hay Net, has brought acclaim. But two disasters fall. Food poisoning fells banquet attendees, and a bomb explodes the private boxes at a race, killing guests and employees.

Cat in a Red Hot Rage by Carole Nelson Douglas

Cat in a Red Hot Rage is the nineteenth title in Carole Nelson Douglas's sassy Midnight Louie mystery series. This tough talking twenty-pound tomcat PI is playing at the top of his game as he walks the walk and talks the talk on the mean streets of Las Vegas.

Heat Wave by Nancy Thayer

After her husband’s sudden death, Carley Winsted is determined to keep her two daughters in their beloved home on Nantucket. To ease the family’s financial strain, she decides to transform their grand, historic house into a bed-and-breakfast. Not everyone, however, thinks this plan prudent or quite respectable—especially not Carley’s mother-in-law. Further complicating a myriad of challenges, a friend forces Carley to keep a secret that, if revealed, will undo families and friendships. And her late husband’s former law partner is making Carley confront an array of mixed feelings. Then, during a late-summer heat wave, the lives of Carley and her friends and family will be forever changed in entirely unexpected ways.

Body Heat by Carly Phillips

Physical therapist Brianne Nelson has never worked on a body this hot before....Injured detective Jake Lowell is determined to get his man. Only, he finds his woman first.Night after night, Brianne has fantasized about the sexy stranger she met at the cafe where she works part-time. She never guesses that stranger will turn out to be a client....

Running Hot by Jayne Ann Krentz

Ex-cop Luther Malone, lifelong member of the secretive paranormal organization known as the Arcane Society, is waiting to meet Grace Renquist. Hired as an aura-reading consultant in the quest for a murder suspect, she’s got zero field experience. She’s from tiny Eclipse Bay, Oregon. She’s a librarian, for heaven’s sake.

Heat Wave by Jill Marie Landis

Private investigator Kat Vargas once cared about someone so much it hurt. Once she lived a dream life with her first love and fiancé—until betrayal followed by shattering tragedy ended it all. Kat has sworn never to get too close to anyone again. But now the peace and quiet of Twilight Cove is driving the straight-talking, no-nonsense P.I. crazy. Then a prospective new client shows up at the door. Moved by his stubbornness and sincerity, Kat takes his case, breaking a promise to relax, recoup, and rethink her solitary life.

Hot Mahogany by Stuart Woods

Barton Cabot’s intelligence career is even more top secret than that of his brother, CIA boss Lance Cabot. But following a random act of violence, Barton is suffering from amnesia—a dangerous thing in a man whose memory is chock full of state secrets. So Lance hires Stone Barrington to watch his brother’s back. Stone soon discovers that his charge is a spy with a rather unusual hobby: building and restoring furniture. The genteel world of antiques and coin dealers seems a far cry from Stone’s usual underworld. But Barton is a man with a past, and one event in particular is coming back to haunt his present in ways he’d never expected... 

Driving Heat by Richard Castle

In the seventh novel of his popular Nikki Heat series, the NYPD's top homicide detective has been promoted to captain just in time to face a thrilling case with a very personal twist. Captain Heat's fiancé, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jameson Rook, is deep in an investigation. Professionally for Heat, Rook's meddling in the case compromises her new job. Privately, it becomes an early test of their engagement when Rook becomes a distraction at best, and an obstacle at worst, as their parallel lives not only cross, but collide.

Texas Heat by Fern Michaels

The magnificent Austin empire built by the domineering Seth Coleman before World War II now belongs to Moss and Billie's daughter Maggie. She has invited the whole family to a Fourth of July barbecue in celebration of a renewed sense of family pride she's determined to forge at Sunbridge. But as loved ones gather, they bring along old resentments and new temptations destined to generate more than a little heat. Maggie has finally decided to divorce Cranston Tanner. But as she struggles to be a good mother to her resentful son Cole, her love for a special man could cost her the loyalty of her family. In the meantime, Cole becomes locked in a bitter rivalry with his cousin Riley, heir apparent to Sunbridge, while Maggie's broken-hearted daughter Sawyer is about to face a much greater tragedy. And Maggie's sister, Susan, the renowned musician, arrives home for the most terrifying performance of her life.

Heat Lightning by John Sandford

On a hot, humid summer night in Minnesota, Virgil Flowers gets a call from Lucas Davenport. A body has been found near a veterans’ memorial in Stillwater with two shots to the head and a lemon in his mouth—exactly like the body they found two weeks ago. Working the murders, Flowers becomes convinced that someone is keeping a list—with many more names on it. And when he discovers what connects them all, he’s almost sorry. Because if it’s true, then this whole thing leads down a lot more trails than he thought it did—and every one of them is booby-trapped.

Hot by John Lutz

When Carver is approached by Henry Tiller, a retired cop living in the Florida Keys, to check out his wealthy and suspicious neighbor, Carver is reluctant to get involved. But as he investigates, he realizes the neighbor's hired muscle and his luxury yacht with oddly shaped cargo boxes can only mean trouble.

White Hot by Sandra Brown

When she hears that her younger brother Danny has committed suicide, Sayre Lynch relents from her vow never to return to Destiny, the small Louisiana town in which she grew up. She plans to leave immediately after the funeral, but instead soon finds herself drawn into the web cast by Huff Hoyle, her controlling and tyrannical father, the man who owns the town’s sole industry, an iron foundry, and in effect runs the lives of everyone who lives there.

Did we leave out any of your favorites? If so, let us know in the comment sections or in person! We'd love to hear from you.

 

Images and info are courtesy of WV Reads, Google, and Goodreads.