January 2008:

Twisted Obsession by Mark Kearney.

Jay Mundie, a highly decorated, veteran police officer justifiably kills someone in the line of duty. Ignoring the advice of the police psychologist and friends, Jay continues working full-time, unaware of the full effect this incident has on him. This is only the start of a long downward spiral of abuse, neglect and unspeakable evil that brings terror to the small town of Cutler, Virginia.

"A very dark and scary ride to a place most of us will never see. Mark Kearney's book is reminiscent of Jim Thompson's classic The Killer Inside Me and may, in fact, signal the beginning of a new chapter in crime fiction: Virginia Noir. Read it."

-- Peter Blauner New York Times bestselling author of The Intruder and Slipping Into Darkness"

January 2008:

Crows on the Cross by Kristy Tallman.

Franz Kafka, in his Letter to Oskar Pollak, said, "I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us...We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." Crows on the Cross has been deemed such a book.

Drew and Rainey, two rebels with a cause wake up a thousand miles apart disturbed by a past that won't rest. Both abused as children by more than just predators of the skin, their very faith in the person who should save them is shot to hell. Now the two of them are speeding toward each other down hell's highway in Rainey's mysterious '69 Caddie, Baby who seemingly awakens the ghosts of their past. Revelations, unfold as the miles click down steering each of them toward the other but not without paying heed to the monsters who destroyed both their lives.

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