Fractured, by Karin Slaughter

Imagine a mother's rage as she finds her daughter dead and the murderer standing over her. This mother kills him with her bare hands. The Atlanta police have a closed case. Enter Will Trent from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, who finds that another girl was also there, and has been kidnapped. Slaughter takes us on a wild ride and you'll enjoy each twist and turn. This is the second time Will Trent, the dyslexic detective, shows up as a character in one of Slaughter's books. He's a keeper!

Shadow of power, by Steve Martini

Did you realize that in the Constitution, former slaves are referred to as 3/5 of a human being? The language itself has not been amended. A new book reveals that to the general public, and the author is on a book tour, generating protests that are increasingly violent. He refers to a letter written by Jefferson that is so inflammatory, he predicts social revolution will occur. After he's murdered, attorney Paul Madriani defends the accused killer.

What was lost, by Catherine O'Flynn

Kate, ten, has her own detective agency and takes her notebook of observations everywhere she goes. Although she doesn't have any friends her age she hangs out with the 20-year-old son of the shopkeeper next door.
The story then leaps ahead in time, and you learn that Kate disappeared. You don't learn what actually happened until the end of the book. That engaging ten-year-old will stay with me for a long time.

The dark tide, by Andrew Gross

Karen's husband is killed in an explosion at Grand Central, a terrorist attack. A year later, watching footage of that awful day, she glimpses him -- after the explosion, hurrying away from the scene. Meanwhile, a detective is investigating hit-and-run accident that seems to be linked to Karen's dead husband; other people are looking for him too, claiming that they are owed hundreds of millions of dollars. Gross does a nice job of keeping you guessing.

Without a backward glance, by Kate Veitch

Another book about a motherless family, but unlike The Rope Walk, these children are grown up , dealing with their father's growing dementia, and beginning to put the pieces together about how their mother's abandonment affected them all: handsome James, studious Robert, fly-away Meredith, and Deborah, the "good one," along with their children. James is at a dinner party when he finds himself talking about how his mother left on Christmas Eve; the next day, one of the guests calls him and says, I know that woman; she's my mother's best friend.
This book sweeps you along as you learn the family's secrets.

The rope walk, by Carrie Brown

An immersion in childhood, done with delicacy and intensity. Ten-year-old Alice lives in Vermont with her professor father and five older brothers, and inhabits a dreamy world of her own until a boy her age comes to stay with the family. Theo is a whirlwind of activity, leading Alice into what she starts to call the real world. There is the giddiness of unthinking youth, coupled with the sadness of a neighbor's illness, leading to a remarkable act of heroism by the two youngsters. This is a book for grownups, but you'll feel young again reading this.

More than it hurts you, by Darin Strauss

I like big fat books, and this is one; however, I found myself skipping to the end, to find out how it ended. Strauss takes on the topic of Munchausen by proxy, from the viewpoint of the attending doctor, the mother, the husband, and the lawyer. Also the attending doctor's father. Too many characters with no real significance, for me.