Recommendations based on "The Stroke of Winter: A Novel"

GMA BOOK CLUB PICK • AN NPR BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the New York Times bestselling author of I Was Anastasia and Code Name Hélène comes a gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history."Fans of Outlander’s Claire Fraser will enjoy Lawhon’s Martha, who is brave and outspoken when it comes to protecting the innocent. . . impressive."—The Washington Post"Once again, Lawhon works storytelling magic with a real-life heroine." —People MagazineMaine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.

Award-winning author Ayelet Gundar-Goshen returns with a timely and suspenseful exploration of the fault lines in a community, a school, and a family, as a mother begins to suspect her teenage son of committing a terrible crime.Lilach has it all: a beautiful home in the heart of Silicon Valley, a successful husband and stable marriage, and a teenage son, Adam, with whom she has always felt a particular closeness. Israeli immigrants, the family has now lived in the U.S. long enough that they consider it home. But after a brutal attack on a local synagogue shakes their sense of safety, Adam enrolls in a self-defense class taught by a former Israeli Special Forces officer. There, for the first time, he finds a sense of confidence and belonging.Then, tragedy strikes again when an African American boy dies at a house party, apparently from a drug overdose. Though he was a high school classmate, Adam claims not to know him. Yet rumors begin to circulate that the death was not accidental, and that Adam and his new friends had a history with Jamal. As more details surface and racial tensions in the community are ignited, Lilach begins to question everything she thought she knew about her son. Could her worst fears be possible? Could her quiet, reclusive child have had something to do with Jamal’s death?Praised for “instilling emotional depth into a thriller plot” (New York Times Book Review on Waking Lions), Ayelet Gundar-Goshen once again brings together taut, page-turning suspense, superb writing, and razor-sharp insight into the fault lines of race, identity, and privilege and the dark secrets we hide from those we love most.

Sara Paretsky, one of the most legendary crime writers of all time, presents an exclusive and thrilling short story featuring beloved investigator V.I. Warshawski as a ten-year-old girl on her first investigation. V.I. Warshawski developed her strength and sense of justice at a very early age.  It’s 1966 and on the south side of Chicago racial tensions are at an all-time high. Dr. Martin Luther King is leading marches at Marquette Park and many in the neighborhood are very angry. With nothing but a bicycle, eighty-two cents in her pocket, and her Brownie camera hanging from her wrist, Victoria sneaks off to Marquette Park alone to protect her father Tony, a police officer who is patrolling the crowds. What begins as a small adventure and a quest to find her father and make sure he is safe turns into something far more dangerous.  As the day goes on and the conflict at the park reaches a fever pitch Victoria realizes she must use her courage and ingenuity if she wants to keep herself and her family members out of harm’s way.

Dana Stabenow once again returns to Alaska, America's last frontier, where her unforgettable Aleut investigator, Kate Shugak, faces one of the most painful cases of her reluctant career. Kate was formerly the star investigator of the Anchorage D.A.'s office; now all she wants to do is enjoy the first weeks of autumn on her isolated homestead. Alone. But duty calls, in the form of Ekaterina Shugak, Kate's grandmother, the imposing matriarch of her extended family. It's the week of the Alaska Federation of Natives Convention, and everyone who's anyone - as well as a few nobodies - has gathered in Anchorage for a week of shopping, gossiping, bragging, and more than a little wheeling and dealing. But there's more happening this year than what's on the official agenda. A vote is coming up on the future of tribal lands, and the arguments are heated. Heated enough to raise suspicions about the recent death of a Native Association board member. Kate has always refused to get involved with tribal politics. But the dead woman was a relative, and the one true weakness Kate Shugak has is for her family. Reluctantly agreeing to investigate, she is drawn into a whirlpool of deceit, lies, and secrets; she is torn not only between the modern world and the traditional, but also between opposing factions within each group. And the more Kate investigates, the more she discovers how deeply she is tied to the land, and to what lengths she will go in order to protect it...

In Singing of the Dead, the next installment in Dana Stabenow's acclaimed crime series, Kate Shugak hires onto the staff of a political campaign to work security for a Native woman running for state senator. The candidate has been receiving anonymous threats, and Kate, who went to college with two of the staffers, is to become her shadow, watching the crowds at rallies and fundraisers. But just as she's getting started the campaign is rocked by the murder of their staff researcher, who, Kate discovers, was in possession of some damning information about the pasts of both candidates. In order to track the killer, Kate will have to delve into the past, in particular the grisly murder of a "good-time girl" during the Klondike Gold Rush in 1915. Little can she guess the impact a ninety-year-old unsolved case could have on a modern-day psychotic killer.

With her gritty mysteries steeped in authentic Native American culture, New York Times bestselling author Margaret Coel is “widely considered the most accomplished heir to Tony Hillerman’s legacy,” (Scripps Howard News Service). In the latest Wind River novel, Arapaho attorney Vicky Holden and Father John O’Malley confront a ruthless killer in the wake of a miraculous event.        A mysterious penitent confesses to murder, and then flees the confessional before Father John can identify him. Two months later, Vicky discovers rancher Dennis Carey shot dead in his truck along Blue Sky Highway. With the tragic news comes the exposure of an astonishing secret: the most sacred creature in Native American mythology, a white buffalo calf, was recently born on Carey’s ranch.   Making national headlines, the miraculous animal draws a flood of pilgrims to the reservation, frustrating an already difficult investigation. As visitors throw the reservation into turmoil, Vicky and Father John try to unravel the strange events surrounding both Carey’s murder and the recent disappearances of three cowboys from his ranch.   It could be coincidence, given the nomadic life of the cowboy trade, but when one of them fails to appear in court to testify on an assault charge, Vicky wonders if Arnie Walkfast and his Arapaho buddies are guilty of more than just assault. And at the back of Father John’s mind is the voice from the man in the confessional: I killed a man…  

"If you’re looking for a real declaration of independence, and a deeper social experiment, try a woman living alone in the Adirondacks for decades." —Megan Mayhew Bergman, Guardian Anne LaBastille found peace and solitude in the log cabin she built for herself at Black Bear Lake. But as the years passed, the outside world intruded in various ways: curious fans, after reading her best-selling book Woodswoman, tracked her down; land developers arrived; there was air and noise pollution and the damages of acid rain. Woodswoman II is the story of the author's decision to retreat farther, a half-mile behind her main cabin, and build a tiny cabin—fashioned after the one in Thoreau's Walden—in which she could write and contemplate. In this book (originally published under the title Beyond Black Bear Lake) she writes movingly of her life with two German shepherds as companions, of a sustaining relationship with a man as independent as herself, and her renewed bond with nature.

Building upon the highly acclaimed debut of Alice Henderson’s A Solitude of Wolverines and its follow-up thriller A Blizzard of Polar Bears comes the eagerly anticipated and electrifying third installment A Ghost of Caribou, an intricate environmental mystery in which wildlife biologist Alex Carter encounters an unsolved murder and a town in turmoil while in search of this majestic, all-but-vanished animal.  When a remote camera on a large, rugged expanse held by the Land Trust for Wildlife Conservation picks up a blurry image of what could be a mountain caribou, they contact Alex Carter to investigate. After all, mountain caribou went extinct in the contiguous U.S. years ago, and if one has wandered down from Canada, it’s monumental. But when Alex arrives on scene in the Selkirk mountains of northeastern Washington state for this outdoor adventure, she quickly learns that her only challenge isn’t finding an elusive caribou on a massive piece of land. The nearby townspeople are agitated; loggers and activists clash over a swath of old growth forest marked for clearcutting. The murdered body of a forest ranger is found strung up in the town’s park, deepening the murder mystery, and Alex learns of a backcountry hiker who went missing in the same area the year before. As she ventures into the forest in search of the endangered animal, she quickly finds herself in a fight for her life, caught between factions warring for the future of the forest and a murderer stalking the dense groves of ancient trees.

Young Caroline Quiner, who would grow up to become Laura Ingalls Wilder's mother, and her family have new adventures as the frontier outpost of Brookfield, Wisconsin, grows into a bustling town.

"A gripping story with dramatic twists, and a memorable heroine." —James Patterson, #1 New York Times bestselling author McCown County assistant prosecutor Elsie Arnold is prepping an assault case when a girl is found beaten and bloodied at a roadside no-tell motel. Elsie tries to convince the teen to reveal who attacked her, but Mandy is too scared—and stubborn—to cooperate... and then she disappears. Elsie's positive a predator is targeting the Ozark hills, yet the authorities refuse to believe their small town could be plagued by sex trafficking. Then middle school student Desiree Wickham goes missing, but only Elsie suspects it could be connected to Mandy's assault. As she digs deeper into the events leading up to Desiree's disappearance, she stumbles upon an alarming discovery: local girls are falling prey to a dubious online modeling agency, and never seen again. Elsie shares her concerns with Detective Ashlock and the FBI, but they shut her out. She takes matters into her own hands and lands an interview with the head of the modeling agency. But when she meets him face-to-face, she discovers the fate of Desiree and Mandy... and becomes his newest captive. Elsie's desperate to free the girls—and save herself—before the unspeakable happens. And she's in for the fight of her life.