Finished: Local Woman Missing (Kubica) Suspenseful murder mystery told from the viewpoints of just a few of the main characters as they move back and forth to when the local woman goes missing eleven years earlier and the current day. Not only does a local woman, Shelby, go missing, but another woman in the same neighborhood and her five year old daughter both go missing shortly afterwards. The story twists and turns and throws in lots of red herrings as we hear Meredith's and Delilah's stories from their viewpoints eleven years earlier (missing mom and daughter); we find out Meredith was Shelby's doula only weeks before her disappearance; we find out Shelby and her husband were set to sue the doctor who actually delivered the baby with forceps, causing brain damage; we find out Meredith and the husband of another neighborhood friend were lovers in college and the friend is insanely mad and jealous; we find out that after a girl who has been trapped in a basement returns home, giving her name as Delilah, she isn't really Delilah after all. So many twists come out of nowhere, and particularly the person who was actually responsible for the all of the tragic events. It's a good page-turner if you are into this kind of book. :-) 

 Finished: The Judge's List (Grisham) A typical, page-turning Grisham book. In this case, a petrified woman, Jerri, contacts Lacy Stotlz, who works for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct, about a man who has been patiently and systematically killing people for the past twenty years. Jerri's father was his second victim. Jerri has been just as patiently gathering circumstantial evidence for the past twenty years. When Lacy tells Jerri she has no jurisdiction over matters of murder, Jerri says, you do when the suspect is a sitting judge! And so the story unfolds from there. The sitting judge is very prominent and well respected with a spotless record. We learn early on, from his own viewpoint, that he has indeed been killing all sorts of people who have crossed him in his lifetime for a variety of reasons. If they abused him or embarrassed him or made him lose anything, they went on "the list". Jerri can show Lacy all the connections, but there is no concrete proof of his actions. Plus, Jerri is terrified that the judge is so smart that he will find her and kill her as well. It's a fast-paced story that puts Jerri in danger, and threatens to put Lacy and her team in danger as well. In the end, though, the judge is caught...but he has one more surprising act up his sleeve so that only words of respect and sympathy will follow him to his grave. :-) 

 Finished: Survive the Night (Sager) I read this book in one day! It was so suspenseful, I couldn't put it down. Charlie is a student desperate to leave college and just get home when she puts her number on the campus ride board. Her roommate and best friend, Maddy, is the most recent victim of the serial killer in the area known as the Campus Killer. Charlie's too distraught and guilt-ridden to think twice that the stranger who she accepts the six hour ride home from could very well be the serial killer. Having left the very social Maddy at a bar they arrived at together, when once again, Maddy flitted off to dance with a guy, leaving the more introverted Charlie in the corner, Charlie will never forgive herself for the harsh words she spoke to Maddy in the bar parking lot before she headed home for the night leaving Maddy at the bar on her own. Of course, that was the night Maddy was killed and the harsh words spoken were the last she spoke to her. As Charlie arranges for her ride home, the first red flag should be that Josh, the stranger, doesn't want to leave until 9:00 pm, driving through the night. As the night continues on, Charlie catches Josh in several lies, including his actual name and the fact that he's not familiar with the name of the main building on campus despite claims of working there the past four years. I'll not give away any more details about this plot, but it's a really good one! I might seek out more books written by this author. :-)