Skip to main content

Judy Gigstad

Biography

Judy Gigstad


Judy Gigstad is a member of Western Writers of America, Oklahoma Writers Federation and Oklahoma City Writers, Inc. She has had reviews published in an entertainment weekly news magazine, and KANSAS!Persimmon Hill magazine and The Writer's Ink have published her feature stories. An avid reader, Judy learns from the written word. Her true-crime book, FATAL HOLIDAY, was published in 2009.

Judy Gigstad

Reviews by Judy Gigstad

by Catherine Coulter - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

A young wife is forced to confront a decades-old deadly secret when a medium connects her to her dead grandfather. A vicious psychopath wants ultimate revenge against Savich, but first, she wants to destroy what he loves most --- his family. A series of three red boxes are delivered personally to Savich at the Hoover Building, each one containing puzzle pieces of a town only FBI agent Pippa Cinelli recognizes. Savich sends in Cinelli to investigate undercover, but someone knows who she is. Can Savich and Sherlock figure out the red box puzzle and the young wife’s secret before it’s too late?

by Sara Ackerman - Fiction, Historical Fiction

The attack on Pearl Harbor changes everything for Lana Hitchcock. Arriving home on the Big Island too late to reconcile with her estranged father, she is left alone to untangle the clues of his legacy, which lead to a secret property tucked away in the remote rain forest of Kilauea volcano. When the government starts taking away her neighbors as suspected sympathizers, Lana shelters two young German girls, a Japanese fisherman and his son. As tensions escalate, they are forced into hiding --- only to discover the hideaway house is not what they expected. When a detainment camp is established nearby, Lana struggles to keep the secrets of those in her care. Trust could have dangerous consequences.

by Mitch Albom - Memoir, Nonfiction

Chika Jeune was born three days before the devastating earthquake that decimated Haiti in 2010. She spent her infancy in a landscape of extreme poverty, and when her mother died giving birth to a baby brother, Chika was brought to the Have Faith Haiti Orphanage that Mitch Albom operates in Port Au Prince. Brave and self-assured, even as a three-year-old, she delights the other kids and teachers. But at age five, Chika is suddenly diagnosed with something a doctor there says, “No one in Haiti can help you with.” Mitch and Janine bring Chika to Detroit, hopeful that American medical care can soon return her to her homeland. Instead, Chika becomes a permanent part of their household, and their lives, as they embark on a two-year, around-the-world journey to find a cure.

by S. C. Gwynne - History, Nonfiction

The fourth and final year of the Civil War offers one of the most compelling narratives and one of history’s great turning points. Now, Pulitzer Prize finalist S. C. Gwynne breathes new life into the epic battle between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant; the advent of 180,000 black soldiers in the Union army; William Tecumseh Sherman’s March to the Sea; the rise of Clara Barton; the election of 1864 (which Lincoln nearly lost); the wild and violent guerrilla war in Missouri; and the dramatic final events of the war, including Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and the murder of Abraham Lincoln.

by Stuart Woods - Adventure, Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Stone Barrington is getting some much-needed rest and relaxation in the Florida sun when trouble falls from the sky --- literally. Intrigued by the suspicious circumstances surrounding this event, Stone joins forces with a sharp-witted and alluring local detective to investigate. But they run into a problem: the evidence keeps disappearing. From the laid-back Key West shores to the bustling Manhattan streets, Stone sets out to connect the dots between the crimes that seem to follow him wherever he travels. His investigations only lead to more questions, and shocking connections between old and new acquaintances. But as Stone must quickly learn, answers --- and enemies --- are often hiding in plain sight.

by Salvatore Scibona - Fiction

A small boy speaking an unknown language is abandoned by his father at an international airport, with only the clothes on his back and a handful of money jammed in the pocket of his coat. So begins THE VOLUNTEER. But in order to understand this heartbreaking and indefensible decision, the story must return to the moment, decades earlier, when a young man named Vollie Frade, almost on a whim, enlists in the United States Marine Corps to fight in Vietnam. Breaking definitively from his rural Iowan parents, Vollie puts in motion an unimaginable chain of events, which sees him go to work for insidious people with intentions he cannot yet grasp.

by Julia Kelly - Fiction, Historical Fiction

It’s easier for Cara Hargraves to bury herself in the past than to confront the present, which is why working for a gruff but brilliant antiques dealer is perfect. While clearing out an estate, she pries open an old tin that holds the relics of a lost relationship: an unfinished diary from World War II and a photo of a young woman in uniform. Captivated by the hauntingly beautiful diary, Cara begins her search for the author, never guessing that it might reveal her own family’s wartime secrets.

by W. E. B. Griffin and William E. Butterworth IV - Adventure, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Thriller, Suspense, Thriller

A month ago, special agent James Cronley Jr. managed to capture two notorious Nazi war criminals, but not without leaving some dead bodies and outraged Austrian police in his wake. However, somebody --- Odessa, the NKGB, the Hungarian Secret Police? --- has broken the criminals out of jail, and he must track them down again. There's more to it than that, though. Evidence has surfaced that in the war's last gasps, Heinrich Himmler had stashed away a fortune to build a secret religion, dedicated both to Himmler and to creating the Fourth Reich. That money is still out there in the hands of Odessa, and that infamous organization seems to have acquired a surprising --- and troubling --- ally.

by Iris Johansen - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

With his dying breath, Carl Venable, head of the CIA task force on terrorism and Jude Brandon’s final link to terrorist ringleader Max Huber, gives Brandon a mandate: keep his daughter Rachel safe --- at all costs. But Rachel Venable has a shocking, twisted past of her own, one that comes rushing back after her medical clinic abroad is attacked by Huber --- the same man who murdered her father and kept her imprisoned for months. Now, along with agent Catherine Ling, Rachel’s longtime ally and fierce protector, Brandon is determined to keep Rachel out of danger. As he and Rachel race against the clock to bring Huber down before he can orchestrate a disaster that will lay waste to half the country, they also fight a growing attraction to each other --- one that could prove just as dangerous as Huber himself.

by Catherine Coulter - Fiction, Suspense, Thriller

Chief Ty Christie of Willicott, Maryland, witnesses a murder at dawn from the deck of her cottage on Lake Massey. When dragging the lake, not only do the divers find the murder victim, they also discover dozens of bones. Even more shocking is the identification of a unique belt buckle found among the bones. Working together with Chief Christie, Savich and Sherlock soon discover a frightening connection between the bones and the escaped psychopath.