Poisoned Pen Press
When a county employee is found shot to death in sun-drenched daylight while sitting in his county road grader, Undersheriff Bill Gastner is faced with puzzling questions. The simplest explanation—that an errant bullet from a careless target shooter's rifle blew out Larry Zipoli's brains—is soon discarded as inconsistencies surface. The fatal bullet shows no rifling marks, and investigation shows that the shooter walked directly toward
...2019 recipient of the Derrick Murdoch award from the Crime Writers of Canada
Trouble is brewing in the small, bucolic mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia. An American who came to Trafalgar as a Vietnam War draft dodger has left land and money to the town. But there's a catch. The money must be used to build a garden to honor draft dodgers. This bequest has torn the close-knit, peaceful town apart. Then the body of a leading
...3) Make Believe
"A vivid, atmospheric mystery about 1951 Hollywood...this is a winner." —David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author
In June 1951, Edna Ferber heads to Hollywood to support her friend Max Jeffries who has found himself blacklisted after the McCarthy hearings in Washington rattled Hollywood with allegations of Communist-leaning sympathies. Edna first met Max when he worked on the 1927 Broadway production of Show Boat,
...4) Chained
"Brady's years of experience as a veterinarian supply plenty of amusing stories and helpful hints for animal owners while her complicated heroine investigates a tricky case." —Kirkus Reviews
Everyone in the charming Hudson Valley town of Oak Falls expected Flynn Keegan, their handsome blond "Golden Boy" to make it big in Hollywood. So when veterinarian Kate Turner identifies a bone dug up by one of her dog patients as human,
...Third generation Kanab residents Rolly and Abigail Rogers come from a long line of dedicated pot hunters who scour the desert southwest in search of valuable antiquities. When the Utah couple fails to return from a weekend skeleton picnic, (pot hunting trip) along the desolate Arizona Strip, local Sheriff Charley Sutter turns to BLM Law Enforcement Ranger J.D. Books for help.
When Books searches the missing couple's home for clues about their
...One of the beautiful Le sisters is dead. Hartford, Connecticut's small Vietnamese community is stunned. Mary Le Vu, wife of a poor grocery-store owner, is gunned down in a drive-by. Her twin sister insists dutiful Mary "wouldn't be caught dead" in that drug-infested zone. The police rule it an unlucky accident. Skeptics hire private eye Rick Van Lam to get to the truth. Amerasian Rick—his father an unknown US soldier—is one of the Bui Doi,
...7) Desert Rage
Ferociously ambitious U.S. Senatorial candidate Juliana Thorsson has been keeping a secret.
The horrific slaughter of a prominent doctor, his wife, and their ten-year-old son brings Thorsson to Private Investigator Lena Jones. The slain family's 14-year-old, Alison, has confessed to the murders. Thorsson wants to hire Lena to discover if Alison is telling the truth, but Lena demands to know what a rising political star wants with a girl she's
...8) Jump
"Fast-paced and funny, this is a perfectly blended cocktail of escapism."—Publishers Weekly
When the most hated landlord in San Francisco takes a jump off the roof of his own building, it isn't hard to find suspects. The police want to call it a suicide, since both the Mayor and press are complaining about the dismal closure rate for homicide investigations.
But ex-cop Sam McGowan knows it was murder. He also knows that
...9) Desert Run
Things are never easy for Scottsdale private eye Lena Jones. Her partner in Desert Investigations is leaving for a wife and a job at Southwest MicroSystems. Her old captain at the Scottsdale PD is moving home to Brooklyn. Now she's doing security for Warren Quinn, director of a documentary being shot at Papago Park about the German POW camp and the "great escape" of Christmas Eve, 1944, when some prisoners tunneled out and fled. And one surviving
...10) Negative Image
2019 recipient of the Derrick Murdoch award from the Crime Writers of Canada
As the mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia, shakes off a long hard winter, famous photographer Rudolph Steiner arrives to do a feature on mountain tourism. Steiner is accompanied by his assistant and his sexy young wife, but he has another reason for the visit: to re-connect with the woman who left him 25 years ago to marry another man. That woman
...When zookeeper Theodora "Teddy" Bentley fishes the body of Koala Kate out of Gunn Landing Harbor, she discovers that her fellow zookeeper didn't drown; she was strangled. The clues to Kate's killer implicate other animal keepers at Gunn Zoo, including Outback Bill, marsupial keeper and Kate's Aussie ex-boyfriend; and Robin Chase, the big cat keeper who's got it in for Teddy. Also displaying suspicious behavior are several "liveaboarders" at the
...12) Drive
Much later, as he sat with his back against an inside wall of a Motel 6 just north of Phoenix, watching the pool of blood lap toward him, Driver would wonder whether he had made a terrible mistake. Later still, of course, there'd be no doubt. But for now Driver is, as they say, in the moment. And the moment includes this blood lapping toward him, the pressure of dawn's late light at windows and door, traffic sounds from the interstate nearby, the
...2009 Winner of the Arizona Book Award for Mystery/Suspense
If Lucy, the pregnant Giant Anteater from Belize, didn't kill the man found dead in her enclosure at California's Gunn Zoo, who did? Zookeeper Teddy Bentley must find the real murderer before her furry friend is shipped off to another zoo in disgrace.
Then another human bites the dust, the monkeys riot, and the wolves go nuts. Things get worse when the snooty folks at
...2019 recipient of the Derrick Murdoch award from the Crime Writers of Canada
What would it be like to return to your hometown after twenty-five years in prison for a crime you have maintained you did not commit? And why would you return?
Walter Desmond is back in Trafalgar, British Columbia, having been officially exonerated when new evidence showed corruption at worst, incompetence at best, by the Trafalgar City Police
...15) Escape Artist
"Who would have thought that, of all the real-life characters to have a second life as detectives, Edna Ferber, now largely forgotten as a writer, would emerge as one of the best?" —Booklist STARRED review
In 1904, Edna Ferber is a 19-year-old girl reporter for the Appleton, Wisconsin, Crescent, an occupation her family considers scandalous for a proper young girl. By chance, she interviews Harry Houdini, in town visiting
...16) Night Terrors
"Authentic and fast-paced, Night Terrors is a thrilling plunge into the mind of an obsessed killer. This is something you don't want to miss!" —Stephen Jay Schwartz, LA Times bestselling author of Boulevard and Beat
Retired FBI profiler Lyle Barnes is falling apart mentally. Psychologist and trauma expert Daniel Rinaldi thinks he can help Barnes through his terrible night visions. Barnes, however, is also
...17) Driven
"The perfect piece of noir fiction." —New York Times Book Review
"Terse, brutal, poetic, perfectly wrought." —Publishers Weekly STARRED review
At the end of Drive, Driver has killed Bernie Rose, "the only one he ever mourned," ending his campaign against those who double-crossed him. Driven tells how that young man, done with killing, becomes the one who goes down "at 3 a.m. on a clear,
...California zookeeper Theodora Bentley travels to Iceland to pick up an orphaned polar bear cub destined for the Gunn Zoo's newly installed Northern Climes exhibit. The trip is intended to be a combination of work and play. But on day two, while horseback riding near a picturesque seaside village, Teddy discovers a man lying atop a puffin burrow, shot through the head.
The victim is identified as American birdwatcher Simon Parr, winner of
...19) Deadly Descent
Layers of deadly intrigue bind generations of families in historian Lottie Albright's Western Kansas community. When false accusations threaten senatorial candidate Brian Hadley's political career, secrets whispered to Lottie as editor of the county history books spur a personal search for his aunt's murderer.
Ignoring warnings from her twin, clinical psychologist Josie Albright, Lottie dons a badge to gain access to information. She delves
...Kanab, Utah is bitterly divided by the politics of land management. When environmentalist David Greenbriar is found dead, County Sheriff, Charley Sutter, seeks help from newly appointed Law Enforcement Ranger, J. D. Books. Books discovers that the victim's widow has been having an affair with Lance Clayburn. Physical evidence links Clayburn to the killing. Books connects Greenbriar's murder to a corrupt Kane County Sheriff's deputy and a Las Vegas
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