Rural Town Mystery

Ever since their father's untimely death five years before, Wyatt Smith and his inseparably close twin sister, Lucy, have scraped by alone on their family's isolated ranch in Box Elder County, Utah. That is until one morning when, just after spotting one of their steers lying dead in the field, Wyatt is hit in the arm by a hail of gunfire that takes four more cattle with it. The shooter: a fever-eyed, fearsome girl-child with a TEC-9 in her left hand and a worn shotgun in her right.

Recovering from a terrible auto accident just before the turn of the millennium, college dropout and hobbyist computer-game programmer Lucien Swenson becomes the caretaker of a house in Northern Minnesota. Shortly after moving in, Lucien sets out to find a woman with whom he had an affair, who vanished along with money stolen from the bank where they had worked together. His search will take him to Rose of Sharon, a white supremacist church deep in the wilderness, where a cabal of outcasts await the end of the world at a place they call The Land.

In this first book of a three-book series, author Vannetta Chapman brings a fresh twist to the popular Amish fiction genre. She blends the familiar components consumers love in Amish books - faith, community, simplicity, family - with an innovative who-done-it plot that keeps readers guessing right up to the last stitch in the quilt. When two women - one Amish, one English - each with different motives, join forces to organize a successful on-line quilt auction, neither expects nor wants a friendship.

When a local pickleball player is shot in the head while practicing at an abandoned tennis court with his partner-slash-lover, Sheriff Lew Ferris suspects that the bullet was a stray shot from hunters in the area. It’s not until a second player—the first victim’s mistress and pickleball partner—is killed that Sheriff Ferris realizes this is no hunting accident. Someone is hunting people, and it’s up to her to find out who.

Andrea Brafford’s life is nearly perfect. A passionate marine biologist happily married to Craig, the man she loves, she has recently moved into a home commensurate with their success to enjoy a life many others only dream about in one of Houston’s most desirable suburbs. But only a few months later, a trial that dramatically polarizes their town names Craig Brafford as a defendant in the murder of his young wife, shattering the serenity of the peaceful community. Andrea’s life remains a mystery that investigators and public opinion equally fail to solve.

The Pen Pal follows the story of Shiloh Ray, who is a military wife, new mother, and college student. Shiloh also suffers from postpartum depression and overall loneliness from living in rural Alaska, far away from any family or friends. Shiloh then breaks out of her comfort zone and signs up for a pen pal. Weeks pass and she is matched with Penelope Young. This is where her whole life will change. Shiloh and Penelope become the best of friends and write letters every week. Until one day, the letters just stop. Penelope has vanished.

“Sharks are as timid as rabbits,” says a superintendent of the Coast Guard, dismissing the possibility that a shark could be the culprit in an unprecedented fatal attack at the Jersey Shore. It’s July, and swimming in the sea is a popular new pastime, but people up and down the East Coast are shocked and mystified by the swimmer’s death. A prominent surgeon at the shore, Dr. Edwin Halsey is the one who examines the victim, and the only one who believes the perpetrator was a shark—and that it will strike again.

Cecil Younger never thought it would come to this: providing surveillance for a chicken coop being raided by a fowl thief. But things have not exactly been breaking right lately for the Alaskan P.I. The logical thing to do? Take a vacation, of course. Well, it's not exactly a vacation. Younger has been paid to investigate a doctor aboard a luxurious first-class cruise ship up the Alaskan coast. Except passengers are dying. Now Younger finds himself trapped on a ship of fools with a murderer who is leaving a trail of well-to-do passengers in his wake...and leaving evidence pointing an accusing finger at Cecil!

As Sheriff Clayton Burroughs tries to juggle fatherhood, his job, and his recovery from being shot in the confrontation that killed his two criminally inclined brothers last year, he’s doing all he can just to survive. Yet after years of carefully toeing the line between his life in law enforcement and his family, he finally has to make a choice. When a rival organization makes a first foray into Burroughs' territory, leaving a trail of bodies and a whiff of fear in its wake, Clayton is pulled back into the life he so desperately wants to leave behind.

One August evening in 1914, a bushwhacker ends a pleasant outing by blowing a hole in Bill McBride, kidnapping and ravaging Bill's fiancée and wounding Alafair Tucker's daughter, Mary. All Mary knows is that the crime had something to do with the Fourth of July.

Off Grid tells the true story of a young, Swedish-American family who moves to manage a tourist lodge deep within the rainforest. Initially, they seem to have found paradise on earth, but little by little they find themselves pulled into a psychological game, unveiling the ultimate stake: life itself!

It was only a simple, routine assignment for private investigator Sam Blackman and his partner, Nakayla Robertson: follow a history professor, who is suing a spinal surgeon for malpractice, and catch her in physical activities that undercut her claim.

When the truth lies out of sight... West Wales, 1850. When an old tree root is dug up, the remains of a young woman are found. Harry Probert-Lloyd, a young barrister forced home from London by encroaching blindness, has been dreading this discovery. He knows exactly whose bones they are. Working with his clerk, John Davies, Harry is determined to expose the guilty. But the investigation turns up more questions than answers and raises long-buried secrets. The search for the truth will prove costly.

Benni Harper, a curator of the local folk art museum and amateur detective, is the star of this best-selling Agatha Award-winning series. Her talent for finding trouble surfaces in an unlikely place - her own church. While helping her grandmother direct the children’s musical, Benni finds the beaten body of the church handyman. Soon, other mysteries compel her to investigate, despite the warnings from her husband Gabe, the chief of police.

Popular author Susan Wittig Albert and her China Bayles Herbal Mysteries have been hailed for their intelligent plots and quirky characters. China is a member of the Pecan Springs, Texas Picklefest planning committee. When the Pickle Queen disappears just days before the festival, China and her husband P.I. Mike McQuaid relish searching for the clues in this dilly of a case. This exciting whodunit is packed with plenty of pickle jokes, folklore, and homespun recipes.

A teenage girl has gone missing. The whole community has been called upon to join the search. And now an interviewer arrives, intent on capturing the community's unstable stories about life in the weeks and months before Becky Shaw vanished. Each villager has a memory to share or a secret to conceal, a connection to Becky that they are trying to make or break.

Bonny Blankenship's most treasured memories are of idyllic summers spent in Watersend, South Carolina, with her best friend, Lainey McKay. Now in her early 50s, Bonny is desperate to clear her head after a tragic mistake threatens her career as an emergency room doctor, and her marriage crumbles around her. With her troubled teenage daughter, Piper, in tow, she goes back to the beloved river house, where she is soon joined by Lainey and her two young children.

In the third entry to the series, Alaska P.I. Cecil Younger is fresh out of rehab, sporting a fresh head wound, with a child custody case from hell, and with the clients to match. Confrontational and obsessed, Priscilla DeAngelo is sure her ex is conspiring with a state senator to wrest her son from her, and thus, hires Cecil Younger to investigate. This is the first time Younger has to deal with lawyers in flashy suits and overused paper shredders. When she storms off to Juneau for a showdown, Younger's custody case swiftly turns into a murder.

When Jim Qwilleran's friend Polly decides to spend two weeks on vacation with an old girlfriend in Oregon, he finds himself at a loose end—but not for long. A visit from Nick Bamba brings news of a hotbed of mystery. Nick and his wife fear that their new venture, the Domino Inn, won't see out one summer season, let alone a lifetime. A series of fatal accidents on the recently developed Breakfast Island is beginning to deter further visitors, forcing Jim and his cats, Koko and Yum Yum, to scramble for clues.

Siblings Bowman and Summer were raised by their father and two uncles on a remote Colorado ranch. They react differently to his radical teachings and the confusions of adolescence. As young adults, they become estranged but are brought back together in their thirties by the prospect of an illegal and potentially dangerous inheritance from their grandfather. They must ultimately reconcile with each other and their past in order to defeat ruthless criminal forces trying to extort the inheritance.