Southern Fiction Thrillers

When it comes to solving cold cases, nothing is ever cut and dried…. Quilter Beatrice Coleman is enjoying the sleepy peace of a tranquil afternoon…until it’s interrupted by her friend, Miss Sissy. The elderly lady is making wild claims about narrowly escaping an intruder. And intruders are unusual in tiny Dappled Hills.

Mae West, a far cry from the Hollywood actress, has been thrown for a loop. Her plush lifestyle in the big city of New York comes to a screeching halt after the FBI raids her mansion and arrests her husband, Paul West, for a Ponzi scheme that rips people out of millions of dollars. Mae finds herself homeless, friendless, and penniless. All hope isn't lost... the only thing Mae got to keep that the government didn't seize is a tourist camp ground, Happy Trails, in Normal, Kentucky.

They're out there, under the salt: the bodies of German seamen who used to lie in wait at the mouth of the Mississippi for unescorted American tankers sailing from the oil refineries of Baton Rouge out into the Gulf of Mexico. As a child, Dave Robicheaux had been haunted by the sailors' images. Years later, Robicheaux, a detective with the New Iberia sheriff's office, finds himself and his family at serious risk, stalked for his knowledge of a watery burial ground by a mysterious man.

Three full-length novels. Several hours of listening. Sweet Southern Magic includes the first three books in the Sweet Tea Witch Mysteries series: Southern Magic, Southern Spells, and Southern Myths.

It’s a stormy summer day when Ottawa coroner Dr. Cate Spencer is called to the scene of an alleged suicide. Inside a narrow vault in the Dominion Archives’ nitrate film storage facility—kept separate from the rest of the collection due to its dangerous combustibility—officers pressure her to rule the death a suicide. When parts of the scene don’t add up and a deliberately set spark threatens her life, she suspects that this death might be a murder.

With a four-legged companion and no food in the pantry, Grant Walton faces an uphill battle. His wife is still missing; downtown is a smoldering crater; and radiation is killing more people every day. Torn between searching for his wife and gearing up for what's sure to come, Grant is forced to put more than his morals to the test. Leah Walton escaped a nuclear bomb that flattened her hospital and vaporized her friends. Now she's racing to find her husband miles away. She'll have to rely on the kindness of strangers to survive and hope none of them kill her in the process.

Patricia Anne and Mary Alice are “60-something” twin sisters who, after years of sibling rivalry, have discovered a mutual interest in folk art. However, Patricia Anne never dreamed that attending a gallery opening would land them in the middle of a murder investigation. Patricia Anne, a retired school teacher, is pleasantly surprised to see that Claire, a former student, is in charge of the show.

When a young woman dies in a late-night restaurant fire, the owner, Bobby Carter, is charged with arson and murder. The evidence is stacked against him, but something doesn’t add up. And his only chance for justice rests on the shoulders of small-town lawyer Leland Munroe… Leland is convinced someone’s out to frame his client. But as the trial heats up, he realizes that he's facing more than just a legal battle.

In her small hometown, librarian Ruth Cornier has always felt like an outsider, even as her beloved father rains fire-and-brimstone warnings from the pulpit at Holy Fire Baptist. Unfortunately for Ruth, the only things the townspeople fear more than the God and the Devil are the myths that haunt the area, like the story of the Low Man, a vampiric figure said to steal into sinners' bedrooms and kill them on moonless nights. When a skull is found deep in the swamp next to mysterious carved symbols, Bottom Springs is thrown into uproar.

For the Temple women, the winds of change are blowing. And if they're not careful, it could sweep them all away. After rising from Temple servant to tea shop owner, Violet finally feels in charge of her destiny. While learning Gullah folk magic from her aging grandmother, she worries much of her cultural heritage will be lost to the grave. Is there enough time for Old Sally to pass down all her special wisdom? Bride-to-be Queenie has never felt younger at heart.

When Dr. Alala Diakos, a visiting professor of Greek literature, comes to teach at Ole Miss in Oxford, Mississippi, it doesn't take long for controversy to follow. With her fervent feminist ideals and revolutionary leanings, she quickly earns the admiration of many - and the ire of others. During a speech in the park, in which Alala tries to organize the women of Zinnia to demand equal pay, the crowd gets unruly, with men heckling the professor. And then PI Sarah Booth Delaney finds a sniper rifle and scope in the bushes....

After years of self-exile, Jacinda “Jac” Brodie is back in Brook Haven, South Carolina. But the small cliffside town no longer feels like home. Jac hasn’t been there since the beloved chief of police fell to his death—and all the whispers said she was to blame. That chief was Jac’s father. Racked with guilt, Jac left town with no plans to return. But when her granddad lands in the hospital, she rushes back to her family, bracing herself to confront the past.

Ever since their on-again, off-again college romance, Erin hasn’t been able to set a single boundary with charismatic but reckless Silas, who has been chasing the next big high since graduation. When he texts her to spring him out of rehab, she knows enough is enough. She is ready to start a career, make new friends, and meet a great guy—even if that means cutting Silas off. But when Silas turns up dead from an overdose, Erin’s world falls apart.

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.

Charli Goodwin doesn't expect her homecoming to go without a hitch - after all, she skipped town, leaving her fiance and family without a clue as to where she was going or why. On her first night back, Charli discovers the body of her crazy great-uncle and suddenly finds herself at the center of a mystery that threatens the very foundations of Honeysuckle Hollow and the safety of every paranormal citizen in it - starting with Charli herself. With the clock ticking, will Charli's special magical talents be enough to save not only the town, but also her own life?

It’s homecoming weekend in Sugarland, Tennessee, and ghost hunter Verity Long is tickled to see so many souls - living and dead - back in town to celebrate. But not all reunions are happy ones, and when Verity stumbles upon a dead body by the football field, it appears someone has already evened the score. With her long-lost mother in tow and her ghostly sidekick Frankie showing her startling glimpses of a time long past, Verity untangles the secrets and scandal behind her town’s favorite traditions. Even more shocking? The murderer is tracking her.

When former Klansman and piney-woods outcast Aaron Crown is finally imprisoned for a decades-old murder, it is to Detective Dave Robicheaux that he proclaims his innocence loudest. Crown seems to be a lightning rod for every kind of trouble that the state of Louisiana can unearth. A documentary film writer seeking to prove Crown's innocence is found murdered; a button man for the New Orleans mob accuses Robicheaux of taking a pay-off to ignore Crown.

But it is when Buford LaRose -- scion of an old Southern family and author of a book on the Crown case -- is elected governor that Dave Robicheaux's involvement with Aaron Crown deepens to a level he can barely fathom. And it is Buford's social-climbing wife, Karyn, with whom Robicheaux had an affair years before, who proves to be his most poisonous adversary.

Filled with thrilling adventure, lightning-paced action, and street smart realism, Cadillac Jukebox is a brilliant addition to Burke's standout Dave Robicheaux series.

Twenty-two years ago, Claire Campbell’s older sister, Natalie, disappeared on her eighteenth birthday. Days later, her blood was found in a car, a man was arrested, and the case was swiftly closed. In the decades since, Claire has attempted to forget her traumatic past by moving to the city and climbing the ranks as an investigative journalist... until an unexpected call from her father forces her to come back home and face it all anew.

For years Helen Knightly has given her life to others - to her haunted mother, to her enigmatic father, to her husband, and grown children. When she finally crosses a terrible boundary, her life comes rushing in at her in a way she never could have imagined. Unfolding over the next 24 hours, this searing, fast-paced audiobook explores the complex ties between mothers and daughters, wives and lovers, the meaning of devotion, and the line between love and hate.

It’s a hot and sticky Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Glory has settled into her usual after-church routine, meeting gamblers at the local coffee shop, where she works as a small-time bookie. Sitting at her corner table, Glory hears that her best friend—a nun beloved by the community—has been found dead in her apartment. When the police declare the mysterious death a suicide, Glory is convinced that there must be more to the story and, with her reluctant daughter in tow, launches a shadow investigation in a town of oil tycoons, church gossips, and a rumored voodoo priestess.