She's Not There


Marla Madison - 2011
    . . Is the rising number of abused women who've gone missing a statistical anomaly? Or is a serial killer targeting this vulnerable group of women? When the Milwaukee Police Department refuses to investigate because no bodies have been discovered, Lisa Rayburn, the clinical psychologist who discovers the anomaly, is drawn into an investigation to discover the cause after one of her own clients goes missing. She finds herself forming an unlikely alliance with a former policewoman turned security consultant, TJ Peacock, and the husbands of two of the missing women who may themselves be murderers. When TJ is attacked, and a woman looking remarkably like Lisa is found murdered, they know . . . someone is willing to kill to protect his secret. Can they reveal the killer before he gets to them?

Night at Key West


Craig A. Hart - 2018
    Hemingway. Murder When private investigator Simon Wolfe is hired to follow his friend’s wife under suspicion of adultery, he could never have guessed it would lead him into a friendship with the world’s leading writer, Ernest Hemingway. Nor could he have predicted the strange and disturbing twists the investigation would take. The case accelerates quickly when the wife is found murdered in a Key West hotel and discovered to have a secret life. But that revelation is downright boring as the plot thickens with increasingly bizarre revelations, capped off with a macabre ending no one saw coming. Based on actual events, Night at Key West is a wild ride into history and intrigue, populated by many true-to-life characters and places.

The Darkest Thread


Jen Blood - 2016
    When Jack realizes the case shares haunting similarities with the murders of the missing girls’ aunts ten years before, it becomes clear that he and Jamie are dealing with much more than two girls who simply wandered off the beaten path.

Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes


Denise Grover Swank - 2011
    She’s had plenty of visions, usually boring ones like someone’s toilet’s overflowed, but she’s never seen one of herself before. When her overbearing momma winds up murdered on her sofa instead, two things are certain: There isn't enough hydrogen peroxide in the state of Arkansas to get that stain out, and Rose is the prime suspect.Rose realizes she’s wasted twenty-four years of living and makes a list on the back of a Wal-Mart receipt: twenty-eight things she wants to accomplish before her vision comes true. She’s well on her way with the help of her next door neighbor Joe, who has no trouble teaching Rose the rules of drinking, but won’t help with number fifteen-- do more with a man. Joe’s new to town, but it doesn’t take a vision for Rose to realize he’s got plenty of secrets of his own.Somebody thinks Rose has something they want and they’ll do anything to get it. Her house is broken into, someone else she knows is murdered, and suddenly, dying a virgin in the Fenton County jail isn’t her biggest worry after all.

The Watcher


Jo Robertson - 2011
    Working with a single-minded tenacity, she sets out to prove it.Deputy Sheriff Ben Slater hides his personal pain behind the job, but Kate's arrival in his county knocks his world on its axis. He wants to believe her wild theory, but the idea of a serial killer with the kind of pathology she proposes is too bizarre.Together they work to find a killer whose roots began in a small town in Bigler County, but whose violence spread across the nation. A Janus-like killer, more monster than man, he fixates on Kate. The killer wants nothing more than to kill the "purple-eyed girl again."

Murder On Perrys Island


J. Kevin Earp - 2017
    The boy was left a paraplegic. Marcus suffered PTSD and could no longer bring himself to carry a gun. Forced to resign the job he loved, Marcus returned to his historic family home on Perrys Island to try to put his life back together. Marcus had grown up there listening to the police chief’s stories of crime solving in the city. The chief’s stories inspired Marcus to leave the island and become the youngest detective in PD’s history. Marcus’s childhood best friend had been Jenny Gibbons, the Chief’s daughter, who was now an Ohio Wildlife Officer assigned to the island’s state park. She is determined to help Marcus face his pain and to reestablish their relationship. As they return home from an evening out, Jenny learns that the wife of an island businessman has been brutally murdered. With Chief Gibbons away for the night, a desperate Jenny turns to Marcus to use his experience to preserve the crime scene. Marcus refuses at first, unwilling to have anything to do with police work that might force him to relive recent events. Finally, he gives in to her pleas and agrees to supervise the crime scene just until the Chief can take over. Despite himself, Marcus is drawn deeper into the investigation. When a witness identifies a youth camp chaperone as the last person to be with the victim before her death, Marcus believes the man’s story of innocence. Marcus is proven correct when the elderly housekeeper who helped raise him is left for dead in his own house and the historic mansion set on fire. The attack provides a personal aspect to the case that drives him to narrow down the suspects. Marcus’s single-minded pursuit of the killer while fighting his personal demons might cost him his own life!

The Finger Trap


Johnny Worthen - 2015
    He’s had 12 years to prepare for his divorce and didn’t. He had his entire life to choose a career and hasn’t. Now time’s up, and he’s in a world of trouble. But all of that changes when Tony takes a first date to a drunken party and ends with him facing prison for the murder of a girl he hardly knew. To save himself, wise-cracking Tony must discover who the mysterious girl was, what she was involved in, and what the hell she saw in him in the first place.

Our Husband


Stephanie Bond - 2000
    But how even?Fate has just thrown a curveball at the women in Raymond Carmichael's life-- all three of them. When they meet at his hospital bed, they discover they're all married to the same man. And when Raymond suddenly dies, the police suspect that one of these spunky ladies has commited murder...The Socialite-- Blonde, post-menopausal, and mad as hell, Beatrix always suspected Raymond married her for her daddy's money...twenty-one years ago.The Doctor-- a smart, small-town family physician, thirty-five-year-old Nathalie had ironically insisted on only one thing from her husband of seven years...absolute honesty.The Stripper-- Twenty-one and an exotic dancer, Ruby would have chalked up her brief marriage to a learning experience...if she hadn't been pregnant.Now they're three women left with a man's betrayal-- and worse, each other. But one thing they each insist-- they didn't kill Raymond. What can they do? Something outrageous and probably impossible: stick together to catch a murderer...A Selection of the Doubleday Book Club

Skeletons in the Closet


Jennifer L. Hart - 2008
    As the wife of retired Navy SEAL, and the adoptive mother of two little hellions, Maggie is constantly looking for ways to improve her family’s financial situation. She accepts a cleaning position for her new neighbors (who redefine the term ‘eccentric’), never imagining she will end up as the sole alibi for a man with a fascination for medieval torture devices when he is brought up on murder charges.While Maggie struggles to prove the man’s innocence, her deadbeat brother arrives, determined to sell Maggie and Neil on his next great scheme and to mooch with a vengeance. If that isn’t bad enough, her in-laws, (the cut-throat corporate attorneys) descend on the house, armed with disapproval and condemnation, for the family’s annual Thanksgiving celebration.As the police investigation intensifies, Maggie searches for the killer among the upper echelon of Hudson, Massachusetts in the only way she can— by scrubbing their thrones.Of the porcelain variety, that is…

Finlay Donovan Is Killing It


Elle Cosimano - 2021
    A stressed-out single mom of two and struggling novelist, Finlay’s life is in chaos: The new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written; her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her; and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an incident with scissors.When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over lunch, she’s mistaken for a contract killer and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet. She soon discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart, as she becomes tangled in a real-life murder investigation.Fast-paced, deliciously witty, and wholeheartedly authentic in depicting the frustrations and triumphs of motherhood in all its messiness, hilarity, and heartfelt moments, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It is the first in a brilliant new series from award-winning Elle Cosimano.

Painting the Lake


Jody Wenner - 2016
    George has always plunged into the season with a sense of contentment, but as the snow begins to fly he hits a patch of icy luck. Newly retired, he heads up north to escape his troubles and do some painting. There he meets a young woman who begins pursuing him for more than his art. When she takes him on a wild ride, George isn't surprised to find Detective Nancy Simmons at his cabin door. For Nancy, winter comes with a much harsher reality. She feels the bite as she investigates who dumped a young woman's body in Lake Superior's frigid waters. Maybe George isn't as innocent as he seems.

Harmless


Ernie Lindsey - 2013
    When the would-be love of his life turns up dead, all signs point to Steve.Once the detectives hit a dead end in their investigation and he becomes the prime suspect, Steve is left with only a reluctant police officer and a crooked private investigator to help him prove his innocence. Could a kindhearted homeless woman and a cryptic note in Kerry's diary provide the key to the mystery?

Playing With Poison


Cindy Blackburn - 2012
    But when a body lands on her couch, and the cute cop in her kitchen accuses her of murder, even Jessie isn't sure what will happen next. Playing With Poison is a cozy mystery with a lot of humor, a little romance, and far too much champagne.

Calm and Bright in Dog Town


Sandy Rideout - 2018
    A frantic search for the perfect, furry gift. Will a Dog Town Christmas miracle be enough to heal the rift?Flynn doesn’t want a new dog. When her beloved shepherd, Majesty, passed away she vowed never again. Maj was the dog of Flynn’s heart and the muse to her art. Six months later, she’s still shaken and her cartooning career is floundering.Husband Denver longs for a new canine companion, especially since Majesty only had eyes for Flynn. More than anything, however, he wants to see his grieving wife happy again.A Christmas Eve spat sends Flynn on an urgent mission to surprise Denver with a new dog. How hard could it be to find a cuddly four-legged gift in just a few hours? It is Dog Town, after all.Friends old and new join Flynn’s frantic and funny search for Denver’s ideal dog. Can the magic of Christmas deliver a minor miracle? Is there a tiny space left in Flynn’s heart for just the right pooch?

A Scone to Die For


H.Y. Hanna - 2016
     Armed with her insider knowledge of the University and with the help of four nosy old ladies from the village (not to mention a cheeky little tabby cat named Muesli), Gemma sets out to solve the mystery—all while dealing with her matchmaking mother and the return of her old college love, Devlin O’Connor, now a dashing CID detective. But with the body count rising and her business going bust, can Gemma find the killer before things turn to custard? (**Traditional English scone recipe included)