The Case of the Not-So-Fair Trader


Jim Stevens - 2010
    He must prove murder and stop payment of the twelve-million-dollar Richmond Insurance policy. Nothing makes sense. Crime scene is a mess. There is no money trail. There are too many motives from too many suspects who have too many alibis. Worst of all Sherlock's bad back is acting up, his ex-wife wants more money and the murder investigation is putting a serious dent in his parenting schedule of his two daughters. Richard Sherlock hates his job, and may be a reluctant dick, but he is better at finding the WHO in WHODUNIT than anyone else.

The Amber Trail


M.J. Kelly - 2015
    But after a tragic accident, he is unnerved by his dad’s dying words. Without his father, it falls to Dig and his belligerent brother Jake to put aside their differences and get the successful family brewery running again—or their mother will be forced into bankruptcy and lose the family home.The Buckley Brewery makes Australia’s most popular craft beer—but there’s a catch. The recipe is based on a unique hop sourced from a secretive supplier in India. And when the supplier hears of Dig’s father’s death they shut down deliveries and threaten to silence the family.Why is the mysterious group acting so aggressively? Was there a hidden side to their father’s business? Is there another reason the beer is so popular?Dig is forced to travel to India to track the supplier down. He embarks on a challenging journey across the Indian countryside, unravelling a complicated history as he fights for his family and comes to terms with his father’s death.

Shallow Waters


Kay Jennings - 2019
    A new, handsome police chief with his own shadowy past. The last thing Port Stirling Chief of Police Matt Horning needed on day one of his new job was for the mayor’s daughter to turn up dead - stabbed to death - in a mysterious tunnel on a remote Oregon beach. Horning, escaping professional troubles in Texas, accepts the vacant job in Port Stirling, Oregon, looking for a fresh start in what he thought would be a peaceful coastal town where the far west meets the mighty Pacific Ocean. Nothing much ever happens here…or does it? The crime doesn't make any sense, and there is no apparent motive for the murder of little Emily Bushnell. She wasn't sexually assaulted, her family is respected in the small community where everyone knows everyone, and there doesn't appear to be a reason for her death. Human bite marks on Emily's body discovered by the medical examiner during the autopsy add an even stranger twist to the puzzling homicide. With only a ragtag county crime team to assist him, Horning must match wits with a diabolical killer, the likes of which this quiet village has never seen. An aggressive county district attorney with political ambitions, who doesn’t fancy relinquishing the limelight to the new chief of police, makes Horning's job even more difficult. Will Matt be allowed a new beginning in his life, both personally and professionally. or will the forces in play be too many obstacles to overcome? For one week in the wild and stormy month of January, Horning calls on all of his detective skills to investigate the unlikely murder. As soon as he starts asking questions, Port Stirling begins to unveil its dark underbelly amid stunning revelations. From the 300-foot bluffs ringing the white-sand pristine beach, to the posh golf resort at odds with the blue-collar town, Chief Horning and his new team work at break-neck speed to uncover the facts. Without a murder weapon and very little physical evidence, will Matt and his new colleagues find the killer before he – or she – strikes again? Will a psychopath ruin Matt Horning’s new life before he can even start it? In this shocking story set in a beach town not unlike where she grew up, native Oregonian Kay Jennings introduces a thrilling new mystery series set alongside Oregon’s rugged Pacific coast. Shallow Waters combines an intriguing police procedural with a spooky murder mystery, in a remote part of southwest Oregon you aren't likely to forget.

Origin Story


James Beltz - 2017
    But make no mistake, he's tired of being pushed around. Life ambushed him years ago and left him bitter and broken. Now, when the same type of evil threatens him once more, it finds him more prepared. This time, he is just as lethal as the enemy that pursues him.Prepare yourself for a thriller that will forbid you to put it down. It is an Action / Thriller / Adventure novel that comes complete with heroic deeds, a bit of humor, a dash of romance, a few very unexpected twists, and an ending that may make you hurl something violently across the room.

August Origins


Alan Lee - 2017
    Rather than join the force, he opens his own P.I. shop and hires out to local attorneys--until Sheriff Stackhouse comes calling, a stunner in designer khakis. Trouble has arrived, she explains, in the form of a gang general from the West Coach. He's galvanizing the drug trade using vicious strong-arm tactics, and the police can't identify him.The Sheriff begs Mackenzie to take a temporary assignment teaching at an inner city school, to infiltrate the general's operative ranks inside, identify the crime boss, and bring him down. It's an impossible task; he'd be a bull in a china shop. He could lose his license and people might get hurt. But if anyone can pull it off...

The Teller


Jonathan Stone - 2012
    When a lonely old man who deposits money at her bank every week gets hit and killed by a delivery truck, Elaine—a good Irish girl from Queens—thinks she’s found the answer to her problems. She’ll just transfer $1 million from the dead man’s account into hers.Except that the lonely old man may not have been who he seemed. And when you take $1 million that isn’t yours, it can cost you…way more.Acclaimed author Jonathan Stone’s pulse-pounding thriller takes readers from the darkest corners of New York’s financial empire into a shadowy hierarchy of wealth and power. The Teller follows the money—and takes readers along for the wild ride.

Murder By Numbers


R.S. Vaisbort - 2014
    Vaisbort. Murder by Numbers is a fun and fast-paced detective novel set in boom-to-bust Silicon Valley circa 2001, where multi-millionaires cling desperately to their fortunes, CEOs pray that their startups stay funded, and techies hope to hold onto their jobs. Opportunities for financial gain – both legal and illegal – remain a high stakes game. And no one knows this better than Kaitlin Hall, a beautiful and brilliant rookie detective in the High Tech Crimes Detail of the San Jose Police Department. Kaitlin’s unauthorized investigation of the fatal car crash of a young systems administrator quickly leads newbie Detective Hall into dangerous, uncharted territory. Enlisting the help of her hacker friend and confidant, Slim Yamazaki, Kaitlin digs deep into the networks of technology companies developing the building blocks of the world’s most sophisticated systems that protect corporate data and, more importantly, U.S. security interests. As Detective Hall uses her keen intellect and initiative to solve a growing web of multiple murders, she navigates the politics of law enforcement and the egos of venture capitalists, tech moguls, and former lovers to make stunning discoveries. With lives at stake, her assumptions about human nature and her abilities as a detective will be tested to the fullest. With high-tech suspense, engaging characters, and an entertaining dose of humor, author R.S. Vaisbort takes you on a thrilling ride through Silicon Valley at the dawn of the 21st century.

Boomerang


Alan L. Hutcheson - 2009
    The only way he can get the money to rescue her is to accept an assignment from the AABC, a not nearly official branch of the United States intelligence community. He is partnered with Jerry Kwiatkowski, master of the Hammond B-3 organ and chronic flatulence sufferer, to steal a boomerang containing secrets that should have died with J. Edgar Hoover over thirty years ago. It would be a simple job if only they knew what they were doing. And if a crossbow wielding assassin, two unemployed Australian women, The Director of Central Intelligence and a clothing optional former onion festival queen were not also hot on the boomerang's trail.

Cabs, Cakes, and Corpses


Jennifer Joy
    Not a murder. Jessica James is a twenty-three-year-old, work-at-home computer whiz content in her comfort zone … until her family conspires to send her to the jungles of Ecuador for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. When her taxi driver takes off with her bag in the trunk, her grand adventure begins. When that same taxi driver is found murdered minutes later, Jessica is forced into one catastrophe after another as she seeks to find the truth … and get her stuff back. With the help of the two most mischievous sisters old enough to know better, Jessica will either catch a murderer or end up in jail. But friendship and discovery come at a cost. Can Jessica’s newfound bravery help her survive her South American experience as she gets closer to the murderer? Or will this grand adventure be her last? *Recipes included

Justification for Murder


Elin Barnes - 2013
    He’s handed a hit-and-run that quickly reveals itself as a brazen attempted murder—exactly the kind of case he was trying to avoid. Why would anyone want Saffron Meadows dead? An unexpected desire to protect her forces Lynch to stick with the case. Meanwhile, seasoned Detective Erik Sorensen and his intern work a string of bizarre suicides with too much in common to be a mere coincidence. What could drive these people to carve their own flesh out? As mysterious murders and suspicious suicides stack up in Silicon Valley, Lynch and his colleagues must connect the dots between the cases before more people die and panic spreads. Could all this be part of a cover-up? Is this just a hit man crossing names off of a list, or has one Valley startup gone too far?Could there ever be a justification for murder?

Barking up the Wrong Bakery


Stella St. Claire - 2017
    She’s got a gorgeous boyfriend who loves her, a supportive sister to lean on, and a dog walking business that’s briskly barking away. But just as she’s getting comfortable her sister suddenly wants to buy an entire brownstone with her and her boyfriend looks like he’s going to pop the question at every opportunity. Changing the status quo has always been disastrous for Olivia and now everything is changing at once… What Olivia needs is a distraction and she’s found one in stumbling upon Yvette Dunn dead in her coffee foodtruck—drowned in a vat of fresh coffee. Olivia starts out as an unlucky bystander to the crime, but she’s forced to dig in deeper when it looks like her sister could be involved in Yvette’s death. Olivia is running out of time in regards to the mystery, the mortgage, and the marriage. She’s going to have to solve all three problems—and quick—or face a future most foul.

The Fabric of Murder


William Savage - 2015
    So when a leading cloth-manufacturer is found murdered and his business totters on the brink of collapse, everyone fears his fall will ruin hundreds of working families and cause the economy of the whole county to collapse. In near panic, the mayor and aldermen turn to an unlikely person to solve the riddle: Mr. Ashmole Foxe, a man who claims to be a mere bookseller, yet lives in grand style, dresses like a dandy and associates as easily with the demi-monde as the gentry. With few firm clues to go on and every sign the dead man himself had been hiding many secrets, Mr Foxe sets out to do as the City Fathers want. Who benefited from the death? Why had the murdered man been stockpiling cloth for months? Who is the stranger now trying to buy up all this surplus stock and what will he do with it? Follow Mr Foxe through Norwich’s teeming 18th-century streets as he seeks out the answers and tracks down a killer with more than profit on his mind.

A Lime to Kill


Summer Prescott - 2015
    Bad becomes worse when the shop owner's daughter is suspected.

Coming Home


Kris Jett - 2017
     The weather may be cold outside, but things are sizzling indoors. Jessie Foster has long been the person everyone could count on, the one who stayed back with her mom to run the family business while her two older sisters, whom hadn’t spoken to her in years, took off to live their lives. When her sisters suddenly drop back into her world wanting a job and a place to live, who could blame her for being angry? Sick of always doing what’s right, Jessie is ready to shake things up. Even if it’s wrong. And wrong has a name. Enter the sexy Cade Stone, new to town and opening a snowmobile repair shop with his two equally hot brothers. Cade has an edge and a temper. He knows he’s a jerk 90% of the time and he’s generally unapologetic. Growing up in Chicago, he’d never dreamed he’d end up in the sleepy town of Snowy Ridge, population 1000. But somehow, he found himself caving to family pressure and doing “the right thing,” no matter how much he hated it. Neither were looking, and they’re completely wrong for each other. But sometimes wrong and right blur and magic happens. *** Look for the entire Love at Starlight series: CHRISTMAS AT STARLIGHT – Amber & Nick (Snowy Ridge: A Love at Starlight Novella, Book 0.5) (available FREE- http://bit.ly/2jcZfla) COMING HOME – Jessie & Cade (Snowy Ridge: Love at Starlight, Book 1) TAKING CHANCES – Wynn & Bryce (Snowy Ridge: Love at Starlight, Book 2) (coming soon) FINDING ME – Luci & Evan (Snowy Ridge: Love at Starlight, Book 3) (coming soon) Fans of Jessie Evans, Bella Andre, and Susan Mallery will love the Love at Starlight series: stories featuring sassy mid-western women and the alpha males who love them.

Kiss the Witch Goodbye: A Nick Gibson Novel


Lisa Olsen - 2014
    Nick Gibson and his pretty witch, Annaliese, as he tries to balance police work with premonition. Kiss the Witch Goodbye draws us into the gritty world of rock with a local band that's hit it big. But with fame comes misfortune, as someone is killing their fans and the evidence points to lead singer, Jax May. Ready to defend her old boyfriend with her last breath, Annaliese champions Jax's innocence - despite the fact that he's experiencing frightening blackouts and missing time. FBI Agent Natalie Fox is closer to the case than she'd like to let on, and does her best to convince Nick of the singer's guilt.Is Jax simply a local boy made good or a vicious killer? Will Nick choose cold hard facts or rely on his instincts to guide him to the truth? Will Annaliese be able to use her special talents to prove Jax innocent and find the real killer before it's too late? As more victims surface, the truth might be darker than either of them believe possible.Editorial ReviewAll our old favorites are back, Sergeant Nick Gibson and his team, Annaliese Cross and her witchy friends, and I especially enjoyed reading about how their relationships have deepened over the year since the first book took place. Nick's daughter Veronica stole every scene she was in, and it was great to see her getting involved in the case. We've also got some new characters, Special Agent Natalie Fox (or Special Agent Foxy as Nick likes to think of her) is there to cause a little trouble between Nick and Annaliese, barging her way into the investigation and his personal life with equal bluntness. As if that wasn't enough friction, Nick's also got to contend with Anna's ex - rock star Jax May who is "dark and dangerous, and very, very sexy", and just possibly a serial killer. With Agent Fox bending Nick's ear and Annaliese's devotion to her old friend, they find themselves on opposite sides of the investigation. Love them or hate them, they certainly muddy the waters of this murder mystery and kept me on my toes whenever I thought I had this one figured out. No one is what they appear to be, and there is a darker explanation for the murders than at first glance. As usual, Ms. Olsen delivers a taut crime procedural peppered with the supernatural, offering as much character development as she does drama. She's light handed with the magical touches, keeping it on the believable side rather than going for a lot of flash. This is another stand alone mystery, enough of the loose ends wrapped up to be satisfying, while leaving the door open for another in the series. You don't have to have read Pretty Witches All in a Row before you pick this one up, but there were definite spoilers to the first book in this one, so if you're going to read them both, best to start with that one first.