Northern Crimes

Welcome to the second anthology by the chapter members of Sisters In Crime North Dallas. The city of Dallas and surrounding locales offer great fodder for mystery writers—and listeners. These inspire the stories contained in Reckless in Texas: Metroplex Mysteries Volume II.

On a bitterly cold afternoon in December 1986, a Michigan State trooper found the frozen body of Jerry Tobias in the bed of his pickup truck. The 31-year-old oil field worker and small-time drug dealer was clad only in jeans, a checkered shirt, and cowboy boots. Inside the cab of the truck was a fresh package of expensive steaks from a local butcher shop, the first lead in a case that would be quickly lost in a thicket of bungled forensics, shady prosecution, and a psychopathic star witness out for revenge.

The house always wins. Unless it falls down… When Bubbles acts as a witness in a high-profile murder case she’s warned to stay low. Taking on a gambling gangster and his henchmen wasn’t in the cards. But then he went and made it personal… HoloCity Hard Boys is the second stand alone mystery novella in the HoloCity Case Files series, a companion collection to the Bubbles in Space series. Blade Runner meets The Fifth Element in this eccentric cyber-noir thriller series about a bleak world ravaged by corrupt leaders, mega-corporations, and crime lords… and the washed-up detective who...

One wrong move, and she'll be feedin' the fishes... When Bubbles Marlowe discovers a jaw-dropping bounty on a pair of stolen diamonds, she agrees to find the jewels and bring the thief to justice. But she soon realizes she’s not the only one after the infamous ice, and the competition is brutal. The case takes a turn for the depraved when she finds out the true reason the diamonds were stolen. By the time she gets wise, she’s in way over her head… **Neon Goldfish is the third stand alone mystery novella in the HoloCity Case Files series, a companion collection to the Bubbles in Space ...

How long can you live in fear, always peering over your shoulder? The gruesome murder of Lizzie Rice, the mother of one of Belfast's most notorious crime kingpins, threatens to unleash a powder keg of violence on the city's streets. With riots erupting and a growing body count, each victim meeting a similarly brutal end, it becomes abundantly clear that DCI Ian Wilson and his dedicated Murder Squad are facing a chilling and cunning serial killer. To outsmart this ruthless murderer, Wilson must navigate both the labyrinthine corridors of the past and the shadows of his own present. "Death to...

The tragic story of the murders of three women committed over three decades by one cold-blooded man in Maine's North Woods. Jennie Cyr disappeared in 1977. Jerilyn Towers vanished in 1982. Lynn Willette never came home on a night in 1994. Each woman had a relationship with James Hicks, who in 2000 confessed to murdering them, dismembering their bodies, and burying the remains alongside rural roads in Aroostook County. This is their story.

Hope Brown’s mundane life is turned upside down when:-she unexpectedly loses the job she loves; runs into big trouble with the police when she’s implicated in an unexplained death; finds herself the target of a notorious local drug gang - out for revenge; and discovers dark secrets about her past that she is determined to uncover. Hope takes flight from the dreary London council flat that she shares with her slovenly stepfather Charlie, and stepbrother Joel, looking for a fresh start in Northumberland, in the peaceful, coastal town of Amble, where she was born. She's determined to ...

Six days before Baer Creighton cut down a cabal of dogfighters, a 16-year-old girl disappeared while walking home from school in Asheville, North Carolina. Witnesses later claimed they saw her in the back of a police car. Twenty-five years before that, an illegal fireworks plant blew up in Benton, Tennessee, killing 11, and raining M100 firecrackers over half a county. A few days later, a 13-year-old boy learned his highest calling was murder.

"Boys, let us get up a club." Six restless young men raided the linens at a friend's mansion, pulled pillowcases over their heads, hopped on horses, and cavorted through the streets of Pulaski, Tennessee. The six friends named their club the Ku Klux Klan, and, all too quickly, their club grew into the self-proclaimed Invisible Empire with secret dens spread across the South. This is the story of how a secret terrorist group took root in America's democracy.

Three dark and daunting mysteries for Police Constable Elizabeth West to solve. Can she do it when she is lumbered with a plodding police investigation. 1: On the floor of an old Mansion there is the body of a young girl killed by a poisoned dart. 2: In a village in the mountains a teacher dies from eating poisonous mushrooms. 3: In an old mill town a young man, with connections to China Town, is found dead in his flat! 'Great mysteries.' 'Go Elizabeth West.'

This true story was the basis for the Broadway play, The Runner Stumbles, and the movie of the same name. In 1907, a Felician nun disappeared from her rural convent. When her bones were found buried in the dirt-floored basement of the remote, Gothic church she served, it caused a national sensation. Who killed her? The handsome priest? The jealous housekeeper? And, what other secret was uncovered along with her bones?

"I just killed him...I just saved the world." Elizabeth Wayne escapes Ohio’s gray fog for Tokyo’s neon haze, hoping to outrun chronic depression and reinvent herself. As an English teacher, she treads polite classrooms by day. By night, she’s entangled in a CIA–North Korea conspiracy to silence a global pop icon. Racing Shinjuku’s shadowed backstreets, Elizabeth uncovers phantom footsteps, whispered voices, and memories bleeding into waking nightmares. Fusing mind‑bending suspense, unconventional plot twists, and a vibrant Japan setting, TALKING CURE delivers razor‑sharp ...

Why did Chelsea have to die on the most important night of Dani Sites' culinary career? Working for Raglan’s most affluent family, Dani was about to make a name for herself as the prestigious chef of the North Shore's highly anticipated Spring Equinox Soirée. But fate had it that the moment billionaire Bennett Bowing emerged from seclusion on the night of the dinner party, breaking his silence since his late wife’s passing, Chelsea, his potential next wife, is murdered. Dani not only needs to save her reputation and clear her name, but she also needs to stop ogling the billionaire’s ...

The girls' names were Padma and Lalli, but they were so inseparable that people in the village called them Padma Lalli. Sixteen-year-old Padma sparked and burned. Fourteen-year-old Lalli was an incorrigible romantic. They grew up in Katra Sadatganj, an eye-blink of a village in Western Uttar Pradesh crammed into less than one square mile of land. It was out in the fields, in the middle of mango season, that the rumors started. Then one night in the summer of 2014 the girls went missing; and hours later they were found hanging in the orchard.

Veronica Tillman was a woman trapped in a life of quiet desperation. She had been Roger Culpepper’s mistress since she was eighteen. He had seduced her with a life of unimaginable wealth and privilege. Being a kept woman is not a secure life and would end whenever Roger decided to throw her away like a piece of trash. So, she submitted to whatever he demanded and hoped that he would continue to be entertained by her. This was her life, or at least it was until she had learned of just what Roger Culpepper, in the service of Percy Brigston, was really doing. She could no longer tolerate the...

Lucy, stunning lead singer of a local band, is found dead on a beach. Everyone assumes it’s suicide or accidental death. However, band member Tony thinks his sister Olivia might be involved. Not only was she insanely jealous of Lucy, but her husband Barry died in suspicious circumstances too. Detective Sergeant Kerry Lawlor isn’t convinced its suicide either. The more she looks into the case, the more ‘accidental’ deaths she discovers. As she digs deeper, she finds motive and intrigue at every turn. Following in Lucy’s footsteps is drop-dead gorgeous Roxie. Will Olivia’s ...

In 1982, Tony West and Avery Brock made a visit to notorious Corpsewood Manor under the pretense of a celebration. They brutally murdered their hosts. Dr. Charles Scudder and companion Joey Odom built the "castle in the woods" in the Trion forest after Scudder left his position as professor at Loyola. He brought with him twelve thousand doses of LSD. Rumors of drug use and Satanism swirled around the two men. Scudder even claimed to have summoned a demon to protect the estate. The murders set the stage for a trial vibrant with local lore.

Inspector Maxwell Abaline is back, and this time, the stakes are higher, the shadows darker, and the terror more personal. In a sinister follow-up to The Devil’s Tourniquet, Abaline finds himself on the trail of a sadistic killer, a merciless figure driven by vengeance and an unsettling, twisted sense of family loyalty. When 84-year-old Joseph Clancy vanishes without a trace, the investigation takes a harrowing turn. The last known sighting of him is as he prepares to walk his dog up on the moors, late in the evening. Abaline, tasked with finding Joseph, is drawn into a case that cuts far...

Murder in the dunes: A new mystery series where dark secrets lurk beneath the surface, with a dash of humor to keep things afloat. A dead body lies in the shadow of the dyke near Fleetstedt. The man shared a sprawling villa overlooking the sea with six others, not far from where his body was found. Enna and Pavel quickly encounter hostility, suspicion and mutual accusations. Which of them is true? Who benefits from the co-owner's death? Pavel's obsession with detail is a real treat. But what he and Enna uncover, piece by piece, is something they never could have imagined in their worst ...

Federal Probation Officer Earl Kade suffers a devastating loss at the hands of a meth addict trying to score a few dollars in a holdup. A rage that won’t be denied builds inside him. He’s spent his career on the side of the law, doing his best to steer criminal offenders along straight paths, but he sets that aside to embark on a secret one-man crusade against those who destroy countless thousands of lives by pushing deadly drugs, and soon finds himself in too deep to back out alive.