Small Town Crime

The Heritage Hall book fair was my chance to showcase my bookbinding techniques. Instead, I become the main suspect in a murder. Paper flowers and leather bindings filled my Heritage Hall book fair booth. This was my chance to showcase traditional bookbinding techniques. Instead, I found a dead authenticator in my space. Mark Henderson, known for exposing forgeries, lay sprawled among tools stolen from my exhibit. Making me the prime suspect. Book preservation is my passion - being a murder suspect, not so much. I teamed up with Fitzgerald, my Maine Coon cat and journalist Jennifer Walsh to...

For fans of Freida McFadden, Leslie Wolfe, Nicola Sanders, and Lucinda Berry... be prepared for a thrill ride you won’t soon forget. Being the new guy in town is always tough. Luckily, I find a job working for a local attorney named Jack. He has me fixing up his rundown classic cars. Each day I work on the cars, his fiance Tawny makes her way out to the backyard where I’m working and gives me a glass of iced tea. We talk about our lives but not about our secrets. I’m careful not to say too much about myself. It could jeopardize my new employment with Jack. Jack is hard to read because...

He was out of the game. He should've stayed that way. When a former FBI colleague asks Callum Webb to rescue the kidnapped daughter of an American bigwig in eastern Europe, Callum’s just got one word for him... No. Okay, actually two words: hell, no. Callum is out of the international law enforcement game and has been for a long time. He’s happy in his role as gruff sheriff of the tiny town of Oak Creek, Wyoming. Even if the job doesn’t keep his nightmares at bay. Plus, rescuing a spoiled heiress is not high on Callum’s bucket list. When he ends up being the only viable option, ...

She says I’m a beast. She's right. But I’m the man she needs if she wants to survive. I’m no family man. Big, bearded, tatted – I’m no teddy bear either. As a member of the Twisted Devils MC, I fix bikes and break heads. At night, it’s all about easy riding and fast women. No commitments, except to my club. Until Trixie. That night, everything changes. The curvy bar singer takes the stage and my world shifts. She’s gorgeous. And her sinful voice stirs an animal inside me. All I want is one night. Nothing more. She tells me I'm full of it. She wants nothing from a man like me. ...

When a father vanishes with his two-week-old daughter, leaving behind a frantic wife and their eight-year-old son, forensic psychologist and FBI agent Alexis Forrest is called in to investigate. The man's blood-stained truck is discovered abandoned on a dirt road, but there's no trace of him or the baby. As Alexis delves into the case, she uncovers a tangled web of secrets and lies. With the serial killer responsible for her sister's death now behind bars, Alexis hopes for a fresh start in the small New England town where she grew up. However, peace is hard to find. Alexis tries to move ...

Big secrets run deep. Former FBI agent Jack McBride took the job as chief of police for Stillwater, Texas, to start a new life with his teenage son, Ethan, away from the suspicions that surrounded his wife's disappearance a year earlier. With a low crime rate and a five-man police force, he expected it to be a nice, easy gig; hot checks, traffic violations, some drugs, occasional domestic disturbances, and petty theft. Instead, within a week he is investigating a staged murder-suicide.

Running his own law firm is harder than Leland Munroe ever imagined, but he’s determined to make it work. Judy Reed, accused of killing her wealthy father, is just the kind of high-profile and high-paying client he needs to keep his firm afloat. Yet the deeper he digs, the more complex her case becomes. Nurse LaDonna Winters’s financial situation isn’t as ideal. Struggling to make ends meet, she can barely afford legal representation. But her case is compelling—accused of a crime at her hospital she insists she didn't commit, LaDonna is desperate to clear her name.

A scarred special operative meets his match with the woman determined to save him from himself. It was just a little accident—but it changed his life. Special Xtreme Ops team, River Hepburn wakes in the hospital to the sight of Sascha—his best friend’s little sister—watching over him. Their emotional bond over her brother’s death is undeniable, but he isn’t prepared to feel more. All he wants to do is return to the line of duty. Accident and injuries are words Sascha Lacey understands, but the name connected with them take her by surprise. Agreeing to nurse River’s injuries is...

Ever wonder how law enforcement operates in small town Arkansas? Seek no further. From the Author: Don’t read this book if you can’t handle gritty drugs fiction with meth labs and addicts, a deputy who’s more redneck than refined, or a plot that punches harder than a 400-pound hillbilly. It’s raw, messy, and not your mama’s cozy mystery. BUT If you do, County was written by a retired small town cop (that’s me), inspired by real-life experiences (but everything, including people, places, or events, in the book is fictional, to be clear), and I only held back a little. Cops talk a...

Ax assault, kidnapping, brutal murder: how could these things happen in a small town? Although regional crimes hardly ever make it to the national circuit, they will always remain with the families and communities of the victims and a part of the area's history. After working with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division for twenty-four years, Rita Shuler has a passion for remembering the victims. From an unsolved case that has haunted her for thirty years to a cold case solved after fifteen years by advanced DNA technology, Shuler blends her own memories with extensive research.

A Killer is Lurking… and the Proof is in the Pie! When Kylie Berry agrees to bake pies for the town’s biggest food festival, she’s hoping to impress the crowd—not become the center of a murder investigation. But when the contest takes a dangerous turn—with sabotaged pies and a dead contestant—all eyes are on Kylie. Someone at the festival has a secret to hide, and they’ll do whatever it takes to keep it buried. With her café’s reputation on the line and the police sniffing around, Kylie teams up with her fearless best friend, Zoey Jin, to track down the truth. Who tampered ...

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, quiet Charon has had only two murders. But after years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface. Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes.

Whether in Truman Capote’s detailed murder of the Clutter family or Ted Bundy’s small-town charm, criminals have always roamed rural America and towns worldwide. Featuring murder stories, criminal case studies, and more, The Best New True Crime Stories: Small Towns contains all-new accounts from writers of true crime, crime journalism, and crime fiction. And these entries are not based on a true story - they are true stories. Edited by acclaimed author and anthologist Mitzi Szereto, the stories in this volume span the globe.

The Nomination is a fast-paced action and suspense thriller that brings events from the final days of the Vietnam War into direct conflict with contemporary American politics. Vietnam War hero and Massachusetts Judge Thomas Larrigan is hand-picked by his friend the president to fill the upcoming vacancy on the Supreme Court. Larrigan seems like the perfect candidate: a family man with an uncontroversial judicial record. The president's credibility needs a sure bet. Larrigan will do anything to win the nomination, but he has some old skeletons rattling around in his closet. He calls his old Marine buddy, now a hit man, to sweep the closet clean.

The first body should have been a warning. The second, a cry for help. By the third, Deputy Sue Calhoun knows a killer is hunting in Willow Creek—and she's running out of time. Then he arrives. Pastor Will Hayes has eyes that see straight through her defenses and a smile that makes her forget she's sworn off charming men. When he takes her hand during Sunday service, Sue feels something she thought was dead—hope. But as she falls deeper under his spell, the bodies keep piling up, and a horrifying pattern emerges. Is he the salvation her broken heart desperately needs—or the predator ...

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Muhammad Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the smalltown of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing. When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake. Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

🍰 Murder, Muffins, and a Maine Coon with a Nose for Clues… Welcome to Whisker’s Bakery! 🐾 Olivia “Liv” Parker left the high-stakes world of Boston homicide for a quieter life in Harbor Point—a charming coastal town where the scones are sweet, the coffee is strong, and the cats have a mind of their own. But Liv’s dream of opening Whisker’s Bakery & Cat Café crumbles on opening morning when the town’s most powerful (and most disliked) real estate mogul drops dead on her kitchen floor—with one of her signature scones in hand. Now the prime suspect in a small-town ...

In The Chowder Truck Crime Files, food truck chef Liz Harding is serving up chowder—and solving crime. When a local fisherman vanishes and a warning appears on her windshield, Liz’s peaceful life in Beacon Bay bubbles into chaos. With quirky allies, fishy suspects, and secrets hidden beneath the docks, Liz stirs up more than soup to uncover the truth. This cozy culinary mystery blends seaside charm, savory suspense, and a gutsy sleuth who won’t back down.

When Joseph Palmer, one of the richest men in the world, was found murdered. Dead by midnight, during one of the year's most extravagant parties at his palatial mansion. Dean was hired to investigate the case. Although the case is now closed, Dean can’t help but feel that there’s more to his story. As he revisits the clues and digs deeper into Joseph’s past, he unearths a dark network. One that could threaten his life and the life of those he loves most. How did Joseph make his fortune? What happened to his wife and child? As the list of questions grows and the fabric of the case ...

Pie Contest Turns Deadly Fall is in the air and the Eastern Shore Pie Contest has come to Pelican Cove. So has a woman who became a pariah when she was banished from town forty years ago. Now she is back with a vengeance amidst loud protests. The town is split over whether a decades old edict is still valid, especially since the woman holds a lot of power as a judge of the contest. The competition heats up as local women break their backs trying out different recipes, determined to win. Then an unexpected murder shocks the town. Roped into investigating the crime, café owner and amateur ...