Small Town Crime

ORIGINAL STORY, WRITTEN BY A HUMAN If you enjoy evocative and suspenseful police mysteries, then you'll love the Detective Ange Watson Thrillers. Detective Ange Watson thought she was riding high after two major wins. She’d cracked open a human trafficking ring, rescuing vulnerable young women, and as a bonus, dismantled an illegal cannabis operation along the way. For a brief moment, it felt like justice had prevailed. But the celebration was short-lived. A shadowy cover-up is unravelling, and instead of pursuing the real criminals, Ange’s superiors seem hell-bent on silencing her. ...

For all its old-fashioned charm, Forbes Abbot is far from the close-knit community that ex-Londoners Mallory and Kate Lawson expected. In this village, everyday squabbles can quickly turn to murder. As the couple begins to settle into their new life away from the big city, it isn't long until they're thrown into the horror and mayhem of a true Midsomer Murders mystery. Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby has encountered many intriguing cases in his years on the force, but soon he will discover that the incident of the ghost in the machine is the most challenging of them all.

Will the contents of dozens of old trunks filled with century’s old and fragile dresses, antique books and journals, and an even older jeweled sword, provide the answers to any of Mae’s well-guarded secrets?Sisters of the Heart is the fifth book in the ongoing story of the Engstrom family in the Mae’s Second Chance series. In the small ghost town of Mae’s Second Chance, where centuries old secrets remain hidden and the surrounding hills continue to guard another woman’s treasures, Julie Engstrom brings her family in search of a place that can replace what they had to leave behind....

Decorations of cobwebs and creatures are just being taken down across Eastport’s picturesque houses as the community says farewell to Halloween and ushers in winter with the unique confections found only at the Chocolate Moose. Revelers have gathered on the waterfront for a party at local celebrity Hank Rafferty’s ramshackle mansion, known as Stone House. The home repair TV show star and his guests await a devilish dessert delivery from Jake and Ellie—who arrive just after Hank falls to his death from the house’s turret’s balcony.

In the glorious sunshine of Oxford, on a day when everyone should be celebrating, tragedy strikes when a university student is found floating in the river, dead. Probationary WPC Trudy Loveday finds herself paired with coroner Clement Ryder to investigate and it soon becomes clear that this case is not going to be easy. The witnesses all refuse to give a straight answer, each new lead sends them in a new direction and tales of other missing youngsters add further mystery to the investigation.

Romance and Murder Mix in the Latest Story Featuring Sheriff Mel Crane and Special Agent Dana Rossi! Customs Special Agent Dana Rossi is down but not out after being shot and seriously injured during her previous assignment. Will romance blossom or will sparks fly when she agrees to shack up in Morelville with the beautiful butch Sheriff Melissa ‘Mel’ Crane and her extended family while she recovers? Will murder get in the way of love? If murder doesn’t, will life in a house with children or a political campaign keep them apart? Can Mel solve two major crimes and keep her former job ...

Greta Pugh is dead. The small village of Bethesda, Wales, is no stranger to tragedy. Once a thriving, prosperous community, the town has been marred by an ever-deepening class divide. But now, with rich and popular Greta Pugh found murdered in the local quarry, everyone in Bethesda is rattled, and all their secrets are at risk.

Welcome to The Berry Home: where the food is to-die-for! When Kylie’s tenant next door offers meals to-go, sales at The Berry Home grind to a near-standstill. Unfortunately, the terms of the lease mean that Kylie can’t do anything about the competition… until the tenant is found dead – and once again, fingers begin to point at Kylie. With the help of her friends, Kylie attempts to unravel the threads of mystery surrounding the murder, all while keeping The Berry Home afloat, and befriending a mysterious local who’s come back to town. Meanwhile, Zoey creates a “murder-solving” ...

With Holding Lies, John Larison takes us deep into a thriving subculture of the Northwest, one born of the ferns and firs, rain and hot-springs, firebombs and whitewater. He takes us even deeper into the troubles of Hank Hazelton, a 59-year-old river guide, as he struggles to reconnect with his only daughter after a 14-year estrangement. His failure as a father haunts him, along with other deep regrets, tragedies, and longings. In the days before his daughter's arrival, Hank discovers a drift boat stranded below a rapid, empty except for a long smear of blood on its seat.

When crime-fighting attorney Albert Patterson is gunned down in a Phenix City, Alabama, alley in the spring of 1954, the entire town seems to pause for just a moment—and when it starts up again, there is something different about it. A small group of men meet and decide they have had enough, but what that means and where it will take them is something they could not have foreseen.

On a chilly January night, Dr. Eugene Turner hastened the death of a three-day-old baby boy who had been pronounced brain-dead. Six weeks later, ER physician Dr. Bruce Rowan hacked his wife to death with an axe, then tried to kill himself - claiming he snapped after witnessing Dr. Turner's euthanasia. What really happened? What drove Dr. Bruce Rowan - a man who was entrusted to heal the sick - to so savagely take the life of his own wife? Acquitted by reason of insanity, Dr. Rowan was committed to a mental institution. And thought the trial is over, some fascinating ethical and legal questions have been raised by its outcome.

Mustique is in a state of breathless calm as tropical storm Cristobal edges towards it across the Atlantic. Most villa owners have escaped the island but a few young socialites remain, unwilling to let summer's partying end. American heiress Amanda Fortini is one such thrill-seeker - until she heads out for a morning swim and doesn't return.

The town of Sarlat is staging a reenactment of its liberation from the British in the Hundred Years’ War when the play’s French hero, Brice Kerquelin, is stabbed and feared fatally wounded. Is it an unfortunate prop malfunction—or something more sinister? The stricken man happens to be number two in the French intelligence service, in line for the top job. Bruno is tasked with the safety of the victim’s daughter Claire, as well as her father's old Silicon Valley buddies, ostensibly in town for a reunion.

On Oklahoma’s Big Rock Prairie, a deaf boy finds a body in Pennington Creek. Johnston County Deputy Hannah Bond and Chickasaw Lighthorse Police Sergeant Bill Maytubby find a crime scene where nothing seems to fit - from the dead angler’s oversize waders to the kind of fish in his creel. They scour the creekside brush, then hit the road for Texas in a widening search for the killer. On the Big Rock, a towering bearded man is building a limestone replica of Roman Jerusalem for a Christian passion play. His cronies are in league with an interstate fraud ring....

The Bonnay family is gathering for their parents’ fortieth anniversary, but all is not balloons and streamers. Aubrey’s dad has gotten himself arrested—again; her rich brother’s wife is acting cold and standoffish, and no one knows if little sister Cassandra can pull her hand out of her latest victim’s pocket long enough to show up. The night's supposed to be perfect. Aubrey’s long-time boyfriend has something “very important” to talk to her about, just when she’d given up hope that he’d ever pop the question. She’s touched that he’s chosen her parents’ anniversary...

A hard-nosed real estate baron is dead, and detectives P.T. Marsh and Remy Morgan learn there's a long list of suspects. Mason Falls, Georgia, may be a small town, but Ennis Fultz had filled it with professional rivals, angry neighbors, and a wronged ex-wife. And when Marsh realizes that this potential murder might be the least of his troubles, he begins to see what happens when ordinary people become capable of evil. As Marsh and Morgan dig into the case, it becomes clear that Fultz's death was not an isolated case of revenge.

In the heart-stopping thriller "Cowboy Hazard," Blair Oakley, an indomitable search and rescue worker, and her faithful companion, Diamond embark on a perilous mission to uncover the truth behind the disappearance of teenage girls in the eerie woods surrounding a small town. As Blair delves deeper into the chilling mystery, she unearths sinister secrets lurking beneath the town's tranquil facade. With the reluctant help of Maverick, a rugged cowboy renowned for his tracking skills, Blair races against time to follow cryptic clues and unearth the whereabouts of the missing girls. But as ...

What if Sean Courtland’s old Chevy truck had broken down somewhere else? What if he’d never met Denise Givens, a waitress at a local tavern in the Wisconsin town where he lands? Or Dan Young, another young man like Sean drifting through, having fled Minnesota for reasons unknown? Instead, together Sean and Dan pick up carpentry and plumbing work for an old man named Marion Devereaux, and Sean gets drawn into the lives of Denise and her father—and of the townspeople, all haunted by the disappearance of three young boys decades ago, in the 1970s.

"Compares favorably to Harlan Coben." Amazon Reviewer "A fast-paced book that kept me wound up tighter than a drum all the way through." Amazon Reviewer "As a die-hard detective fiction reader, I think this is an incredible first book in this genre. The plot is well thought-out and presented. The characters are very well written, and the villain is as attractive as Milton's Satan! I flew through this novel, and I can't wait for the next Cory Marin to appear. This is great summer reading, though you may be so involved with the book that you get a sunburn!" Amazon Reviewer "Warning: don't ...

The betrayal of those closest burns most of all.... Hoping for a fresh start, an English family moves to the remote Shetland islands, eager to give their autistic son a better life. But when a young nanny's body is found hanging in the barn beside their home, rumors of her affair with the husband spread like wildfire. As suspicion and resentment of the family blazes in the community, Detective Inspector Jimmy Perez is called in to investigate. He knows it will mean his boss, Willow Reeves, returning to run the investigation, and confronting their complex relationship.