Small Town Crime

Bo Tully, the renowned sheriff of Blight County, Idaho, has seen his share of small-town crime. And, he always gets his man, whether by the book or otherwise. Fact is, everyone in the area knows Tully, and his unique 'Blight Way' of doing things.

When Tully and his deputy hike deep into the woods, tracking a suspected bank robber, little do they realize that they are about to witness a murder. Soon, the murder leads the Sheriff on a convoluted adventure, with a series of twists and turns, each demanding his utmost attention and keenest crime-solving abilities.

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.

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....

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.

As Sheriff Clayton Burroughs tries to juggle fatherhood, his job, and his recovery from being shot in the confrontation that killed his two criminally inclined brothers last year, he’s doing all he can just to survive. Yet after years of carefully toeing the line between his life in law enforcement and his family, he finally has to make a choice. When a rival organization makes a first foray into Burroughs' territory, leaving a trail of bodies and a whiff of fear in its wake, Clayton is pulled back into the life he so desperately wants to leave behind.

Newlywed Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is awakened by an urgent midnight call summoning her to a suspicious fire in the woods. When she arrives at the scene, she discovers a charred body. According to the coroner, the deceased, an Amish man named Milan Swanz, was chained to a stake and burned alive. It is an appalling and eerily symbolic crime against an upstanding husband and father.

Adam Alba has spent years drifting from town to town, outrunning a past marked by trauma, an intuition he doesn’t fully understand, and a lingering sense that someone is always watching. When he gets off the bus in a small, quiet town, all he wants is a hot shower and a good night’s sleep. But when a man collapses at his feet, gasping his final breath, what first appears to be an accident quickly reveals itself as something far more calculated. Within hours, Adam finds himself the prime suspect in a murder investigation that has rocked the seemingly idyllic town of Ur. In a close-knit ...

When Ethan Ford fails to show up for work on a brilliant summer morning, none of his neighbors would guess that, for more than 13 years, he has been running from his past. His true nature has been locked away, as hidden as his real identity. But sometimes locks spring open, and the devastating truths of Ethan Ford's history shatter the small-town peace of Monroe, affecting family and friends alike.

Even if it means exposing an unsettling past, Rowan is determined to get to the bottom of her mother's suicide before the serial killer who's tracking her finds her.

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.

Not since Partner in Crime have New York Times bestselling author J. A. Jance's beloved series characters shared a stage. But now, in a pair of cases that cross state lines, Beaumont and Brady are back! Seattle investigator J. P. Beaumont is working a series of murders in which six young women have been wrapped in tarps, doused with gasoline, and set on fire. Their charred remains have been creating a grisly pattern of death across western Washington.

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 ...

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.

My summer escape to Camp Willow Creek promised campfires and marshmallows, not murder and mayhem. If my clumsy arrival to camp, designed for recovery and relaxation, wasn’t enough, then unpacking to a dead body in the woods certainly didn’t help. Being the first at the scene, Detective Harper, makes me his prime suspect. The camper’s whispers about Donnie’s untimely death makes my curiosity run deep; there’s no way I’m sitting this one out. Biscuit, my trusted sidekick mutt,and I sniff out clues. What we uncover is a web of secrets slicker than the murky lake bottom. The other ...

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.

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.