Showing results by publisher "Books in Motion" in Women Sleuths

When Emily Plankhurst is visited by the ghost of Gabriel Graystone, and learns he was murdered, she knows she must find justice for him. The only problem is, Gabriel was killed a hundred years ago, shortly after he broke off his engagement to the daughter of a prominent Taos family, and there aren’t many other clues to go by in finding his killer.

Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman and ex-Sheriff Bill Gastner arrive at a motel parking lot to find it has turned into a crime scene, and the body of the retired chief-of-police is at the center. It appears that he had an exchange with two men and then collapsed while the men took off in his car. An out-of-town couple are the only witnesses...but their story doesn't ring true.

When a county employee is found shot to death in sun-drenched daylight while sitting in his county road grader, Undersheriff Bill Gastner is faced with puzzling questions. The simplest explanation - that an errant bullet from a careless target shooter's rifle blew out Larry Zipoli's brains - is soon discarded as inconsistencies surface. The fatal bullet shows no rifling marks, an investigation reveals that the shooter walked directly toward the road grader, in full view of the victim - who did nothing to defend himself.

The world’s largest volcano does not reside beneath Hawaii’s mountains, or in Washington state, but Yellowstone National Park. Past eruptions have darkened our continent and covered it with a blanket of ash that smothered both plant and animal life. Now the supervolcano, with its earthquakes and geysers, is monitored on a daily basis for signs of the beast reawakening.

Charlie is alone in the office when a teen girl comes in, wanting to hire RJP Investigations to find her mom, who vanished without a trace years ago. The clues were sparse at the time, and the old police file doesn't have much that can help Charlie with the search. The problem for young Cassie is that the grandmother who has raised her is now dying and Cassie's life is about to be upended. All that's holding her together is the belief that her mom is out there somewhere.

A cryptic message in a fortune cookie sends Charlie again to England to visit her favorite aunt. She's having lunch in a local café when construction workers come upon a human skeleton behind a wall. The police are called to a more urgent case, so Charlie begins sleuthing around on a cold-case crime website, only to discover Aunt Louisa was one of those questioned when the victim disappeared. Can she save her aunt from arrest, or will the real killer come after them both?

Sandy Werner’s longtime client walks into Desert Trust Bank, clearly down on her luck. Sandy is shocked to find Mary Holbrook’s once-hefty account is down to less than $200. Mary worked alongside her husband for years to build a successful business, but when she wasn’t looking, all their money vanished - and Clint found himself a cute new wife. Abandoned, Mary might be homeless, but she certainly isn’t helpless. She teams up with Sandy and her friends, who call themselves the Heist Ladies.

In 1985, Catherine DeMarco spent one hot July night where she shouldn’t have been, doing something she shouldn’t have been doing. This was a fatal mistake. Now Jimmy Taggart is sitting on death row. Details of that night are still hazy in his mind but the evidence was conclusive. No one believed in his innocence then. Only one person believes in it now. Sergeant Samantha Casey fought to clear the name of a Korean War vet in When the Dead Speak.

As a literary agent, Charlie Greene is used to making a killing, it's her business. But when she pulls into the foggy town of Moot Point, Oregon, she finds herself party to a killing of a different kind, one with a corpse and with herself as a suspect. Charlie is accused of murdering an elderly woman whose bicycle is mysteriously found beneath the wheels of Charlie's car. This visit to the laid-back coastal town was supposed to be the chance to secure a book deal for one of her clients, but now, Charlie has herself a new project: proving herself innocent of murder.

Revenge is often a cold dish, but in the tiny northern New Mexico town of Sembramos emotions are running decidedly hot. When two men convicted of murdering a local girl are released from prison after serving only a few years, their convictions overturned, the town's old pain rises to the surface and tempers flare. Samantha Sweet has her hands full with Easter at Sweet's Sweets, while her husband, Taos County Sheriff Beau Cardwell, is charged with keeping order among the two hundred residents of Sembramos.

When a woman walks into Samantha Sweet’s pastry shop, claiming to have amnesia, it’s a puzzle that seems to have nothing to do with Sam’s new commission for a fantastic one-of-a-kind order of chocolates, although "Jane Doe" seems to know a lot about that. Sam calls Sheriff Beau to solve the mystery of who this stranger is and where she belongs. But Beau’s attention is occupied by other things: nearly his entire force is out sick with some kind of flu bug, and now a murder far from Taos requires his full attention. “Jane’s” forgotten memories become vitally important....

The widow Liza Romero came to Wrangell, Alaska, for solitude and a chance to reinvent herself. Now, in her old wooden halibut schooner, Salmon Eye, she ferries library books and groceries across Steamer Bay. One day her first-mate Sam - part-Labrador part-redhound - spots the body of a small, nearly drowned Tlingit boy, marooned on a rock. They rescue the boy and take him to Wrangell, only to discover the body of a very old native man.

Morgan Taylor, a 30-something struggling actress finally gets a chance to audition for a great role, but as luck would have it, her auditioning partner turns up dead. When a second death erases any doubts about the first being an accident, Morgan finds suspicions turning to her closest friends and decides to do a little detective work of her own. She finds support in her endeavors from police detective Roblings, a lumbering, bright, and endearing fellow who catches Morgan's eye.

Charlie has reluctantly returned to her childhood home of Boulder, Colorado, to be with her mother, who just had major surgery. Boulder evokes decidedly mixed feelings in Charlie. She left after her daughter, Libby, was conceived 16 years ago and hasn't returned until now. There's plenty to keep her emotions occupied, though, since her mother seems to be suspected of doing away with one of her neighbors.

Charlie Greene gets a call from her mom, Edwina, a biologist advising on the set of a nature documentary film in the Utah desert. Edwina is the prime suspect in a murder involving the death of a shock horror film director with whom Edwina had a running battle over environmental concerns. To clear her mom's name, Charlie teams up with hunky movie star, Mitch Hilsten. But she finds flirting and self-preservation are a tough juggling act. Wild river-boat rides, cliff hanging, and even more dead bodies keep the desert heat scorching in this rollicking mystery adventure.

After Godiva's son Torch buys a condo in Las Vegas, his grandmother Flossie and great uncle Sterling decide to pay him a visit. When the old vaudeville magicians drag him to the Pageant of Peacocks starring sexy Mara the Magnificent, it's love at first sight. The romance blossoms, but when Torch returns from a meeting in LA, Mara seems cold and distant. Torch turns to his mother, the advice columnist, for a helping hand.

Charlie Parker and her husband Drake Langston accept a job with Gold Trail Adventures in Skagway, Alaska, flying visitors by helicopter to remote cabin sites to experience the outdoor lifestyle and seek their fortunes. It isn't long before one of the guests finds a set of bones in an old mine, remains that date back decades.

RN Gina Mazzio returns to San Francisco's Ridgewood Hospital after a near-death experience in Nevada's desolate gold country. On her first day in the Ob/Gyn Women's Health Clinic, a co-worker suffers a mystifying post-abortion death due to sepsis. Two days later, the same thing happens to a clinic patient. Gina thinks it's an inside job, but gets no support for her theory. Convinced she's right, she risks everything to dig into the who and why of the deaths. She wants to know if someone is deliberately causing clinic patients to suffer horrible deaths.

Gretchen Waller arrives at the remote estate, Mill Hollow, eager to begin her job as assistant to handsome author John David Honeycutt. Amid the snowbound wild of the haunting north woods she finds deception and danger as John's investigation into his family's history stirs up dark secrets - secrets which have already led to murder. Drawn to John, Gretchen soon takes up his quest to uncover the truth. Can they solve the crime before the killer strikes again or will Mill Hollow claim more victims when shadows fall?

Former soldier, Frankie McGill, has returned home from Afghanistan minus half of her left foot and with a plate in her head. After some months in medical care, she’s ready to take on the new battle of finding and holding a job. But not just any job. Frankie is a combat-trained paramedic. When all she can find is a position in the small, mostly volunteer fire department of her old hometown, Frankie is immediately plunged into much more than dealing with her own trauma and holding down a job.