Michelle S

For fans of Louise Penny, C. J. Box, and Nevada Barr comes a haunting crime novel set in Glacier National Park, where one man finds himself on a collision course with the dark heart of the wild and the even darker heart of human nature.

This sixth Spookie Town Murder Mystery belongs primarily to Abigail and Frank Lester, my two main characters in the six book series. It’s their turn. First off, it at long last solves the enigma of Abigail’s first husband Joel Sutton’s disappearance, and death, a decade before…the tragic event that sent Abigail to Spookie in the first place to begin a new life. The new life that would grow so big as to include a new love, a new family, quirky, but well-meaning friends, and the strange murder mysteries her new friends would drag her into over the years.

James Henry, a kind-hearted professor of English literature, is forced to move back home to Quincy's Gap, a tiny town in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, to care for his aging father. Shortly after moving into a house that hasn't changed since his childhood, the overweight, divorced, book-loving cheese puff addict accepts a position as head librarian and joins a supper club for dieters who call themselves the "Flab Five". Avoiding carbs is almost impossible in this deep-fried, all-you-can-eat Southern town.

Troubled ex-con Zack Taylor is haunted by the accidental death of his brother years before. Zack's guilt and anger have pushed him into a shadowy, wandering life, with little purpose and few attachments. When he hears of the death of his close friend Ben Sterling, a supposed gunshot suicide, Zack finds he now has a purpose - to find out what happened. Then his purpose becomes an obsession.

Maris Forrester has a wonderful life with an amazing boyfriend and a fulfilling job. She's happy and content...or so she thinks. Maris has always had huge dreams of being on Broadway. Ever since her very first performance as a child, she has envisioned herself on the stage under the shining lights. Now she has to decide whether she should give up her wonderful life to chase those dreams. Will she remain content in her perfect world, or will she step into the unknown world she has always dreamed of?

When Megan Sawyer gives up her big-city law career to care for her grandmother and run the family's organic farm and cafe, she expects to find tranquility in her scenic hometown of Winsome, PA. Instead, her goat goes missing, rain muddies her fields, the town denies her business permits, and her family's Colonial-era farm sucks up the remains of her savings. Just when she thinks she's reached the bottom of the rain barrel, Megan and the town's hunky veterinarian discover the local zoning commissioner's battered body in her barn.

On the weather front, category four Hurricane Kevin took a last-minute left and is headed straight for the Bellissimo Resort and Casino in Biloxi, Mississippi. In breaking news, undercover casino operative Davis Way has one foot out the evacuation door when 50 million dollars disappear, and in its place, a dead body. In other news, if forced to ride out the storm on the hotel's 13th-floor fortress, Davis won't be alone.

Gina Royal is the definition of average—a shy Midwestern housewife with a happy marriage and two adorable children. But when a car accident reveals her husband’s secret life as a serial killer, she must remake herself as Gwen Proctor—the ultimate warrior mom. With her ex now in prison, Gwen has finally found refuge in a new home on remote Stillhouse Lake.

Superspy Davis Way sets sail on a Caribbean cruise aboard the MS Probability with 50 billionaires, a boatload of Louis Vuitton luggage, Anderson Cooper, and her mother. (Her mother?) The weather is perfect, the seas are calm, and suite 704 is spectacular. Until the door slams shut. For good. Obviously it's a system glitch. Surely someone will show up to free Davis, Miss Hawaii, and the creepy staff. But when the minutes turn to hours and the hours stretch into a day, Davis knows it's up to her.

When Marshall McEwan left his hometown at age 18, he vowed never to return. The trauma that drove him away ultimately spurred him to become one of the most successful journalists in Washington DC. But just as the political chaos in the nation’s capital lifts him to new heights, Marshall is forced to return home in spite of his boyhood vow. His father is dying, his mother is struggling to keep the family newspaper from failing, and the town is in the midst of an economic rebirth that might be built upon crimes that reach into the state capitol - and perhaps even to Washington.