Books

Tranquil Peace or Death Trap?

Gwen Trobert is a mess: grief-stricken, drug-dependent, and convinced her husband is cheating. When Aunt Marge, a woman she hardly knows, offers to let Gwen stay at her farm in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Gwen sees it as a chance to reflect on the future and heal herself.

But Marge's farm, Giiwe, is a place of...

How do years of sharing everything, from genetics to hairbrushes, result in people so different from each other?
Three sisters raised in Michigan follow completely different pathways. The oldest, Nettie, threw away every advantage she had when she was still in her teens, and her mystified parents and siblings watched in horror as she spent years...

This compelling story focuses on friendship, love, loss, and the life-changing power we gain by helping others. Spanning the decades from the 1960s to the present, the events play out in two primary locations, Thailand and Michigan’s Mackinac Island.

On a cruise ship in the Gulf of Thailand, passenger Elvera Tharp, known as Miss E, has a...

Is it possible to be a rescuer when you live among the lost?

Killing Silence, the first of The Loser Mysteries, presents a unique protagonist: Loser, who sleeps on the streets of Richmond, Virginia, washes up in gas station bathrooms, eats when an opportunity comes along, and spends her waking hours in front of the local drug store, watching the...

Hailed as the “Homeless Hero” after her adventures in Book #1, Loser, also known as Beth Lousiere, needs to recuperate from the stress and her injuries. She returns to West Virginia, where her foster mother left Beth her home and property. When another of Marta’s foster daughter’s shows up, Loser is drawn back into danger, with a teenage boy to...

Does despair end when you finally learn the truth?

Beth Lousiere, once known as Loser, learns there’s new evidence concerning the murders of her husband and daughter three years ago. The crimes, along with suspicion that she was responsible, sent Beth into such despair that she lived on the streets of Richmond, Virginia, for almost a year, lost...

Set in 1546, Herring’s captivating debut depicts the future Elizabeth I as a keen and shrewd detective. A killer is stalking London, beheading young women and dressing their bodies in nuns’ clothes. When one of the princess’s own ladies becomes a victim, the 12-year-old Elizabeth, daughter of the now failing Henry VIII, joins with her friends...

As England’s young king struggles with illness, one of his advisors is poisoned. Elizabeth Tudor, fearing her brother was the target, asks her old friend Simon Maldon to investigate the crime. Aided by his fiancée, Hannah, Simon, now an apothecary’s apprentice, braves the corridors of power to protect the king.

Power is all-important to the...

In this third book of the Simon & Elizabeth Mysteries, Mary Tudor takes the throne of England, accuses her sister Elizabeth of treason, and imprisons her in the Tower of London. Most people, including Elizabeth herself, believe she will never leave the place alive.

Loyal to a fault, Elizabeth’s old friend Simon Maldon manages to get in to see...

Shortly after learning his brother-inlaw, Will Clark, was murdered, Simon Maldon is called into Queen Elizabeth’s presence. Trusting her old friend’s judgment, the queen wants Simon to go with her delegation to Scotland and make an objective assessment of the character of Mary, Queen of Scots. Despite his pleas of family concerns, Elizabeth...

Tori Van Camp wakes one morning on a luxurious ocean liner where she’s offered whatever a person might desire: food, clothes, recreation, and the companionship of congenial people. But Tori has no memory of booking a cruise. What she does have is a vivid recollection of being shot point blank in the chest.
With the help of the stunningly...

When Dead Detective Seamus is asked to investigate the death of wealthy businessman William Dunbar, he is more than willing. Seamus finds the Afterlife pleasant but a little boring, and he looks forward to chances to return to Life and find out for murder victims why they died and who is responsible. This time there’s an additional request: Will...

Paranormal mystery--When newly-arrived soul Cassie Parker refuses to believe she’s no longer alive, Dead Detective Seamus is sent from the Afterlife to learn what happened to her. He soon suspects it was murder, but why would someone kill the costume mistress at a small Toronto theater?
The Dead Detective Series (this is Book #3 but they can be...

Last book of the Dead Detective Mysteries. Uneasy and bored with life on the ship, Seamus decides it’s time to do what he’s been avoiding for six decades of Earth Time. Though he knows his wife and best friend teamed up to murder him, there are things about the crime he doesn’t understand, as well as emotions he hasn’t yet been able to face....

Tessa macFindlaech meets three witches on a Scottish hillside as she leaves her home to join the household of her uncle, the thane Macbeth. The weird women make predictions for her future, but Tessa sees no likelihood of truth in them. After all, the first crone claims Tessa is on her way to England, which is in the opposite direction.
...

Scotland’s King Macbeth has been dead for a decade, yet his legacy changes forever the lives of his twin nieces, Jenna and Jessie macFindlaech. Viking raiders on a blood feud come to their home in the Cairngorm Mountains, intending to kill all males of Macbeth’s line. Finding only female descendants in the clan-hold, the Vikings declare they...

Life is starting to tick Robin Parsons off. Bad people get away with whatever, and good people are supposed to shut up and take it. When a friend gets into trouble and she sees a chance to even the score a little, Robin takes it. She makes a crooked politician give back the money he took.

That’s satisfying, and Robin wonders: Can I do it again?...

In the follow-up to KIDNAP.org, Robin and her gang take on an unscrupulous pharmaceuticals manufacturer, Neil Preston, who lives on a fortress-like estate and is a big fan of Josef Stalin. As their plan for making Preston change his dishonest ways develops, Robin runs into an old lover. Seeing Darin again makes her question her future. Should...

From the author of KIDNAP.org and Pharma Con comes Book #3 of the Kidnap Capers series. Readers of the series know the lovable misfits who make up the Kidnap Gang: Robin, a former legal secretary; Cam, a guy with developmental delays; Hua, a former victim of human trafficking; and Luca, a woman with an “interesting” past. In an earnest desire to...

Vacationing in Britain, Mercedes Maxwell discovers a corpse in an old castle. When her traveling companion is murdered soon afterward, Mercedes is shocked. She’s even more distressed when the police seem to suspect her.
Later, the discovery of an old journal connects the two crimes, and Mercedes becomes determined to figure out its secrets. Soon...

Mercedes’ boyfriend/co-adventurer Colm disappears somewhere in Britain. His last call is cryptic; the last mail he sends even more so: copies of papers once owned by Charles Dickens. They have nothing to do with the famous writer, but when his namesake and current owner of the documents is murdered and the originals stolen, police think Colm...

FORMER TITLE: A LETHAL TIME AND PLACE
This suspense novel has a paranormal element and a surprise that makes it all the more delightful to visit Chicago in the 1960s.
Leo appears to be just another downtown bum, but he and Libby, Memnet, and Roy share a secret that requires constant vigilance. They live off the grid in the basement of an almost...

When a long-time friendship dies, does murder follow?
Decades past junior high in a small, northern Michigan town, Caroline Batzer is snubbed by her best friend. At first confused, she’s later stunned to learn Sarah Leigh betrayed her in a way she’d never have suspected. In an all-too-public setting, Caroline airs her anger at the woman everyone...

Carrie Walsh is almost unaware of the Women’s Liberation Movement, a 1960s girl too shy to speak her mind and too uptight to burn her bra.
When she witnesses a murder in an alley in Flint, Michigan, Carrie’s life takes a new direction. Joining the handsome, brooding Vietnam veteran Jack Porter to solve the crime, Carrie begins to feel more like...

Escaping Chicago one step ahead of the police, con artist Kip Morgan looks for a way to start replacing what he’s lost, which is just about everything. Answering an ad for a private investigator, he meets Maureen and Jocelyn Waite, who recently opened a detective agency in their mid-sized Michigan city. After finding that no one believes in the...