Showing results for "The Prairie" in Mystery

Prairie Nightingale is both the midlife mother of two teenage girls and a canny entrepreneur who has turned homemaking into a salaried profession. She’s also fascinated with the gritty details of other people’s lives. So when seemingly perfect Lisa Radcliffe, a member of her former mom-friends circle, suddenly disappears, it’s in Prairie’s nature to find out why. Given her innate talent for vital pattern recognition, Prairie is out to catch a few clues by taking a long, hard look at everyone in Lisa’s life—and uncovering their secrets.

In this enjoyable fourth series entry, Galveston PI Truman Smith (When Old Men Die, 1994) is hired by Lance Garrison, his still unpleasant but now rich high-school classmate, to investigate the shooting of a prairie chicken (really a kind of grouse) on Garrison's federally protected land in Picketville, Tex. Smith reluctantly agrees, largely because his high-school sweetheart, Anne Lindeman, now lives in Picketville.

During a training exercise, Creed’s scent dog, Grace, is drawn off course and discovers a shallow grave. The body was never meant to be found, hidden deep in an isolated part of Florida’s Blackwater River State Forest. The remote area has no easy access in or out. The killer obviously hoped his secret would be scattered and swallowed up by the forces of nature.

In Alabama: A deadly outbreak of tornadoes sends K-9 handlers Ryder Creed and Jason Seaver with their scent dogs, Grace and Scout, to search for survivors. As storms intensify and Ryder and Jason race against time to save victims, they end up racing to save themselves. In Chicago: Francine "Frankie" Russo is irritated when her young co-worker calls at 5:00 a.m. for a video-chat and catches her in only a towel. She's so annoyed with Tyler Gates that she’s barely paying attention when two men confront him on the street. In a matter of seconds, Frankie witnesses Tyler’s murder.

Gideon Waverley, heir to the Duke of Townsend, had everything a young man could need, a promising future, a title, charming good looks, great friends, and a family who adored him. Until his body turned him into a monster. He had no choice but to separate himself from the world, to hide his monstrous self from society, to cast away his future. But the brilliant and beautiful Eve Cornwell refused to believe he could not be saved, even as she refused to guard her heart.

Cassandra Sato's leap from the tropical paradise of Hawaii to the rustic charm of Nebraska was supposed to be her big career move, not a detour into danger. But at Morton College, where the leaves are barely falling before secrets start piling up, Cassandra's fresh start is anything but serene. The sudden death of a deaf student thrusts her into an investigation denser than the Nebraska cornfields. Amidst the swirling autumn leaves, Cassandra finds herself untangling a web of campus intrigue that threatens to derail her career and possibly her life.

VP of Student Affairs Cassandra Sato has a desk full of problems and it’s not even Thanksgiving break. A student’s injury and a deaf advocacy project brings national media attention to underfunded Morton College. Cassandra's new boss talks to her dead husband. Cassandra’s mentor thinks he’s a superhero in a senior citizen’s body. And Cassandra, recently moved from Hawai'i, can't crack the code of what to wear during November in Nebraska.

Sixteen years ago, Ryder Creed’s sister, Brodie, vanished from an interstate rest stop. She was only 11, and Creed was 14. Now a former Marine with his own scars, Creed has dedicated his life to his K-9 business. A thousand miles away during a police raid, FBI agent Maggie O'Dell stumbles upon a clue that may explain what happened to Brodie Creed all those years ago. But to find the answers, she’ll need to make a deal with a madman. The search that follows will be as agonizing for Creed as the answers he discovers....

Tanzanite, a rare blue gem born in fire and revealed by lightning, is found only in the Merelani Hills of Tanzania. But now the death of a gem smuggler points to another possibility. A South American mine owned by Tabitha Metals may hold the find of a century. But why is it kept hidden from the world? Geologist Brian Graham can draw only one conclusion: The mine's untraceable wealth is used to fund terrorism. And he must reveal the truth.

Explosive violence rocks Canada's Slocan Valley after the shooting deaths of three teenagers in a bombing attempt at the Keenleyside Dam. A joint US-Canada military force locks down the Valley to protect Columbia River dams critical to both countries but martial law incites more violence. Geologist Alex Graham refuses to let politics stand in her way. She evades military patrols to slip into a restricted zone in her hunt for a silver mine to claim as her own. But her plans are derailed by an intentionally set fire that almost takes her life.

With a college diploma safely in hand, 20-year-old Thomas Ollenburger is torn between his Mennonite roots on the Kansas prairie and his affluent life in Boston society - and by romantic entanglements in each world. And now even Heaven seems deaf to questions about his choices of vocation, wife, and home.

Jock Tanner has stood up Stephanie for the last time. She's had it with their on-again, off-again relationship and plans to end it permanently. That is, if he'd just answer his darn phone! Convinced he's avoiding her, she heads to his cabin cruiser on the marina to confront him and finds him there, but he's not talking. He has a knife stuck in his chest.

When Broadway diva Veronica Cagney is caught with the smoking gun over her dead husband, the private eye she hired pulls out all the stops to protect her in this 1940s noir inspired novelette. The fun really begins when the detective starts to piece together a puzzle of intrigue and murder as he finds himself involved with a gangster, the local sheriff, and the beautiful mistress of the victim. A fun little who-dunnit for a cold winter's night.

While on vacation in Sedona, Arizona, retiree Darren Stevens starts to have strange dreams of murder. When the young couple next door begin to fight, he realizes the man is the person in his dreams. After telling the local police chief, newly appointed Margo Stanton, he is at first met with skepticism, but then as a series of murders in Sedona begin to happen, she starts to come around. Then the FBI is brought in on the case as they try to connect the recent murders with those of the past.

Four friends on vacation have to deal with the fact that one of them is seeing the ghost of her dead brother. This leaves them wondering if it is the intense heat of a summer drought or something supernatural? As the story unfolds they also come to realize that a wild pack of coyotes may present more danger than they originally anticipated. A fast paced little mystery that should leave the reader satisfied.