Spookie Town Murder Mysteries

Abigail Sutton's beloved husband walks out one night, doesn't return, and two years later is found dead, a victim of a long ago crime. It's made her sympathetic to the missing and their families. Starting her new life, Abigail moves to small town and buys a fixer-upper house left empty when old Edna Summers died. Once it was also home to Edna's younger sister, Emily, and her two children, Jenny and Christopher, who, people believe, drove away one night, thirty years ago, and just never came back.

Ten years ago Frank Lester, a Chicago homicide detective, thought he had rid himself forever of the Mud People Killer who'd kidnapped and murdered six people. Frank had shot him as he'd fled through a snowy night; had killed him, he believed, though a body was never found. But the killer wasn't dead. He'd only been waiting to take his revenge on Frank and those he cares about now...10 years later. Frank retired early and is living back in his hometown of Spookie when the killer resurfaces to take up where he left off.

Someone is terrorizing the elderly and vandalizing their homes in a certain neighborhood in Spookie. As usual, Abigail Sutton, a freelance artist, and her boyfriend, Frank Lester, a retired homicide detective, are called in to help find out who's doing these awful acts. The two seem to have an uncanny knack for unraveling mysteries and getting to the bottom of such strange happenings. Some of the old people think it's ghosts in their basements, in their homes, doing these destructive deeds, but Frank doesn't believe in ghosts while Abigail isn't so sure.

The usual eccentric characters are here for their fourth murder mystery and the case is one which really hits close to home this time for Myrtle, the town's Perry Como singing and wagon-pulling bag lady. Her sister Evelyn, the local animal hoarder, is missing. Strange miniature figures fashioned of twigs are found hanging from one of Evelyn's trees as warnings. Because of them, Myrtle fears a coven of wanted-to-be witches she once knew, and escaped from, could be behind the kidnapping because she stole their ancient black grimoire - and they want it back.

The Fifth Spookie Town Murder Mystery is finally out. Who wouldn’t want to find a chest of buried treasure, ancient gold coins, and exquisitely priceless jewelry on their land? A treasure a sailor dead for over 70 years once found in the shallow waters of a distant island and later buried, hid, the remnants of at the end of his tragic life. The townspeople of Spookie have been searching, fighting, and killing each other over it for decades, and no one has ever unearthed it.

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. 

Two mysteries, one from her far distant past of over 70 years ago and one for the future and a dire prediction from her grandniece Glinda, a psychic, that will affect not only Spookie and its inhabitants, but the whole world. Mysterious bones are unearthed in the ground behind Luke’s Hardware Store, and Frank and the sheriff are determined to find out whose bones they are, and how the victim died - even though whatever happened occurred over 70 years ago.

Frank and Abigail, and the town of Spookie, have survived the last horrific year and a half and are moving on with their lives. They’re sending their two children, Laura and Nick, off into the world to seek their futures. Abigail is preparing for another art gallery show, her theme this time: ghosts.

The eccentric, and sometimes lovable, characters of Spookie have returned for another series of mysterious adventures. Frank Lester, ex-Chicago homicide detective and mystery author, after his and Abigail’s long-awaited vacation is over, and they’re home again, has once more come out of retirement this time to take the position of sheriff of Spookie, because of Sheriff Mearl’s murder.