Rural Town Mystery

There's something fishy just below the surface of Scumble River.... School psychologist Skye Denison-Boyd is getting ready to return to work from her maternity leave and hoping for a peaceful year in her job as a school psychologist. But when an elderly woman disappears on her first day back and a disgruntled parent threatens to sue the school, Skye realizes that her return will be anything but quiet. When the parent suing Skye's school is found dead and with the missing woman's case still unsolved, Skye suspects the crimes are somehow linked.

In the seaside village of Cape Willington, Maine, Candy Holliday has an idyllic life tending to the Blueberry Acres farm she runs with her father. But when an aging playboy and the newly crowned Blueberry Queen are killed, Candy must investigate to clear the name of a local handyman. And as she sorts through the town's juicy secrets, things start to get sticky indeed...

Suspicious goings-on at a retirement home lead to an intriguing investigation in Date with Malice, the second cosy crime novel in Julia Chapman's Dales Detective series. Perfect for fans of Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club and M.C. Beaton. 'A Yorkshire Agatha Raisin' - Dalesman It’s...

Jenna Abbott’s life went up in flames even before the fire started in Tenmile, Oregon. She was still coping with her husband's affair—and the revelation that he got a much younger woman pregnant—when the fire finally died down, and Ryan was among the missing. Chelsea Goddard still can’t explain how her estranged husband got back to Tenmile from out of the country the day of the fire, and she also can’t shake the nagging feeling that the secrets they’ve kept between them for the last twenty years might just be the tinder that made it all burn.

One rainy night fifteen years ago, a knock at the door changed Liss Kehoe’s life forever. On that night, Ashley Hay stood on Liss’s front porch and handed over her brand-new baby Callan. She was never seen or heard from again.

When a massive hurricane hits Turtle Cove, Chief Perry and his team battle to save the community. As the small coastal town’s residents come together in the wake of the disaster, the discovery of an unfamiliar survivor who washed ashore has the townsfolk guessing. But he isn't all the tides brought in. Unable to recall his identity or the events leading up to him washing up on the beach, mystery ensues, and it isn't long before the residents of Turtle Cove realize there is something far more sinister in the making. Something more fearful than the storm.

When a mysterious young woman named Katie appears in the small North Carolina town of Southport, her sudden arrival raises questions about her past. Beautiful yet self-effacing, Katie seems determined to avoid forming personal ties until a series of events draws her into two reluctant relationships: one with Alex, a widowed store owner with a kind heart and two young children; and another with her plainspoken, single neighbor, Jo. Despite her reservations, Katie slowly begins to let down her guard, putting down roots in the close-knit community.

In November 2014 Arla Macleod bludgeoned her mother, father and sister to death with a hammer. Now incarcerated at a medium-security mental-health institution, Arla will speak to no one but Scott King, an investigative journalist, whose Six Stories podcasts have become an internet sensation. King finds himself immersed in an increasingly complex case, interviewing five witnesses and Arla herself as he questions whether Arla's responsibility for the massacre was a diminished as her legal team made out.

Jaxie dreads going home. His mum’s dead. The old man bashes him without mercy, and he wishes he was an orphan. And then, in one terrible moment, his life is stripped to little more than what he can carry and how he can keep himself alive. There’s just one person left in the world who understands him and what he still dares to hope for. But to reach her he’ll have to cross the vast saltlands on a trek that only a dreamer or a fugitive would attempt.

When Jennifer Smiley’s grandmother, Ginny, leaves her an old farmhouse on Edgewater Road in seemingly quiet Ross County, Ohio, Jennifer can’t pass up the opportunity for a new beginning. Almost immediately, she meets a group of men who generously help her move in. When she realizes that they work for Lincoln Bennett, her next-door neighbor, she’s intrigued. Lincoln is gorgeous and has dark lapis-blue eyes she could get lost in...but he doesn’t seem all that friendly. She’s torn between getting to know him and sticking with the solitude she knows so well.

July knows 18 things about her mother. But not the truth. Summer, 1995. On her tenth birthday, July's teacher sets the class a project to find out about a relation they don't know. It's easy for July to choose her subject. She doesn't remember her mother, who died when she was small, and her father refuses to talk about her. Ever. The only memories she has of her are flashbacks from the accident that claimed her mother's life. But then she receives the note: 'She didn't die in a car accident.'

The police fabricated a story about the night four members of MS-13 died in a tiny home on a quiet city street almost two years previous. George Tokay and his friends were not supposed to share the secret about what really happened that night. No one was to know the truth. But someone talked, and now MS-13, ruthless and wanting revenge, is back in town, and people are dying.

Detective Abish Taylor left Utah for a reason. But with her husband’s passing, it’s time to come home. Reconnecting with her family means dealing with her past: the father she abandoned and the community she left behind. Her one escape is serving as the sole police detective in the small town of Pleasant View. But when the quiet Mormon suburb in the Wasatch Mountains is shaken by a macabre death - with the hallmarks of a sacred ritual dating back to the days of Brigham Young - Abbie is called into action.

Annie McIntyre has a love/hate relationship with Garnett, Texas. Recently graduated from college and home waitressing, lacking not in ambition but certainly in direction, Annie is lured into the family business—a private investigation firm—by her supposed-to-be-retired grandfather, Leroy, despite the rest of the clan's misgivings.

After a messy divorce and a career that left more scars than she admits, former L.A. homicide detective Sarah Lawson thought she was done chasing ghosts. Aspen offered quiet—mountains instead of sirens, solitude instead of crime scenes. But when a local artist is found dead under eerie circumstances, Sarah is pulled into one last investigation.

The Australian outback is beautiful, idyllic, peaceful, and all Detective Bo Campbell has to do is fit in. Within a day of his arrival, however, he's asked to cover up the murder of a local Aboriginal woman found in bushland. When he discovers she's not the only one, his whole world comes crashing down. In 1982, north-western New South Wales is plagued by corruption, deaths in custody and inequality. Sent to the remote area after he accidentally shot and killed his partner in a bungled drug raid in Newtown, Bo finds himself caught in a trap and being squeezed by a ruthless group.

Cecil Younger never thought it would come to this: providing surveillance for a chicken coop being raided by a fowl thief. But things have not exactly been breaking right lately for the Alaskan P.I. The logical thing to do? Take a vacation, of course. Well, it's not exactly a vacation. Younger has been paid to investigate a doctor aboard a luxurious first-class cruise ship up the Alaskan coast. Except passengers are dying. Now Younger finds himself trapped on a ship of fools with a murderer who is leaving a trail of well-to-do passengers in his wake...and leaving evidence pointing an accusing finger at Cecil!

Gerryton, PA is a small, peaceful community where everyone has the fortune to watch their fellow neighbor grow and thrive through life. A place where even the most inconspicuous face can hide a very dark secret… While most of life in Gerryton is peaceful, Camilla struggles with her past demons. She finds comfort in her closest friends and her life partner, Michael. Soon, Camilla discovers that she has become a fixation for someone in Gerryton, unsure of who to trust her friendly demeanor turns to paranoia.

At the Bounty Canyon Ranch in Southeastern New Mexico, the bodies of Luke and Deona Pruitt are buried in a manure pit and their 14-year-old son Leeland Pruitt is missing. Deputy Sheriff Greenwood is called out to investigate the missing Pruitt family and discovers the grim scene. Leeland’s brutal upbringing was an open secret overlooked by neighbors and teachers for years. The community turned a blind eye as Leeland was moved by his cruel father from one remote ranch to another. And so, Deputy Greenwood begins a twenty-four-hour hunt to find and save the boy suspected of murdering his parents.

If you love small towns, endearing relationships, food, animals, and a touch of murder, you will love this mystery series set in the small town of White Eagle, Montana. In book 10, Tess and Tony plan a secret wedding ceremony, Nona plans a visit, and Tess and Mike plan a face-to-face meeting with their father. In book 11, Tess fills in at the post office. While on route for the first time in a year, she discovers that her father has left her brother Mike with a baby. In book 12, Tony offers to pay for a televised ad promoting the haunted house, and Tess agrees to act as spokesperson.