Rural Town Mystery

The body of Reginald Williamson had been well concealed under a bush in Middlesbury Common and the murder efficiently carried out - a single stab wound to the chest. Reggie’s dog had been killed just as efficiently. With no clues or obvious motive, the case is going nowhere. Then he gets a break. Warren’s instincts tell him that the informant is dodgy - a former police officer under investigation. But when Warren hears the incredible story he has to tell, he's glad to have given him a chance to speak.

In the summer of 1866, Jacob Ballard, a former Union soldier and spy, is dispatched by the War Department in Washington City to infiltrate the isolated North Carolina mountain community where he was born and find a serial killer responsible for the deaths of Union veterans. Based on true events, That Bright Land is the story of a violent and fragile nation in the wake of the Civil War and a man who must exorcise his own savage demons while tracking down another.

With nothing else to lose, Detective Dave Burrows volunteers for the most dangerous mission of his life. When Dave joined the force he couldn’t have foreseen the toll it would take on family life. Dave’s wife, Melinda, is unhappy about being left alone so much to raise their 18-month-old daughter, Bec. His interfering father-in-law isn’t helping. He never thought he was good enough for his daughter and is not shy about telling Dave what he's doing wrong. When things come to a head at home, Dave's policing mate, Spencer, comes up with a plan.

Schon wieder ein Toter in Bad Bekenborn! Ausgerechnet den netten Herrn Berger von nebenan hat es erwischt! War es wieder ein Mord? Noch bevor die Tankstellen-Besitzerin und Hobbydetektivin Taissa Lausen der Sache nachgehen kann, flattert die nächste Zahlungsforderung vom Finanzamt herein. Da kommt das Angebot von Bauer Dirkschneider gerade recht: Er will ihr ein Stück Land abkaufen. Doch Taissa ist nicht sicher, ob dabei alles mit rechten Dingen zugeht. Während sie noch grübelt, landet plötzlich ihr bester Stammkunde Antonius im Krankenhaus.

When a child disappears without a trace during a snowstorm in a small town, Mary must unravel the mystery before it's too late. As the search intensifies, Mary confronts her own dark past, which may hold the key to unlocking the truth. With time running out and the townspeople on edge, can Mary crack the case and bring the perpetrator to justice?

In Autumn of 1912, mounted trooper Augustus Hawkins arrives at his new post in the fading gold town of Colley, NSW. On his first day, he is ambushed by a hidden gunman, his junior officer is killed before his eyes, and he escapes back to town to find the police station burning to the ground. Someone has it in for the mounted troopers. A traumatised veteran of the Boer War, and a stranger to Colley, Hawkins is deeply shaken and ill-equipped to solve the case. But with only green troopers and a drunken, incompetent detective available to hunt down the murderer, he is forced to take the lead.

With a mix of Anglo, Native, and Hispanic cultures, the village of Bonney, New Mexico, has its share of folklore and legends, but no one has ever heard of the Ghost Girls before. Three high school girls have convinced their fellow students that they have powers, but now that they're graduating, new recruits are needed to carry on the tradition.

Mick Hardin is an Army CID officer home on leave, recovering from an IED attack and flirting with prescription painkillers, when a body is found in the center of town. It’s Barney Kissick, the local heroin dealer, and the city police see it as an occupational hazard. But when Barney’s mother, Shifty, asks Mick to take a look, he finds there’s more to the killing than it seems. Mick should be rehabbing his leg, signing his divorce papers, and getting out of town—and most of all, staying out of the way—but he keeps on looking, and suddenly he’s getting shot at himself.

It's January 1969 in the small rural community of Center Springs, Texas. Constable Ned Parker suspects a larger mystery behind the seemingly accidental death of his nephew, R .B., who was found in his overturned pickup near Sanders Creek bridge. It appears that R. B. drowned in the shallow water, but something doesn't add up for Ned, who begins turning over stones in search of what really happened the night R. B. died.

In her Food Lovers' Village Mysteries, Agatha Award-winning author Leslie Budewitz introduces us to Jewel Bay, a tight-knit Montana community that thrives on tourism and farm-to-table fare. Featuring Erin Murphy, beloved proprietor of the Merc—a century-old general store converted into a local foods market-each book brings us closer to the folks who call Jewel Bay home, and the cunning culprits in their midst.

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.

In the shadow of a massive boulder on Oklahoma’s Big Rock Prairie, a squirrel hunter discovers a charred skeleton in a homemade charcoal kiln. Johnston County deputy Hannah Bond and Chickasaw Lighthorse police sergeant Bill Maytubby are called to the scene and soon identify the victim as a young Chickasaw man from a nearby town. What begins as the search for a killer soon throws Maytubby and Bond into the deep end of a conspiracy that puts both the victim’s family and the officers themselves at risk.

The Grimes sisters aren’t normal—even by witches’ standards. For weeks, Fiona has been having chilling visions of death, and Eleanor sees restless spirits nearly everywhere she goes. It doesn’t help that Mountain Shadow is a strange place to begin with, where rumors of curses fly as fast as saltwater taffy on a warm summer day. When a string of gruesome murders rocks the small town, Fiona and the rest of her coven begin to worry that a fellow witch may be the killer. Even worse? A witch hunter has just moved in next door, and he suspects the coven.

Ted Sweeney. Affable everyman in small-town Montana. Tailgate hung on with baling wire, owner of his own business. Ten minutes ago, his biggest worry had been how to pay for the engagement ring rattling around in his pocket. But that was before he came home to find a corpse tidily arranged in his favorite recliner, his "old pal of a piece of furniture". Is it a warning or a setup or what? Sweeney can't help but admire the efficiency of the work, the slice deep across the guy's throat. Somebody knew what they were doing.

One phone call. Two lives. Their darkest secrets. Lana needs to sell a holiday, fast. Stuck in Tenerife, in a dead end job, she never expected a response quite like Liam’s. Thousands of miles away a phone rings. Liam never intended to pick up - he’s too busy choosing the quickest way to die. But at least someone should know the truth before he goes, even if that someone is a stranger. As time runs out both are drawn to the other, expressing thoughts they never imagined they would share. When you’re about to die, will your secrets even matter?

When a local pickleball player is shot in the head while practicing at an abandoned tennis court with his partner-slash-lover, Sheriff Lew Ferris suspects that the bullet was a stray shot from hunters in the area. It’s not until a second player—the first victim’s mistress and pickleball partner—is killed that Sheriff Ferris realizes this is no hunting accident. Someone is hunting people, and it’s up to her to find out who.

With the first disappearance, the townspeople begin to mistrust outsiders. When the second girl goes missing, neighbors and childhood friends start to eye each other warily. And with the third disappearance, the sleepy little town awakens to a full-blown nightmare. The Church of Dead Girls displays Stephen Dobyns' remarkable gifts for exploring human nature, probing the ruinous effects of suspicion.

Essa Montgomery and her brother Clyde were brought up in New Hope, a serpent-handling church in Vintera, West Virginia, until the shocking deaths of both their parents closed the church down. Now twenty, reclusive Essa lives alone in her childhood home in the shadow of New Hope, which to her horror has been taken over by a new charismatic, unsettling pastor who continues the dangerous practice. So when the church burns down, she's glad—until she learns that two people died in the blaze, and her brother's the prime suspect.

Türkisfarbenes Wasser, einsame Sandstrände und ein vergifteter Taucher – der 10. Fall für den liebenswerten Ermittler Pierre Durand! Es ist Mai in Südfrankreich. Pierre Durand und seine frisch angetraute Frau Charlotte erfreuen sich an den weiten Sandstränden der Côte Varoise, wo sie ihre Flitterwochen verbringen. Doch als Pierre eines Morgens einen verunglückten Taucher entdeckt, ist es vorbei mit der Idylle. Die Polizei geht von einem Kreislaufversagen aus, der Notarzt allerdings hat Zweifel. Pierre verdrängt die Bedenken, er will Charlotte zuliebe den Urlaub nicht gefährden. Aber dann verschwindet der Arzt spurlos.

Thorny Wallace returns to her hometown for peace and quiet. WWII is distant thunder in the small rural town, but Los Angeles is always a clear and present threat. As she begins to look into an old death, she finds that there is always more going on in the small quiet town than meets the eye. But, when she thinks she has the players figured out, the FBI shows up.