Showing results by author "Ann Charles" in All Categories

Little girls are vanishing from Deadwood, South Dakota. Fearing her daughter might be next, single mom Violet Parker is desperate to find the monster behind the abductions. With her savings dwindling and just three weeks left to sell her first house or lose her realtor job, Violet is ecstatic when a handsome jeweler hires her to sell his century-old Victorian masterpiece - until she sees the dilapidated dwelling. Now if she could just convince her only buyer to stop rejecting vintage homes as if they're haunted.

Real estate agent Violet "Spooky" Parker stumbles upon a body-part theft ring at the local funeral parlor and suspects her caustic coworker has a hand in it - or maybe a foot. Can Violet discover what's in the crates that the crooks are sneaking out of the mortuary in the dark of night? Or will she end up in one of them herself - in pieces?

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned...especially a dead one holding a grudge. Back on Deadwood's list of usual suspects, Violet Parker is hip deep in wild frights and fired-up females. After juggling bitter threats, haunted buildings, and vengeful ghosts, the last thing she needs is a pair of bullheaded detectives trying to pin another murder on her tail. Can Violet find the real killer before she ends up behind bars? Or worse, on a slab at the morgue.

Violet Parker knows better than to play with devils. They always cheat, especially when lives are at stake. Deadwood’s charming, troublemaking, and soul-sucking devils are no different, and they’re biting at her heels. But the clock is ticking and Violet has no choice - she must risk her life to save her treasured Aunt Zoe. With any luck, she might be able to trick the devils and beat the old terrors at their own game. If not, Deadwood could end up short one Executioner.

All Violet Parker wants is a day off. Better yet, just a “normal” day. But things never go as planned, especially in Deadwood. Someone - or rather something - broke into the local taxidermy shop and took bites out of the critter displays before racing off into the dark. But this is no random crime, and Violet knows it. With a bounty on her head and troublemakers zeroing in on her, she soon goes from being the hunter to the hunted.

A scrappy, hot-blooded woman can only take so much! Violet Parker is on fire...or rather under fire yet again. New evidence has fanned the embers of a cold murder case, and her alibi is smoldering at the corners. While battling a dogged detective determined to pin the murder on her, Violet scrambles to find the real killer. Will she escape "the heat" with singed tail feathers? Or will Violet go down in flames?

Normally, not even drunk on a bet would Violet Parker go to Slagton, a creepy ghost town inhabited by those too stubborn - or deranged - to leave. But a certain bullheaded Deadwood detective has a problem - his informant from Slagton has gone missing. When Violet is shanghaied into taking a hunting trip to the ghost town to search for the missing snitch, she stumbles into trouble that will take more than a double-barreled shotgun to escape. Will Violet survive this new hell that haunts her, or will she end up on Slagton's growing list of those "gutted and hung"?

Something has gone foul in the Black Hills, something gravely unnatural. Leave it to Violet Parker to stumble into the middle of it. A creepy phone call, a dead body, two meddling detectives, and a glut of troublemaking ex-partners - can things get any worse? Violet swears to keep her nose out of police business this time. But when her son is linked to the victim, she returns to the scene of the crime. More than just a mystery to solve, now her son might be in mortal danger.

Meanwhile, back in Deadwood...the mystery and mayhem continue. Between the butchered body parts, creepy killers, dogged detectives, ghoulish ghosts, and ever-present television cameras, Violet Parker's purple boots are itching to skedaddle. But there is no escaping another murder investigation or her new deadly reputation - even if both risk the lives of those she loves most.

Time is a tricky devil. And so is that blasted imp! Violet Parker needs to catch the little terror before it wreaks even more havoc in the Black Hills. But now that she’s saddled with this dang Timekeeper gig, she has a lot to juggle, like the real monsters wanting to tear the flesh from her bones just for fun. If she can’t figure out how to wrangle “time” to save her family, the Grim Reaper might come swinging for them next.

One dead body, one century-old haunted opera house, one zombie musical - one pissed-off detective - will Violet "Spooky" Parker keep her tail out of trouble, or will she end up as one of Deadwood's walking dead?

The conservation of natural resources, like that of any other asset, involves trade-offs. Yet, in a world faced with the harsh realities of climate change, crafting the right environmental policies is an increasingly urgent task. In Conservation, Charles Perrings and Ann Kinzig bring together new research in economics and biodiversity to investigate conservation decisions and the theory behind them.

Hank Varney’s the name. Miss Clem and me, along with the two Sidewinders from Santa Fe—we’ll get the sharp-toothed vermin cleared out. Now, some people say I’m lucky, but I don’t know if it’ll do me any good, what with the army of trouble me and the crew are facin’. If we don’t live through it, well, there goes Deadwood. Maybe even the whole of the Black Hills.

Deadwood, late 1876. A rowdy and reckless undertaker’s delight. What better place for a killer to blend in? Enter undertaker Clementine Johanssen, tall and deadly with a hot temper and short fuse, hired to clean up Deadwood’s dead...and the “other” problem. She’s hell-bent on poking, sticking, or stabbing anyone who steps out of line. But when a couple Santa Fe sidewinders ride into town searching for their missing uncle, they land neck deep in lethal gunplay, nasty cutthroats, and endless stinkin’ snow.

Jack “Rabbit” Fields knew a good thing when he saw it, whether it was a sound horse, a sure bet, or a pretty sage hen. When it came to locking horns with any curly wolves he ran into along the trail, he tended to shoot first - a notion that had saved his hide more times than he could count. But that was before he came to Deadwood. Now, someone is stealing freshly dead bodies right out of their graves, and Rabbit and his amigos are on the hunt to figure out who. And more important, why?

Someone is spreading rumors around Deadwood that Violet Parker likes to chat with dead folks. With her reputation endangered, her bank account on the verge of extinction, and her career at risk of going up in flames, Violet is desperate. When the opportunity to sell another vintage home materializes, she grabs it, even though this "haunted" house was recently the stage for a two-act murder-suicide tragedy.

It’s Christmas Eve, and Violet Parker has one request on her list for Santa - to make it home to her kids. Unfortunately, “home” is also the lair of her life-long nemesis, her sister Susan, aka the devil’s concubine. Standing in Violet’s way is Old Man Winter, who slammed the Black Hills with a show-stopping blizzard. However, a little snow isn’t going to ground her sleigh, not with family counting on her to deliver Santa’s goods.

Danger the likes Boone McCreery has never seen is brewing in the Black Hills. Fresh in from Santa Fe, he’s returned to Deadwood to seek justice for his uncle - and maybe to see about a girl. Little did he know his search for justice would have him stumbling into a hornets’ nest beyond his worst nightmare. One thing is for certain: The trouble he and his compadres chance upon deep in the trees is a long way from ordinary.

When Claire's grandfather and his army buddies converge in the Arizona desert to find new wives, it's her thankless job to keep them out of trouble with the opposite sex. But when she finds a human leg bone and partners with a reluctant geotechnician to dig up secrets from the past, trouble finds her. If she doesn't stop digging, she could wind up dead.

When “Crazy” Kate Morgan learns that her sisters are the next targets on a killer’s to-do list, she’s hell-bent on chasing down trouble before it rides into Jackrabbit Junction. The problem: The darn law dogs keep nipping at her heels, tossing her in the hoosegow, and sidetracking her hunt. The solution: A posse — the pricklier, the better.