Showing results for "Water, Water" in Amateur Sleuth

Vivian Wainwright is living her dream. The middle-aged widow owns the Misty Bay Tearoom, a quaint English-accented shop on the Oregon coast. But on the eve of the tearoom's second anniversary, the dream turns nightmarish when a man falls to his death from a hotel balcony. The body belongs to Dean Ramsey, ex-husband of Vivian's assistant, Jenna. Detective Tony Messina quickly zeroes in on Jenna as the prime suspect, since she was seen leaving the hotel shortly before the body was found.

Josie Ashbury was a successful Hollywood actress with a booming career—until an on-set breakdown sends her back to her small Ohio hometown to recover. Taking a job teaching at her old high school, Josie is beginning to put the pieces of her life back together when one of her students dies under suspicious circumstances. The police close the case quickly, without any real answers. Josie is determined to find the truth behind the girl's death.

A twister, a kidnapping, and a murder - oh my! Scumble River may never be the same. For school psychologist Skye Denison, there's certainly no place like home. When a violent tornado devastates her small hometown of Scumble River, she can't see how the community will ever recover - especially since town councilman Zeke Lyons appears to have perished in the twister. But things get even worse for Skye when her police chief husband, Wally, disappears in the midst of investigating Zeke's death, and evidence arises pointing to foul play.

As a storyteller, Maureen Nash can't help but see the narrative cues woven through her life. Like the series of letters addressed to her late husband from a stranger—the proprietor of The Moon Shell, a shop on Ocracoke Island, off the coast of North Carolina. The store is famous with shell collectors, but it's the cryptic letters from Allen Withrow, the shop's owner, that convince Maureen to travel to the small coastal town in the middle of hurricane season. At the very least, she expects she'll get a good story out of the experience, never anticipating it could end up a murder mystery.

When one of Irma's friends asks for help vetting a potential suitor, she's sure that a little digging into his past will do the trick. But after she discovers that a robotic appliance might be on a rampage in the almost-beau's swanky houseboat community, she sets out to entice Violet into unravelling another technological snafu.

Cam Killick finding the knife could have been nothing. People lose much stranger things in Norfolk's waterways all the time and, as a salvage diver, it is Cam's job to find them. But the stain on the blade suggests a different story - and a discreet favour from DS Claire Rogers of the Norfolk police yields a horrifying truth: at some point in the last few days, this knife stabbed someone through the heart. While Cam previously helped Rogers and the police with cold cases, this one couldn't be hotter.

Tattooed from her neck to her toesand sporting a gold tooth as sharp as her wisecracks, Sister Holiday struggles to stay on the righteous path. Never one to make things easy for herself, she’s committed to taking her permanent vows with the Sisters of the Sublime Blood and joining former fire...

When Dahlia Weathersby’s sister disappears on what should have been a simple day hike, Dahlia immediately heads to the Colorado Rockies to find her. Knowing that she’ll never survive the mountains alone, she convinces the local hermit, grouchy Winston Dane, to be her guide. As it becomes increasingly clear that Dahlia’s sister isn’t just missing but may have been taken, Dahlia and Winston will have to work together to find her in time…as they face everything the Rockies have to throw at them.

Bryan Crawford's murder is the perfect crime: no witness, no weapon, no indication that his death is anything other than the result of diabetes complications. That's what the medical examiner says. That's what the autopsy proves. And that's what the killer is counting on. But when new evidence surfaces, crime writer Leah Nash is pulled into the investigation, and all bets are off. Leah quickly zeroes in on the dysfunctional dynamics of the Crawford family. Beneath the happy fable they tell the world lies a dark tale of jealousy, greed, and revenge.

A Nor'easter is predicted in Coldwater Cove and storm chaser Emma Ross is desperate to improve warning times with her research so no one has to live through what she did. Armed with her equipment, she sets out to capture the storm, but captures a group of men and girls crossing the frozen ice instead. When she tries to help, they shoot at her. Navy SEAL Gunner Nash is on leave, choosing the cove for its lack of tourists in the harsh winter months as his destination. After three tours of duty, he prefers to be alone. While ice fishing, he hears the shot and discovers a wounded Emma.

When Abbie Adams, a historian-turned-journalist, is hired to investigate a cold-case murder from 1969, she jumps at the chance. But soon after she begins researching the case, she realizes that Frank Wexler, the faculty advisor who tanked her thesis and a member of a powerful family in town, is connected to the crime and is definitely not talking.

Massachusetts horticulturalist Peter Shandy is famous for his rutabagas, but he comes to Maine with a loftier plant in mind. Specifically, he wants to size up the world-renowned lupines of Frances Rondel, a nonagenarian whose legendary flowers are even more beautiful in life than they are in myth. Shandy is bitterly jealous but finds a major distraction in the dining room of the country inn where he's staying. He may grow wretched lupines, but no gardener can solve a murder like Peter Shandy.  

As a single mom and deputy coroner of Sorenson, Wisconsin, Mattie Winston is used to her life being a juggling act. But now that she's moved in with Detective Steve Hurley and his teenaged daughter, and has started planning their wedding, her home life is looking more like a three-ring circus. At least her workload at the Medical Examiner's office is lightened by the new hire Hal Dawson. But before Hal can even cash his first paycheck, he's murdered on a fishing trip with his girlfriend, who's gone missing. To keep her life from going completely under, Mattie will have to dive deep for clues. 

School psychologist Skye Denison-Boyd is settling into the rhythm of being a working mom, but when school is put on lockdown, life gets messy again. Not only is she stuck in a room with her horrible superintendent, Dr. Wraige, it looks like the lockdown was a false alarm - someone left a cupid’s bow and arrow in a classroom. Later, as Wally looks into an attempted break-in, he finds the superintendent murdered, his jugular cut with the arrow of a cupid statue. Did love just turn deadly in Scumble River?

Ann Cleeves Classic Crime - engaging mysteries to savour, beloved characters to meet again Come Death and High Water is the second mystery novel featuring George and Molly Palmer-Jones by Ann Cleeves, author of the Shetland and Vera Stanhope crime series. The picturesque privately-owned island...

Spring has sprung, the river is rising, and when Luann Dupree, the head of River Bend's Historical Society, vanishes into the night, everyone in town is convinced she's run off with her Internet Romeo. But her lifelong friend, Sarah Biddle, is convinced Luann is the victim of foul play. No one believes her—not even her husband, the local sheriff, so she turns to Helen Evans for help.

Photographer Ivy Culpepper is soon to make a home with her husband-to-be in the California beach town of Santa Sofia—but the Yeast of Eden bakery remains her second home. A regular who used Yeast of Eden as a workspace, Josh Prentiss always turned heads with his startlingly good looks and thousand-watt smile. But Ivy can’t help noticing one morning that he seems off his game. Later, during a visit to the park where she and Miguel plan to hold their engagement party—with plenty of baked goods on the menu—her pug Agatha sniffs out Josh lying in a bed of poppies…scone cold dead.

The Stonebridge Regatta is looming. The town's annual face-off against neighbouring Meadowfield is usually a weekend filled with sunshine, laughter and camaraderie. This year is different. A week before the race, the body of Stonebridge team captain Matthew Henderson is found dead in the water. The police file his passing as a tragic accident; however, his grieving widow disagrees and suspects foul play is involved. She enlists the help of Adam and Colin, the town's amateur (self-proclaimed) private detectives, to unearth the truth.

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.

Three fathers collide far beyond the reach or safety of the law in this breathtaking thriller from the beloved author of The Stolen Hours and The Life We Bury:"one of our best crime writers at the top of his game" (William Kent Krueger, New York Times bestselling author). Max Rupert has left his...