MYSTERIES/SUSPENSE (Alphabetical by Author)
Crime Might Pay
By Robert Archibald
Contrary to popular belief, it turns out that crime might pay, and it might pay well.
Four friends had become vigilantes to combat the offenses they saw committed against the innocent. But a promise to the FBI means they can no longer break the law to seek justice for victims. A family crisis changes everything, and now they have no choice. They are driven to take some sort of action, even if it means skirting the law. Again.
Beth's mother and father are wrongfully sued and lose all their life's savings, and Beth is devastated. How will her parents cope with this financial disaster? Ralph is suspicious, however, and does not believe true justice was served in the courtroom.
When Ralph begins to dig, he uncovers some surprising secrets... including fraud, extortion, and money laundering. Something must be done to right this wrong. But what will happen when this group of friends pit themselves against a powerful judge and a corrupt group of lawyers?
In this next installment after Roundabout Revenge and Guilty Until Proven Innocent, the four friends once again set out to right the wrongs perpetrated by criminals who have the power to destroy people's lives. As the stakes escalate, only one question remains: Will they succeed this time or is this the end of a friendship... and maybe a life?
Found on Amazon
Contrary to popular belief, it turns out that crime might pay, and it might pay well.
Four friends had become vigilantes to combat the offenses they saw committed against the innocent. But a promise to the FBI means they can no longer break the law to seek justice for victims. A family crisis changes everything, and now they have no choice. They are driven to take some sort of action, even if it means skirting the law. Again.
Beth's mother and father are wrongfully sued and lose all their life's savings, and Beth is devastated. How will her parents cope with this financial disaster? Ralph is suspicious, however, and does not believe true justice was served in the courtroom.
When Ralph begins to dig, he uncovers some surprising secrets... including fraud, extortion, and money laundering. Something must be done to right this wrong. But what will happen when this group of friends pit themselves against a powerful judge and a corrupt group of lawyers?
In this next installment after Roundabout Revenge and Guilty Until Proven Innocent, the four friends once again set out to right the wrongs perpetrated by criminals who have the power to destroy people's lives. As the stakes escalate, only one question remains: Will they succeed this time or is this the end of a friendship... and maybe a life?
Found on Amazon
Guilty Until Proven Innocent
By Robert Archibald
Check your email. Help is out there…
When Sherry and Beth discover what their boyfriends have been up to, they want in on the action. Working as vigilantes and providing justice for wrongs committed is a noble thing to do, but the women decide the stakes need to change.
Once again, the conflict is personal.
This follow-up to Roundabout Revenge follows former Professor Phil Philemon as he and his friends continue to seek elusive justice for victims who may not have been able to speak for themselves. Lurking in chat rooms, the group finds a large number of women who have been sexually harassed on the job. Sexually harassed in horrible ways. Harassed until their jobs, their reputations, and their sanity is on the line. And what they find is that the story of he said-she said is not always one that ends well.
But not everything goes as planned, and soon the four friends need to come to terms with a larger reality, including a crime of arson and an FBI investigation.
Found on Amazon
Check your email. Help is out there…
When Sherry and Beth discover what their boyfriends have been up to, they want in on the action. Working as vigilantes and providing justice for wrongs committed is a noble thing to do, but the women decide the stakes need to change.
Once again, the conflict is personal.
This follow-up to Roundabout Revenge follows former Professor Phil Philemon as he and his friends continue to seek elusive justice for victims who may not have been able to speak for themselves. Lurking in chat rooms, the group finds a large number of women who have been sexually harassed on the job. Sexually harassed in horrible ways. Harassed until their jobs, their reputations, and their sanity is on the line. And what they find is that the story of he said-she said is not always one that ends well.
But not everything goes as planned, and soon the four friends need to come to terms with a larger reality, including a crime of arson and an FBI investigation.
Found on Amazon
Roundabout Revenge
By Robert Archibald
A conflict between what is legal and what is just…
Phil Philemon has it good—he enjoys teaching history at a university and is happily married. In fact, he and Mary Jane have been married for decades. After returning from a business trip, he stands in the airport waiting for his wife to pick him up.
She never arrives.
The police tell him that her death was instant, and she never knew what hit her. Phil is devastated. She had been the love of his life, and suddenly she was gone. All because of one person. Then he discovers more details about her death and the man who killed her, but justice is elusive. So Phil takes matters into his own hands and avenges her death the only way he can… with Roundabout Revenge.
Found on Amazon
A conflict between what is legal and what is just…
Phil Philemon has it good—he enjoys teaching history at a university and is happily married. In fact, he and Mary Jane have been married for decades. After returning from a business trip, he stands in the airport waiting for his wife to pick him up.
She never arrives.
The police tell him that her death was instant, and she never knew what hit her. Phil is devastated. She had been the love of his life, and suddenly she was gone. All because of one person. Then he discovers more details about her death and the man who killed her, but justice is elusive. So Phil takes matters into his own hands and avenges her death the only way he can… with Roundabout Revenge.
Found on Amazon
Who Dung It?
By Robert Archibald
George isn’t certain how he became a dung beetle—or scarab, as he prefers to be called. All he knows is that after he was murdered, this is his new incarnation.
And since dung beetles don’t have opposable thumbs, he enlists the help of Judy, a travel writer working on a piece in Africa to help him track his killer. Her luggage tag address says she is from Cleveland, his hometown, so he grabs the opportunity to go home and fix things. Soon, George and Judy figure out a way to communicate and she agrees to help him find his murderer.
But this is no simple homicide. When George was alive as a man, he worked for a detective agency. What had he uncovered that would cause someone to kill him? And will Judy and her friends have the same fate?
Found on Amazon
George isn’t certain how he became a dung beetle—or scarab, as he prefers to be called. All he knows is that after he was murdered, this is his new incarnation.
And since dung beetles don’t have opposable thumbs, he enlists the help of Judy, a travel writer working on a piece in Africa to help him track his killer. Her luggage tag address says she is from Cleveland, his hometown, so he grabs the opportunity to go home and fix things. Soon, George and Judy figure out a way to communicate and she agrees to help him find his murderer.
But this is no simple homicide. When George was alive as a man, he worked for a detective agency. What had he uncovered that would cause someone to kill him? And will Judy and her friends have the same fate?
Found on Amazon
Reflections in a Dragon’s Eye
A killer story with a moral core
Baltimore PD Reflections Series #1
One life will be saved; one life will not… Who is to choose?
By Bradley Harper and Lydia Galehouse
‘KO’ Bannon saw a young woman’s body floating in Baltimore harbor on New Year’s night. He’s sure about that. But the figure looming over her was something from another world. His tale of homicide by dragon leads him to detectives Ruiz and Mankiller, who’ve been tracking a serial killer with a particular taste in victim. They’re certain KO saw something that could lead them to their quarry, but to do so, he must put his fragile sobriety at risk and return to the dragon that haunts his dreams.
My Time with General Powell: Stories of Kindness, Diplomacy, and Protocol
by Leslie Lautenslager and Bradley Harper
Leslie Lautenslager was the Executive Assistant to General Colin Powell for the last twenty-five years of his life. In her memoir, Leslie recounts the General’s kindness and basic humanity while also telling of how the high and mighty behaved amongst themselves when the cameras are turned off. But this is no ‘gotcha’ memoir. Those who admire the man will discover what Leslie told others. Everything you heard about him is wrong. He was even better.
It is a fitting tribute to a great man and leader and a reminder of what can be done when we listen to our better angels.
Available at:
Amazon
Barns and Noble
Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, VA
Deception– A Sidney Lake Lowcountry Mystery
By Tim Holland
When Sidney Lake learned the author's copy of Anne Brontë's novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall had been stolen, he firmly believed he would never see it again, much less hold it in his hands. But there it was. In the hands of an appraiser at the National Arts And Crafts Show. Could it be the same three-volume first edition of the book? He had to find out. Assembling his experienced team of investigators, they begin searching for the appraiser, who is believed to be from Savannah, Georgia, in the hope of being led to the young man who claimed to be the owner of the book. But before they get fully underway, Tillie James, his Gullah companion, and confidant drops out of the group as a ninety-year-old Gullah woman is threatened with losing her home at a delinquent tax sale. The woman had been deceptively tricked by a real estate attorney into not paying the tax claiming he had a way around it. Could there be a connection between rare book thefts and attempts to steal land from Gullah residents of the Pirate Islands? Sidney and his associates decide to pursue both the tax fraud deception and the possible Brontë book forgery at the same time and keep running into coincidences. But are they? The Lowcountry of South Carolina takes center stage as Sidney Lake and Tillie James pursue the answers to questions not everyone wants asked.
Available on Amazon
When Sidney Lake learned the author's copy of Anne Brontë's novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall had been stolen, he firmly believed he would never see it again, much less hold it in his hands. But there it was. In the hands of an appraiser at the National Arts And Crafts Show. Could it be the same three-volume first edition of the book? He had to find out. Assembling his experienced team of investigators, they begin searching for the appraiser, who is believed to be from Savannah, Georgia, in the hope of being led to the young man who claimed to be the owner of the book. But before they get fully underway, Tillie James, his Gullah companion, and confidant drops out of the group as a ninety-year-old Gullah woman is threatened with losing her home at a delinquent tax sale. The woman had been deceptively tricked by a real estate attorney into not paying the tax claiming he had a way around it. Could there be a connection between rare book thefts and attempts to steal land from Gullah residents of the Pirate Islands? Sidney and his associates decide to pursue both the tax fraud deception and the possible Brontë book forgery at the same time and keep running into coincidences. But are they? The Lowcountry of South Carolina takes center stage as Sidney Lake and Tillie James pursue the answers to questions not everyone wants asked.
Available on Amazon
The Rising Tide –A Sidney Lake Lowcountry Mystery
By Tim Holland
Midsummer in the lowcountry of South Carolina is a dreamy, quiet time. Professor Sidney Lake uses this respite for literary research and planning his next semester, but his Gullah housekeeper, Tillie James, has other plans for him. She needs his help in dealing with a touchy subject: the death of George Reed and the suspicions it aroused that his wife Becky was involved, even though the coroner and the police chief declared Reed’s death an unfortunate accident. As the police are in the business of catching the guilty and have no interest in proving someone innocent, it’s up to Sidney Lake and Tillie, along with his graduate assistant, the local minister and a retired policeman, to save Becky Reeds reputation. The proof of her innocence seems to rest on the quirks of the rising and falling tide in the marsh where George died. But the search for truth turns out to be more than Sidney bargained for and, suddenly, his life and those of his friends are on the line.
Available at Barnes and Noble.
Midsummer in the lowcountry of South Carolina is a dreamy, quiet time. Professor Sidney Lake uses this respite for literary research and planning his next semester, but his Gullah housekeeper, Tillie James, has other plans for him. She needs his help in dealing with a touchy subject: the death of George Reed and the suspicions it aroused that his wife Becky was involved, even though the coroner and the police chief declared Reed’s death an unfortunate accident. As the police are in the business of catching the guilty and have no interest in proving someone innocent, it’s up to Sidney Lake and Tillie, along with his graduate assistant, the local minister and a retired policeman, to save Becky Reeds reputation. The proof of her innocence seems to rest on the quirks of the rising and falling tide in the marsh where George died. But the search for truth turns out to be more than Sidney bargained for and, suddenly, his life and those of his friends are on the line.
Available at Barnes and Noble.
What the Mirror Doesn't See
By Tim Holland
It is 1993, the banking world is in turmoil, and in New Jersey there is outright panic. The big New York banks and emerging regionals are gobbling up everything in the state. Every financial institution is now both predator and prey. The Fed has opened the floodgates, and traditional banking ethics are disappearing. At a used book sale, Jim Fairmont, a career banker having worked for First State Bank for more than twenty-five years, finds a blank, signed invoice belonging to an auto parts supplier. The document is contained in a box of books donated by Larry McBride, a new-breed, brash, thirty-three-year-old former New York banker. McBride had been hired by First State Bank to give it credibility in its defensive entry into international banking and who, like Jim, is an avid book collector. Alerted by McBride’s strange behavior at the book sale as he searched for something, which Jim suspects was the invoice, Jim begins to investigate McBride’s relationships with some of First States customers. What he uncovers is much bigger than he ever imagined, involving clearly unethical conduct and questionable international asset movements. His discoveries put him in the sights of New Jersey’s underworld who are determined to protect McBride and his clients, placing not only Jim’s life in danger, but those of his close associates as well.
Available at Barnes and Noble.
It is 1993, the banking world is in turmoil, and in New Jersey there is outright panic. The big New York banks and emerging regionals are gobbling up everything in the state. Every financial institution is now both predator and prey. The Fed has opened the floodgates, and traditional banking ethics are disappearing. At a used book sale, Jim Fairmont, a career banker having worked for First State Bank for more than twenty-five years, finds a blank, signed invoice belonging to an auto parts supplier. The document is contained in a box of books donated by Larry McBride, a new-breed, brash, thirty-three-year-old former New York banker. McBride had been hired by First State Bank to give it credibility in its defensive entry into international banking and who, like Jim, is an avid book collector. Alerted by McBride’s strange behavior at the book sale as he searched for something, which Jim suspects was the invoice, Jim begins to investigate McBride’s relationships with some of First States customers. What he uncovers is much bigger than he ever imagined, involving clearly unethical conduct and questionable international asset movements. His discoveries put him in the sights of New Jersey’s underworld who are determined to protect McBride and his clients, placing not only Jim’s life in danger, but those of his close associates as well.
Available at Barnes and Noble.
ElderHouse
By Ronald Munro
(Syd Brogan Crime Drama Book 1)
It was a mystery what she was doing in that courtyard. A wicked winter storm raging with fierce winds made it highly improbable. She hated the cold. Yet, that’s where her slain body was found dressed only in nightclothes.
Was she forced into it? Coerced? Lured? Pursued?
The blunt force trauma was clear. Not so, the motive. The victim had no enemies. She wasn’t violated. Nothing was stolen. She was just murdered.
Detective Cynthia “Syd” Brogan has to wonder how a quiet woman living a quiet life meets a violent death in a peaceful community of senior citizens.
Was it a mistake, or was it a meticulous crime fashioned by a disturbed mind? Perhaps it was jealousy or greed? Could it have been revenge?
It’s hard to tell when the circumstances are distorted by a tangled history of disconnected motives stretching forty years into the past.
Available on Amazon
(Syd Brogan Crime Drama Book 1)
It was a mystery what she was doing in that courtyard. A wicked winter storm raging with fierce winds made it highly improbable. She hated the cold. Yet, that’s where her slain body was found dressed only in nightclothes.
Was she forced into it? Coerced? Lured? Pursued?
The blunt force trauma was clear. Not so, the motive. The victim had no enemies. She wasn’t violated. Nothing was stolen. She was just murdered.
Detective Cynthia “Syd” Brogan has to wonder how a quiet woman living a quiet life meets a violent death in a peaceful community of senior citizens.
Was it a mistake, or was it a meticulous crime fashioned by a disturbed mind? Perhaps it was jealousy or greed? Could it have been revenge?
It’s hard to tell when the circumstances are distorted by a tangled history of disconnected motives stretching forty years into the past.
Available on Amazon
Song of the Weeping Copse
By Ronald Munro
(Syd Brogan Crime Drama Book 2)
Sometimes a case is so intimate, so much a part of you, it follows you, seeks you out, beckons to you, then it draws you away into its own world.
“He called them his Forces of Discontent, all those sources of fragmented violence waiting to be harnessed... The dissidents, the abused, the abandoned, and the disgruntled.”
All he lacked was a day of reckoning, and now he had it. Like a gift from the gods of anarchy, a vow of blood vengeance against the government opens a pathway to the destruction of the American heartland.
To thwart it, Detective Syd Brogan must abandon the world of civil laws and let herself be drawn into a remote enclave where repression is law and vengeance is justice.
It’s a desperate measure for a desperate time. So, too, are its desperate consequences.
Available on Amazon
(Syd Brogan Crime Drama Book 2)
Sometimes a case is so intimate, so much a part of you, it follows you, seeks you out, beckons to you, then it draws you away into its own world.
“He called them his Forces of Discontent, all those sources of fragmented violence waiting to be harnessed... The dissidents, the abused, the abandoned, and the disgruntled.”
All he lacked was a day of reckoning, and now he had it. Like a gift from the gods of anarchy, a vow of blood vengeance against the government opens a pathway to the destruction of the American heartland.
To thwart it, Detective Syd Brogan must abandon the world of civil laws and let herself be drawn into a remote enclave where repression is law and vengeance is justice.
It’s a desperate measure for a desperate time. So, too, are its desperate consequences.
Available on Amazon
Neptune's Watch
By Ronald Munro
(Syd Brogan Crime Drama Book 3)
A year after a traumatic injury, Detective Cynthia “Syd” Brogan has been cleared for duty. Flashbacks, though, still haunt her. While investigating the death of a drunken vagrant, Brogan confronts a mysterious “emperor of the homeless” and uncovers a heinous crime threatening decades of disaster. No one believes her. Even as dying vagrants, a Biblical plague, and a terrorist threat rock the peaceful community of Virginia Beach, Brogan is put on modified duty pending psychological review. In this story of the triumph of courage over fear, Brogan defies her orders and risks more than her career to stop the terror.
Available on Amazon
(Syd Brogan Crime Drama Book 3)
A year after a traumatic injury, Detective Cynthia “Syd” Brogan has been cleared for duty. Flashbacks, though, still haunt her. While investigating the death of a drunken vagrant, Brogan confronts a mysterious “emperor of the homeless” and uncovers a heinous crime threatening decades of disaster. No one believes her. Even as dying vagrants, a Biblical plague, and a terrorist threat rock the peaceful community of Virginia Beach, Brogan is put on modified duty pending psychological review. In this story of the triumph of courage over fear, Brogan defies her orders and risks more than her career to stop the terror.
Available on Amazon
Shadows of Malice and Mercy
By Ronald Munro
(Syd Brogan Crime Drama Book 4)
Detective Cynthia “Syd” Brogan joins forces with the FBI in a case of kidnapping, domestic abuse, and attempted murder. Soon, she’s in a wilderness, tracking a shooter, not waiting for backup.
But something strange happened out there when two tortured spirits clashed in a fleeting struggle of life and death.
Syd Brogan had battled her demons for more than a year. They called it PTSD. When she brought down terrorist Nils Palmer, their voices were muted, but not silenced. Other forces kept them alive.
Stanley Brooks had demons, too. Driven by his abusive personality, he fantasized a life of dominance over his wife and child and his coworkers. But his work and home lives crashed in failure, and he turned to kidnapping and attempted murder to appease his cravings.
It may well have been Fate, then, that compelled Brogan to track Brooks into an ancient primordial swamp, because in that “vast Body of mire and Nastiness,” demons were fated to die.
Available on Amazon
(Syd Brogan Crime Drama Book 4)
Detective Cynthia “Syd” Brogan joins forces with the FBI in a case of kidnapping, domestic abuse, and attempted murder. Soon, she’s in a wilderness, tracking a shooter, not waiting for backup.
But something strange happened out there when two tortured spirits clashed in a fleeting struggle of life and death.
Syd Brogan had battled her demons for more than a year. They called it PTSD. When she brought down terrorist Nils Palmer, their voices were muted, but not silenced. Other forces kept them alive.
Stanley Brooks had demons, too. Driven by his abusive personality, he fantasized a life of dominance over his wife and child and his coworkers. But his work and home lives crashed in failure, and he turned to kidnapping and attempted murder to appease his cravings.
It may well have been Fate, then, that compelled Brogan to track Brooks into an ancient primordial swamp, because in that “vast Body of mire and Nastiness,” demons were fated to die.
Available on Amazon
Dangerous Hearts
By Mary Montague Sikes
Novella - Her life in jeopardy, Caroline escapes from Richmond, Virginia and heads to a house she owns in South Carolina that is the secret hiding place for the royal cross necklace. But danger follows her home and so does Rob. When he appears, the necklace disappears making Caroline suspect Rob. Still, with no one else to turn to, she must trust him. Is that trust a mistake? Together, can they retrieve her precious family heirloom? Can Caroline escape the stalker who has followed her to South Carolina?
Novella - Her life in jeopardy, Caroline escapes from Richmond, Virginia and heads to a house she owns in South Carolina that is the secret hiding place for the royal cross necklace. But danger follows her home and so does Rob. When he appears, the necklace disappears making Caroline suspect Rob. Still, with no one else to turn to, she must trust him. Is that trust a mistake? Together, can they retrieve her precious family heirloom? Can Caroline escape the stalker who has followed her to South Carolina?
Jungle Jeopardy
By Mary Montague Sikes
When Dana Sinclair realizes Clifton Wilder is missing, she takes off for Costa Rica to search for him. An apparent kidnapping turns into a jungle adventure that leads Dana and Clifton into the wilds of Guatemala where they discover an unexplored Maya cave and find pottery and walls covered with glyphs. Tyler Hunter wants to save Dana’s sister, Rebecca, from prison, and to do so, he needs for them to find her grandfather’s hidden treasure. An archaeologist on sabbatical in the Caribbean, Tyler intrigues Dana with his knowledge of the Maya. Dana has never doubted her sister’s guilt in the murder of their grandfather on the island of Antigua, but now an element of doubt begins to creep in.
When Dana Sinclair realizes Clifton Wilder is missing, she takes off for Costa Rica to search for him. An apparent kidnapping turns into a jungle adventure that leads Dana and Clifton into the wilds of Guatemala where they discover an unexplored Maya cave and find pottery and walls covered with glyphs. Tyler Hunter wants to save Dana’s sister, Rebecca, from prison, and to do so, he needs for them to find her grandfather’s hidden treasure. An archaeologist on sabbatical in the Caribbean, Tyler intrigues Dana with his knowledge of the Maya. Dana has never doubted her sister’s guilt in the murder of their grandfather on the island of Antigua, but now an element of doubt begins to creep in.
Secrets by the Sea
By Mary Montague Sikes
"Passenger to Paradise" gothic mystery/romance set on the island of Antigua.
"Passenger to Paradise" gothic mystery/romance set on the island of Antigua.
Dead in the Loft
BY SUSAN WILLIAMSON
Molly likes her job at the new farm… for the most part. But finding a dead man in the loft could change everything. Who is this man, and how did he die? Then the discovery of yet another body makes everything more complicated, and Molly can’t stop herself from looking into things as the body count piles up.
With the delivery of horses that may or may not be legal and the appearance of animal rights activists intent on doing damage, Molly has her hands full. Clearly, though, her first priority is stopping a killer, as Molly has become the next targets. With lives on the line, including her own, Molly holds onto the reins as she chases down a murderer determined to destroy everything she has.
With the delivery of horses that may or may not be legal and the appearance of animal rights activists intent on doing damage, Molly has her hands full. Clearly, though, her first priority is stopping a killer, as Molly has become the next targets. With lives on the line, including her own, Molly holds onto the reins as she chases down a murderer determined to destroy everything she has.
Available from Amazon
Dead on the Trail
BY SUSAN WILLIAMSON
Molly Lewis has just finished a grueling day at the barn with no help when a trail ride along the Broad River brings her to a body in the woods. --One that was trouble alive and bound to be more trouble dead--for Molly and everyone concerned.
Available from Amazon, Indigo Sea Press and susanwilliamsonnc@gmail.com
Desert Tail
BY SUSAN WILLIAMSON
Madelaine Jones is still reeling from her husband's death in Afghanistan when her house explodes and a mysterious letter indicates her husband might not have been a war casualty. Her desire to know the truth puts Madelaine and her loved ones in danger as she searches three continents for answers.
Tangled Tail
By Susan Williamson
Madelaine Jones is trying to reorder her life after discovering the truth of her husband’s death overseas. She is remodeling a home and working to foster a young victim of human trafficking when her friend Irish Garda Commander Peter Simon asks for her help in a case of smuggling via horse. The smuggling is just beginning of this case of international intrigue and news planting.
Available at Amazon.
Madelaine Jones is trying to reorder her life after discovering the truth of her husband’s death overseas. She is remodeling a home and working to foster a young victim of human trafficking when her friend Irish Garda Commander Peter Simon asks for her help in a case of smuggling via horse. The smuggling is just beginning of this case of international intrigue and news planting.
Available at Amazon.