Showing results by narrator "Michael Bowen" in All Categories

A Lincoln Continental driven by Amy Steele, wife of millionaire rancher, James Steele, rams a tanker full of gasoline. Instant incineration of both drivers; a probable accident, according to Sergeant Larry Jenner of the Amarillo Police Department. Eight months later, it’s murder, according to Sergeant Ed Schroder of the Special Crimes Unit, and the probable murderer is the widower. Standing between James Steele and Sergeants Jenner and Schroder is John Lloyd Branson, reputed to be the best criminal defense attorney in Texas. In his formal three-piece suits, cowboy boots, Phi Beta Kappa key, he is certainly the most eccentric attorney.

In the heart of a raging blizzard Sheriff Jeff McQuede discovers a woman frozen to death in her car. At first he believes her death to be an unfortunate accident - until he finds clues that point to cold-blooded murder. Margaret's husband, Arthur, left her in the stalled vehicle to brave the storm and manages to reach Joe Trevino's isolated ranch. The case becomes more complicated because of the recent warehouse robberies at Trevino's store. McQueede finds that Trevino is Margaret Burnell's business partner and that she has traveled from their Casper store to conduct a company audit.

Sheriff Jeff McQuede finds "Bartering Bill" Garr murdered at his rural antique store. Only one item is missing - a rare artifact believed to be the Pedro Mummy. First discovered in a cave in Wyoming, the Pedro Mummy was reported missing in the 1950s. Dr. Seth Talbot, newly arrived in town, has put out a $15,000 reward for any information on the mummy, hoping that modern technology will prove his theory that a tiny race of people actually existed: one the Shoshones call the Nimerigar, or Little People.

To create excitement, Ruger, a shady dealer at the annual rendezvous flea market, puts up for auction a locked Civil War trunk with contents to be sold sight unseen! That night, the highest bidder, Zeke Jones, is found stabbed to death beside the trunk. Sheriff Jeff McQuede believes Jones has interrupted a robbery in progress. Several people had offered to buy old coins, photos, and medals from him, which indicates to McQuede that Jones had already sold what the robber had been after.

Sheriff Jeff McQuede battles treacherous rapids in search of Andy Norton. Twenty-one-year-old Andy, known for perpetuating fake publicity stunts, has wandered from the isolated Rapid River Outpost and failed to return. When McQuede arrives at the lodge, to his amazement he encounters the person he least expects — Loris Conner — who has just days ago left him at the altar.

Someone is killing prostitutes on Amarillo Boulevard after sending each a cryptic invitation to "cleanse your soul in the blood of the lamb." One victim mails a letter to John Lloyd Branson, the Panhandle's most famous lawyer, begging for his help. When she is murdered before she can talk to him, and her appointment is kept by her pimp and his stable of girls, John Lloyd declines any involvement in the case.

Threatened victim, waiting grave...Sheriff McQuede is called to the cemetery by Ben Ward, a member of Durmont's Good Old Boys' Club. Ward's tombstone, where he plans someday to be buried with his first wife, is vandalized. A menacing date of death, fast approaching, has been drilled into the stone, and splotches of red paint drips over it like blood.

The famous Carlo painting Stealer of Horses sells for cash in a small Wyoming town and gallery owner Sheldon Spence gives the $200,000 to his wife, who walks over to the bank to make the deposit...and never returns. A witness claims to have seen a frightened-looking Susan Spence in a battered old Chevy, speeding out of town. And each succeeding clue reveals a different angle on her disappearance.

At first glance, he was a fine figure of a man. Even the butcher knife buried in the middle of his chest didn’t seriously detract from his good looks. But that corpse, nude except for a pair of mismatched socks - and the butcher knife, of course - is trouble with a capital T for Leroy MacPherson, in whose wheat field the body is dumped, and the rest of his extended family. It’s also trouble for the opponents of the nuclear waste depository the DOE plans to build in the Texas Panhandle.

The preacher’s bride is a truck-stop waitress half his age with a reputation that horrifies his congregation and a free and easy way with the male membership. Still, no one expects Reverend David Hailey to stone his wife to death. But that isn’t the worst of Hailey’s acts. Substituting his wife’s body for the Virgin Mary in the Nativity Scene is a worse act of sacrilege than murder. With feelings at a fever pitch in the little Texas town of Canadian, John Lloyd Branson steps in to defend the reverend.

In the course of an otherwise routine missing person case, private detective Jack Dugan stumbles onto a covert operation that effectively controls everyone on the planet. Through cellular-sized implants, The Council tracks and records where anyone is at any given time without their knowledge. Humankind’s freedom hangs on the ability of a cynical, bicycle-riding PI to operate at a level of intrigue he’s never experienced, battling powers determined to destroy him and the knowledge he gains.

Detective Katie MacLeod has her hands full. It has been four years since her promotion to detective, and after paying her dues in property crimes investigations, she has made it to the Major Crimes unit. This is where the highest profile cases land—homicides, robberies, serious assaults, and sexual assaults. Katie catches two rape cases almost back-to-back. One victim is a prostitute with an unknown suspect… who Katie fears may be gearing up for more assaults. The other victim is a college student who has accused her boyfriend, a popular baseball player, of raping her at a party.

In a variation of the classic locked room mystery, Attorney John Lloyd Branson and his beautiful, trusted, but often impetuous legal assistant, Lydia Fairchild, scare up ghosts from the past and rattle family skeletons as they try to discover who murdered the young museum curator. It’s no Halloween trick when Brad Hemphill materializes in a locked museum at midnight, the main feature in a prehistoric display. Who among the museum staff would kill the harmless, mild-mannered young curator, and why?

Uka is a Black quarry slave in medieval Arabia; he has a destiny he can't even imagine. In Journey to Eunomia, he will match his will to live against the two competing religions. It begins when Abdul Rahman, a falsely accused and brutally punished advisor to a powerful caliph is pardoned. Weakened by torture and near madness, the caliph orders Abdul to choose a servant from the Wadi as Surr rock quarry near Yanbo. His eyes stop on Uka, and together they embark on a quest of unparalleled danger, across deserts and seas to the eastern coast of Greece.