Showing results by publisher "Crossroad Press" in Women Sleuths

Now that Geraldine Porter is retired, she's got time to devote to her favorite craft. You'd think the world of shoe-box-sized Victorian shadow boxes and little ceramic bathtubs would be trouble free. But Gerry's problems are anything but tiny. Gerry likes working in a smaller scale, yet her to-do list is anything but. Between creating a miniature Victorian room box for the holiday auction, teaching crafts at the Mary Todd Retirement Home, and watching her granddaughter, her calendar is bursting with holiday cheer—until she has to add in a murder investigation.

Seized by a rage more violent than the storm beating down on the South Florida coast, Attorney Frank Benedict aims his BMW at the first vehicle to cross his path. He hits the car - then backs up and hits it again. A woman stumbles out and collapses on the ground. FBI veteran Charlie Calloway is working on the case of her life - searching for the man who killed her husband and unborn child. And she's willing to do anything to find him...even enter the shadows of the human mind....

Someone is targeting Toledo's single women when they turn 40, tucking them into bed, and turning birthday greetings into obituaries. Newly-assigned Toledo Homicide Detective Veronica Jadzinski vows to prevent the body count from increasing and to prove her transfer from Narcotics wasn't a fluke-departmental regulations, disparaging lieutenants, and a rigid new partner be damned. Jadz learns to trust a new partner while balancing the unwanted attentions of an almost-ex-husband, a needy widowed mother, and a drama queen sister as the detectives fight to unravel the bizarre murders.

In a quiet home in the Fort Lauderdale suburbs, a woman psychically witnesses a murder. In a posh estate a few miles away, a man lies dead. The only clues are a collection of tarot cards sent to the victim's home and a nuisance call from a Fort Lauderdale woman who claims to have had a vision of the killing. For Detective Wayne Sheppard, the killing of famous criminologist Andrew Steele and the disappearance of his beautiful wife is about to test everything he has ever believed and everything he knows about logic, police work, and scientific truth.

Jonathan Kendrick's grandmother lives in the upstate New York village of Felicity Grove. And whenever something of a criminal nature occurs, Grandma Anna is right in the thick of it. This time, the senior sleuth needs Jonathan's help to clear an innocent man's name. Zebediah Crummler, the cemetery caretaker, has been arrested for killing a member of the powerful Harnes family.... Because of his childlike nature, Crummler is placed in an asylum, where his inconsistent tales and ramblings prove difficult for Jonathan and Anna to decipher. But they must be careful.

Anne Hardaway is a reluctant expert on house-cleaning, horticulture, and pet care, who specializes in making some of the country's most famous how-to writers look good in print. But when her long-ago high school crush is found dead in their New Jersey shore hometown, Anne has no idea "how to" find out the truth.

The suspect in a double murder has an alibi that is out of this world. All is not well at the Wellness Center, an exclusive psychiatric clinic on Florida's mostly placid Tango Key. An orderly and a staff psychiatrist have been brutally murdered - and the female mental patient believed to be responsible has escaped. The missing woman claims she was once kidnapped by a UFO, and when homicide detective Aline Scott takes up the chase, she quickly discovers that she is not alone

Rick's Diner is owned and run by four long-time friends, Rick, Rachel, Logan and Macy. It's a dream life for them, until a mystery comes along. That's when Rachel's sleuthing senses kick in, and when that happens, all heck breaks loose.

On this February morning it looks like winter is about to heat up on Tango Key. Sometime in the night, Judge Henry Michael, his wife, and two small sons were murdered. Butchered. The quiet little Florida island is reeling in horror. But clues are scarce. And the only thing for certain is that whoever did it - enjoyed it. Detective Aline Scott knows she's going to have to dig deep on this one. But when there's another brutal murder, she hits pay dirt.

Newspaper reporter Colleen Caruso just wants her unruly curls tamed into smooth, sleek locks. Instead, she finds her stylist dead, facedown in a shampoo sink. Faster than you can say Aqua Net, Colleen starts investigating. The case gets even hairier when the owner of a local fitness studio seems to have jumped from a plane...without a parachute.

Gifted biologist Mary Clare Ryan's car has plunged into the Potomac River. Nicole Ryan suspects that her sister's death was no accident, but when she tries to find out what research Mary was pursuing, Mary's colleagues are evasive, even hostile. Nicole is left with nothing except Mary's plane ticket to Los Angeles and a notebook she'd given Nicole...in case anything happened to her.

Kay Farrow, a color-blind photographer who sees the world in black, white, and shades of gray, probes the mysterious death of her beloved mentor on a quest that takes her to the darkest intersections of San Francisco's Mission District. When distinguished photojournalist Maddy Yamada is struck by a motorcyclist at two in the morning in a seedy area far from her Marina apartment, Kay Farrow's grief is tempered by suspicion. What could have drawn the reclusive Maddy so far from home at such an hour?

Gloria Watson, an experienced private investigator, read somewhere that every seven years a life should be rebooted. Inspired by that thought, she moves from Chicago to Laughlin, Nevada. After setting her new office up, she meets with her first client. Wyatt Burns had dated a woman now convicted of murder, but he knows she’s innocent because he’s been stalking her for months. In fact, he was looking through a window and witnessed the crime. He’s come to hire Gloria to prove the woman’s innocence, but hopes she will be able to keep him from being involved.

Crime reporter Colleen Caruso has an appetite for romance...and trouble. When someone tries to poison Ken Rhodes (her handsome boss and boyfriend), Colleen vows to hunt down the culprit and serve them up to the police. She’s whisked away into the scrumptious world of restaurants and gourmet food as she tangles with four culinary divas from Ken’s past.

Tropical bliss deserts sleepy Tango Key when a local dancer is found in a dumpster, stripped of her fingers - and her life. The investigation takes homicide detective Aline Scott into the strange world of santeria, a Cuban mystery religion. But Scott is puzzled until she realizes the macabre dismemberment bears a chilling resemblance to murders that occurred on Tango Key more than fifty years ago. Gradually, Aline realizes that the ritual deaths are part of a gruesome legend called Black Moon.

As her best friend, Abby, struggles to cope with the sudden loss of her husband, Rei and her closest girlfriends take her to a beautiful lakeside house nestled in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, hoping that a weekend of support from long-time friends will help Abby along her road of emotional recovery. But as the young women get settled, Rei begins to notice there’s something wrong with the place. Could this peaceful, idyllic location be hiding an ancient evil below the waters of the lake? Or are the problems wholly within Abby herself, who seems to be losing her grip on reality?

Florida's Tango Key has never been so hot. Especially now with multimillionaire and amateur archaeologist Doug Cooper turning up headless behind his beach house. It seems a number of people stand to gain from his demise, including a stunning young widow, an adulterous son, and two gold diggers from Cooper's South American exploits. Detective Aline Scott knows a scandal like this could turn the wealthy island paradise into a no-man's land.

An aged photograph of a dead man hanging from a tree...Deaths in a nursing home that may not be as natural as they appear...Clues showing a 70-year-old suicide could be murder...Sinister small town secrets, decades old, finally revealed...Feisty Livy Crowe, single-and-loving-it owner of the nostalgia shop, Better Days, has to deal with all of these and more, including her mother's slow deterioration in a senior residence that might be a crime scene, a very awkward romantic triangle, and murders old and new that threaten even Livy herself...

Mystery usually follows murder, but when Baby Cakes Sloan bites the bullet, everybody in Rochester already knows whodunit. Beautiful Babs had been Marcus Andrelli’s lawyer—until she got iced on the crime king's yacht. Of course, all fingers of guilt point to Andrelli. But Jesse James smells something fishy. And she’s casting for the truth, even if she has to drag the bottom of Lake Ontario to get it. Nobody knows Andrelli better than Jess. Mafia don, certainly. Killer of the woman he loved, no.

There aren't many women in professional auto racing - but that didn't stop Rebecca Moore from joining driver Ian Browning's pit crew. Working pit lane, her innate toughness shields her from the taunts and insults being tossed her way. But, the bullet that whizzes past her head, shattering the windshield of the vintage race car in her care, can't be as easily ignored - nor can the body she finds in the cockpit the day before the race. Once again, Rebecca's forced to uncover a killer and the deadly secrets awaiting her.