Voyage of Love and Deceit

Four years after her husband’s tragic death Janet Hunter is living a life-long dream, cruising the Greek isles. Greek Police are searching for a man, nicknamed by American authorities the Magician because he steals from older people and disappears. Aboard the Blue Isle, is first-time cruise passenger, sales executive, Michael Salomon. He tells fellow passengers he’s alone because his two daughter’s plans changed.

After the first evening’s dinner Janet and Michael find themselves spending more time together. He finds her shy, serious yet captivating while she enjoys the tall, handsome, and confident man’s magic acts. The Magician is thrilled from stealing cash, casino chips, and savings from fellow passengers.

Their lives change when the ship runs aground. With many crew injured and killed, the captain requests passengers assist in the evacuation. Michael tells Janet he will stay aboard to help load people into lifeboats while she assists an officer ashore. Janet steps ashore and discovers the officer is gone, and she is in charge. As the evacuation continues the Magician returns to the damaged casino to steal money.

When cruise line personnel reach the site, a relieved Janet begins her search for Michael. Michael is missing but the Magician is ashore, hiding with thousands of Euros from the ship’s casino, and planning to disappear yet again.

Its a tale of missing persons, intrigue to catch a thief and an unlikely heroine in charge of a cruise ship’s evacuation.

The Cry of a Wounded Heart

Odell Miller, the new sheriff of rural Ford County Illinois, has a serious problem. Despite having the lowest crime rate in the state, for over forty years someone has left 14 murdered young women in the county and a deputy just encountered another. As Odell delves deeper into the killings, it becomes clear it is a serial killer case and the profile points to one of his deputies. After a violent storm exposes more bones once buried by a bridge, he and Lieutenant Tom Horshein assigned to the case of the last young woman worry there may be many more women buried in the county.

On his way home from a conference Steve Waterford stops for dinner in Aptly, the county seat of Ford County. After meeting the two women who own the small diner, he continues to have intense feeling he belongs in the rural community. When his mother dies, Steve confronts a past he never knew, his mother’s graduation from college, a grandmother who wasn’t related and an uncle he never heard about. What Steve once knew of his early life, is now uncertain and he begins to search for the truth and the uncle his mother never mentioned.

On separate quests, Odell is seeking the identify the serial killer and Steve finding what happened when his uncle disappeared. It is a story of rural America, the hunt for a killer and a lost relative, and together they find their lives are connected closer than anyone could imagine.

Mistake

Ellen Smizer does not believe the medical and police reports of her sister’s suicide and plans revenge on Barbara’s elusive married lover. Ellen attends the national conference where he will be but instead of inflicting long-term pain from a poison, she becomes a murderer. Fearing police will find her, Janet quits her job, heads west and settles in the isolated hamlet of Priority Bay.

Nearing retirement age detective Mike McDonald gets the case, but this one is unusual. There are 14,000 suspects and most of the 2,500 people at the dinner where the poisoned speaker collapsed, disliked his proposed policy for their businesses. Pressured by politicians and partners from the man’s law firm to find who killed the US Senate candidate Richard Babcock, the police commander hires a consultant.

It is an unusual partnership between Mike who does not believe women are suited for homicide investigations, dislikes detectives who rely on computers and consultant Tanisha Davis, who is a young, African American, computer whiz but lacks homicide detective experience. It’s a tenuous beginning as they distrust the other’s skills, but over time they begin to unravel what happened and identify a primary suspect. When they do, the Commander announces Tanisha is no longer needed.

When Mike travels to arrest the suspect, he asks Tanisha to join him. Together they are confident and ready to close the case but it did not goes as planned as Ellen eludes arrest. Once more, Tanisha’s skills prove decisive.

Once they have Ellen in custody, they learn how she did it, and she learns why she failed to avenge her sister’s death.

The Mystery Writers Murders

Following the death of Judge Henry Andrew Jones, someone begins killing the members of a local chapter of mystery writers.

University Police found Professor Julius Sanders with a rope around his neck that led to a statue of blind justice and a copy of his latest the legal mystery, It only Takes One. Police have no suspects for the late evening murder in his office.

David Cullen was found floating in his back yard swimming pool dead from a mixture of alcohol and over the counter drugs sleeping, cold and flu pills. Next to his towel was an unfinished water bottle, and his latest mystery Line Item Deduction. Police find no pills inside or around the pool.

Retired detective Howard Morris was shot four times by a 9mm weapon after he turned on the back patio light at his house. Except for one neighbor, who thought he heard glass break, no one else heard a thing. Police find a copy of his last short story, Bag Man, near him, a bank bag of play money and the murder weapon, owned and registered to Howard Morris.

Worried there could be other targets in the chapter the police enlist the help of selected chapter members to aid in the case. But as they begin their work, there is another chapter member murdered , and for the first time, it is a woman and one of the chapters more prominent members. Next to her body, is her last book, Guilty as Sin, and strips of 9mm movies in which the 82 year old woman is seen nude with multiple people in a home and backyard swimming pool.

Who is murdering members and when will it stop? Police and worried members work to find the killer.