Willow Grove resident, Dave Fairmont, has departed from home. His wife, Lila, claims he did so voluntarily. While a baying hound gives Sheriff Delton Ross other ideas and sends him off on a hunt for a killer.This tale is offered as a short story to fill an idle moment with a bit of mystery.

The Imp waits and watches. But Geraldine Love is too busy rebuilding her tattered life to notice. All either of them wants is to find a someone to care about in this lonely world. But that's easier said than done in this dark novella.Lost souls struggle to find themselves and each other in difficult times.

Legislating under the Charter explores how governments and Parliament justify limitations on rights when advancing laws that raise rights concerns or when responding to judicial decisions under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.Through an analysis of legislation concerning criminal justice policy, the approval of new safe consumption sites, sex work, and medical assistance in dying, the book provides a detailed analysis of the extent and nature of parliamentary d...

Deliberative democracy – whereby people debate competing ideas before agreeing upon political action – must surely rest on its capacity to include all points of view. But how does this inclusive framework engage with activism that occurs outside of, and in opposition to, deliberative systems themselves?Activism, Inclusion, and the Challenges of Deliberative Democracy challenges the inherent contradiction of a framework that includes activism but doesn’t require sustained e...

Peter Gregory is a well-respected playwright with an endless array of quirks. Hired to write a screenplay about a screen goddess who committed suicide fifty years ago, Peter begins to unravel the truth about her life and death. Along the way, he meets people who either want to help him in his quest or end it, even if it means putting an end to Peter. Does he stand a ghost of a chance?

Mirrors the post French revolution expression, 'Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.' In spite of technological advances that allow life to survive on other planets, human being's quest for power hasn't changed over a century's time. Riveting . . . exciting . . . . I pray they never invent an inviolable test like the Cavanaugh Truth Audit and hope that our democracies will ever be safe from the likes of President Mark Hudson. An excellent back and forth between here and there. The lib...

Running Maid for a Day keeps Charlotte La Rue plenty busy. But her latest job involves more than dusting and mopping. She's got to contend with a feuding gardening club--and things certainly aren't coming up roses. . .The summer's off to a sweltering start, and one of her best clients has just up and moved--leaving a big chunk of free time in Charlotte's normally hectic schedule. But the empty spot on Charlotte's client list is soon filled by gardening enthusiast Mimi Adams. Mimi's...

To the Porterville PD, she's the token woman cop. To a serial killer, she's the ultimate trophy.Detective Margaret "Magnum" Schultz has spent ten years surviving departmental politics and back-alley brawls. But she's never encountered a predator like this. He doesn't just kill—he erases his victims, leaving nothing behind but echoes and a pen full of satisfied hogs.What begins as a trail of evidence through rain-slicked backroads quickly turns into a lethal...

(Second book in the Eriksson Series)Helen Eriksson is pulled into a new investigation when Darkwater Bay police approach her for help after another homeless man is found dead in a dumpster in Downey. His cause of death is certain -- a drug overdose, but the disturbing similarities to five other homeless men discarded with the refuse cannot be overlooked. The other causes of death? A complete mystery, one which Helen and her colleagues at Downey Division must uncover before more men...

Mimi Griffin fulfills a lifelong dream by opening a spectacular restaurant on the luxurious Montecito coast. She stages a dinner where the winner is the head chef. Darkly handsome Emil Chandon is the winner and while drinking a sample of the rare brandy he chokes and dies in agony. Shaken, Mimi turns to Sergeant Cruz who determines that she was intended target. Mimi eludes death at the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens and is desperate to find the killer.

When Jasmine's best friend vanishes without a trace, she'll do anything to find her, even follow mysterious strangers through a portal to another world.But the Dark Lands are nothing like Earth. Here, powerful shifters called the Haunt rule with ancient magic and deadly politics. Worse, Jasmine's missing friend isn't who she thought: Wiley is actually Rihlia, a lost Haunt princess forced into an arranged marriage.And Jasmine? She's a charmer—a human whose very presence driv...

"Connie Shelton gets better with every book she writes." --The Midwest Book ReivewUSA Today bestselling author Connie Shelton brings the third installment in her popular pet-sleuthing mystery series. Charlie Parker returns from her Hawaiian vacation to find her older brother Ron involved with a much younger woman. The more Charlie sees of cute Vicky, the more she realizes how deceitful Ron’s new love is. Is it simply a case of male mid-life crisis, or is there som...