When a body bumps against the dock just a few feet from Eva Fairchild's floating house on the night of her welcome party at the marina, she begins to wonder if her recent move across the country was such a good idea. Combine the resulting murder investigation with mysterious nighttime kayak trips, politicians run amok, nosy neighbors, and culinary lessons for her blue-haired, teenage tagalong, Willow Ratliff, and Eva has her hands full. It doesn't help that the police detective on the case...

Rosaria Trout is on the run—from a bucketload of heartache and fury, and toward a clean slate where her new name is as anonymous as her short haircut.She'd planned not to stop for breath until she hit the Pacific Ocean, but a small town in the Columbia River Gorge had other ideas. Namely, a summer festival complete with a rinky-dink parade that clogged up Main Street and a 'For Rent' sign in the window of a dilapidated historical house.She did, after all, need to start over...

Eva Fairchild is reveling in the idyllic, if insular, setting of her adopted home at Marten's Marina when a rash of newcomers triggers speculation and the not-so-latent nosy tendencies among the residents. Eva is appalled to learn that she's acquired a surprising new persona along with her new location—since when does she get involved with other people's problems?But Ancer's Potts' distress is not to be ignored. Everyone knows the absentminded genius needs friendly nudges now and t...

Jericho McElroy can reflexively nail the make year of a classic Chevy just by the size of its vestigial tailfins, pinpoint the best locations to stash drugs inside a Honda Civic's door panels, winch anything out of any ditch anywhere, and find the perfect match for the crown molding in his old Craftsman fixer-upper. He generally cobbles together a living by converting just about any piece of trash into some kind of treasure. He also happens to be an expert at fending off the desperate adva...

Stay up late tonight reading (and chuckling).When Nora Sheldon's husband is kidnapped while they're on their honeymoon, all her hopes and plans tumble into a nightmare. Then the FBI comes knocking. Turns out Nora doesn't know Skip as well as she thought she did, and the feds are equally anxious about his fate. Not to mention they sure did a shoddy job of keeping him under surveillance.But Nora has an advantage. She's not bound by the rules and procedures th...

Meredith Morehouse, curator of the eclectic Imogene Museum, is suddenly short-staffed. Her favorite (and only) graduate student intern, Greg, is missing—without leaving behind so much as an empty pizza box, to say nothing of a note.Plus, a prowler has been rearranging the museum's brand new chamber pot exhibit. When Meredith's nighttime vigil to flush out the intruder results in witnessing a murder, she calls in Sheriff Marge Stettler.Soon nearly all the inhabitants of the ...

What do you do when you've stolen a readily identifiable object worth millions? An item no pawnshop operator in his right mind would touch.And the cops—county, state, feds, every agency with a terrifying three-letter acronym—are hot on your trail?Ditch the goods, of course. Even if it's arguable that you're not too bright.But where?Ahh, indeed……and that's still the question, thirty-seven years later.Everybody knows where the pursuit dead-ende...

It's a cause avid foodie and enthusiastic eater, Eva Fairchild, can really get behind—the launch of a CSA (community-supported agriculture) farm in the small town of Fidelity, Oregon. But when a tractor plows up a WWII-era bomb in the back forty, things get dicey. Turns out there's more lurking under the surface than anyone expected.As a marketer and publicist, Eva wants nothing more than to help her friends and clients protect the reputation of their farm, but to do her job proper...

Evil lurking on her doorstep—or something like that.Shady characters flitting in and—usually—out of the Stapleton House. In the wee hours. When an insomniac middle-aged woman is most likely to be awake. At first, Rosie Trout can't believe her eyes. Then she believes them all too well.Her neighbor—the one with the New Jersey accent he just can't hide—is up to something. Like her, he's a transplant from another region, another culture—a misfit. But Ben Hanrahan, the grouch, h...

That soft, timid knock late at night. A hoarse mayday in the dark.When you live in Marten's Marina, your doorstep is an international shipping lane. So when a half-drowned refugee washes ashore, Eva Fairchild-Malloy and her neighbors scramble to the rescue.Their castaway is fleeing—from something almost too terrifying to put into words. But the Promised Land isn't really, not if she doesn't have the right paperwork and the right connections.While Eva and her detecti...

Changes are afoot. Lots of them. Eva Fairchild supposes that's to be expected when one is self-employed. But being conscripted into pro bono work on top of her already busy schedule? Sure, why not?Add supper club experiments in the midst of a January ice storm; missing valuables; the snarky, inbred world of philanthropic (mis)management; and one criminally good-looking police detective who invites himself over for dinner on a regular basis, and Eva's well-planned life is brimming o...

Do small-town residents commit crimes? You bet they do!On a grand scale? Even better!If they can get away with it.But Rosie Trout hasn't dealt with corruption on the national stage just to miss it when it happens at the community garden club. There might be some fleecing going on, but no one's going to pull the wool over her eyes.Not while she has her wits about her. And not while she can rope Sergeant Flip Baylar into going undercover before someone else ge...