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...

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...

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...

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 ...

Sockeye County sits smack dab in the middle of the scenic Columbia River Gorge. It's a land full of history and natural resources.And criminals, apparently. Or at least the criminally negligent.When a mining truck loses its brakes and crashes down an embankment into the river along with its entire load, no one is more surprised than the controversial earth-moving contractor to find out there was an extra passenger.An extra passenger who is too dead to answer questio...

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...

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...

When Meredith Morehouse and her fisherman friend, George, narrowly miss death via explosion, Meredith's curiosity instinct kicks in.The explosion could've been accidental…but Meredith is about to take the witness stand in Sockeye County's trial of the decade.And George's earlier hint that he needs to talk to Meredith's new beau, tugboat captain Pete Sills, about something he's seen indicates not all is peaceful on the mighty Columbia River.Can Meredith and Pete sort...

You know what causes turmoil in a rural county?Money. Lots of it. Being handed out like candy. But beware—the candy comes with caveats.Which Jericho McElroy knows all too well.Small versus big; little versus great; novices versus titans; just barely scraping by versus unfathomably deep pockets. One could almost say David versus Goliath, except Goliath's the name of the dog, and he wouldn't appreciate the insinuation.Jericho knows the underdog in the case. In...

The middle of nowhere is often on the way from here to there. A thoroughfare, if you will. Nothing wrong with that.Usually the people who live in the unassuming, odd-name towns along a bustling interstate highway are happy for the trade, the small influx of income, and they tolerate the gas-hog semitrucks and their drivers and the corporate entities who make all that commerce possible.Until the most valuable form of commerce turns out to be nothing like the logos plastered ...

Meredith Morehouse, curator of the eclectic Imogene Museum, stumbles upon the remnants of a stolen shipment of scary-looking wood figurines. Are they smuggled national treasures or clever fakes?While Meredith is sucked into the secret federal probe of the fishy figurines and their importer, her ex-fiancé—a man so annoyingly arrogant he could easily drive someone to murder—returns for another round of marriage proposals, and he won't take no for an answer. Just when her friendship w...

When asked to research old documents for a local family, Meredith Morehouse, curator of the eclectic Imogene Museum, jumps at the chance.As if she didn't already have enough to do. She's trying to hire a new gift shop manager while also keeping tabs on Rupert Hagg, the museum director who is remarkably blind to the wiles of a persistent, gold-digging newcomer. And she still needs to find time to see Pete Sills, the hunky tugboat captain she's just started dating.Then Meredi...