About this ebook
Stuffed into a rain barrel and tossed onto the back of a truck, Chris looks like the next victim. But when her kidnapper gets sloppy, she manages to escape and call for help. The cops are skeptical and consider Chris the main suspect, until Lisbeth "Liz" Causley steps in to set them straight.
When the dead body of the assailant, Rupert Quillane, is discovered a short time later in a red Nissan truck near the Puu o Hewa Reservoir, the case takes a bizarre turn. Enter Jefferson Cornwall, thriller author, who happens to be Liz's son and the love of Chris's life. Intrigued by the case, mother-and-son authors join forces with family and friends in a race against time when the owner of the property where Johnny Hiro was shot turns up missing.
Cattle rancher Michael Gurne has been dating the soon-to-be ex-Mrs. Howard Duckworth for just a few short months. Howard Duckworth claims his wife is a gold-digger. Rhona Duckworth claims to know her husband's dirty little dealings. When a devious investment scheme is exposed, Howard Duckworth looks guilty. But Rhona has trouble making a clean breast of her own past. If Cornwall & Company can't get to the bottom of this mess quickly, Michael Gurne may never be found alive!
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About the author
I love to write, so you will find I am the author of several fast-paced cozy mysteries featuring lively characters like Scarlet Wilson. These tales are laced with humor and romance, but they are of the traditional style of cozy mysteries. The amateur sleuths typically reside in small towns and villages. The crime could take place in your neck of the woods. It could be your next-door neighbor who is found in a heap on the side of the road. It could be your dog that gets the first whiff of that cadaver and alerts you to its presence.
My determined crime solvers might not be trained to tackle big cases, but they do rub elbows with investigators who are used to dealing with wily criminals…and not exactly enthusiastic about having amateur sleuths along for the ride, even clever ones!
While some of the cases are heinous, there is rarely a need to go into detail about any murder scene. To me, that’s like rubbernecking at a traffic accident. If it’s not pertinent to the case, why get gruesome? Nor will you normally hear my cozy mystery characters swear. That doesn’t mean they won’t bicker or get snarky.
As S. M. Barton, I write espionage thrillers. These are not necessarily for the faint of heart. Spies do what they do to achieve their goals. There is normally a lot of excitement, some very hairy twists and turns, and some unconscionable behavior. These are adventures driven by circumstances beyond the control of the protagonists. Survival is the name of the game. It’s not always easy to know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, let alone what kind of havoc that will result from all the mayhem, murder, and madness. If intrigue is your thing, you will want to check these out.
