When the mummified remains of a World War II G.I. are unearthed in the sub-basement of the Crawford County Courthouse, the residents, well-known for their nonstop gossip, are suddenly as quiet as the soldier's grave. Sheriff Charles Matthews is frustrated by the town's silence. He isn't planning to arrest anyone for a murder more than fifty years old, but he does want to bury the soldier's remains with a name other than John Doe. One of the local oldsters must know that name, but no one, not even his spinster dispatcher, Miss Poole, will talk. Whoever John Doe was, he still frightens Crawford County's senior citizens fifty years after his death.
Eight thousand hunters descend on Crawford County, Texas, for the annual pheasant season. To Sheriff Charles Matthews that's eight thousand chances for a gun-related accident. But when the most hated man in the county, banker Rich Hansford, turns up with his face removed by a shotgun blast, it's no accident; it's murder. To Crawford County folk, it's a public service killing, and no one, not even the sheriff's staff, are much interested in seeing anyone arrested. Certainly no one will inform on his neighbor; in fact, no one will talk at all. It's up to the sheriff to break through the wall of silence and arrest the murderer.
In the midst of a bad drought, the shores of a local lake recede to reveal an old abandoned car. Megan is intrigued by the Depression-era jalopy and puzzled when her fellow amateur sleuths would rather get back to discussing Agatha Christie. Then bodies start popping up all over town, ritually murdered, and current crimes take precedence over old secrets. It's Megan who discovers the corpses, making her the prime suspect. To clear her name, she'll need to find the killer - who's obviously been boning up on Christie novels. Is Megan reading too much into clues, or could the culprit be a book club member?
Enrique Armijo, archaeologist, and in his own mind, the world's authority on the Folsom Man culture, is spying on a ritual performed by the so-called Skin People in the crater of Capulin Mountain, an extinct volcano in northern New Mexico. He doesn't expect to be murdered. He certainly doesn't expect the weapon to be a prehistoric atl-atl. Back in Crawford County, Texas, Sheriff Charles Matthews doesn't expect a call from his deputy, Raul Trujillo, about the archaeologist's murder and the bizarre weapon used. He certainly doesn't expect to hear that the atl-atl has been found in his deputy's hotel room and that Raul is charged with murder. Knowing that no matter what the evidence says, Raul didn't murder anyone, Charles leaves his badge behind in Texas and steps into New Mexican Sheriff Kit Lindman's territory to prove his deputy and friend innocent.
Crawford County, Texas, hadn't had a deliberate homicide in 80 years, and Sheriff Charles Matthews liked that statistic just fine, particularly since his department wasn't generously endowed with manpower. He had one deputy who took pride in how far he could spit tobacco and another one who couldn't tell his backside from his elbow. Neither of these deputies bothered Crawford County because folks understood them. They didn't altogether understand Charles Matthews. It wasn't his law degree- lots of folks had law degrees and were still respectable-and it wasn't the fact he was from Dallas. It wasn't even because he never told anybody why he left Dallas. It was because Charles had no nickname in an area where nicknames were as common as sagebrush. Still, Crawford County took Charles at face value as a good man until he proved otherwise. When Billy Joe Williams was murdered on a lonely county road, Charles knew that someone else counted on being taken at face value.
The members of the Murder by the Yard book club are spending a pleasant afternoon hiking in Palo Duro Canyon, when one of the Megan Clark's dogs slips his leash - and digs up a human skeleton. Megan's background in anthropology places her in a position to help police unearth the remains - and to find another body: a mummy clothed in Comanche garments. Autopsies reveal that foul play caused both deaths, one less than five years earlier, and the other more than a century ago. Now, Megan must connect the two murders - before she finds herself six feet under...
Reference librarian Megan Clark has a passion for fictional crime ? but when she and her fellow book group members go from reading mysteries to solving them, they discover that real-life crime is more complex than the most puzzling whodunit....The Murder by the Yard book group has been going strong for six months, and Megan Clark is eager to celebrate ? and increase membership. For fun and publicity, she volunteers her friend, Dr. Ryan Stevens, to lead tours of famous Amarillo murder sites. One of the sites, The Gorman estate, witnessed the strangling of a young bride and the subsequent suicide of her husband. The case was never solved ? but one of the Gormans wants to know what really happened, and urges the group to reopen the investigation. Megan dives into the research with her usual enthusiasm. But it's soon clear that the killer doesn't take kindly to amateur sleuths ? and that Megan, herself, may soon become history....
Reference librarian Megan Clark has a passion for fictional crime -- but when she and her fellow book group members go from reading mysteries to solving them, they discover that real-life crime is more complex than the most puzzling whodunit...
TANGLED UP IN MURDER...
Excited about her latest writing assignment, Megan persuades the Murder by the Yard book group to accompany her on her research. Few of the bibliophiles have ever heard of string figures -- a pastime familiar to all children who've configured the cat's cradle -- but there's plenty of intrigue to satisfy the curious mystery lovers. A valuable, unpublished manuscript about the beloved hobby is missing -- and its owner found dead. Now Megan and the rest of the group are out to find the culprit...before someone else comes to the end of their rope.
The most dangerous happenings at the mystery discussion group, held at Time and Again Bookstore every Tuesday night, are the arguments between the members about the finer points of the mystery genre. History professor Ryan Stevens dozes happily during the loud disagreements. Being a closet reader of Westerns with no knowledge of mysteries beyond Poe and Sherlock Holmes, Ryan is only a member of the group because he is the bosom companion and very best friend of Megan Clark, board certified forensic anthropologist with a specialty in paleopathology. In other words, Megan autopsies mummies and examines human remains and other archaeological artifacts. Or rather, she would if she could find a job. There being very limited job opportunities in her field, Megan works at the Amarillo Public Library, and pursues various hobbies and sports to alleviate boredom. When Megan and Ryan stumble over the body of Lisa Heredia, spiteful and unpopular member of the discussion group, propped against the side of the bookstore with her throat slit, boredom is the least of Megan's worries. She finds herself a person of interest in Lisa's murder. Circumstances conspire to tighten the metaphorical knot around Megan's neck, until she enlists the discussion group in a risky plan to catch a killer.
In a variation of the classic locked room mystery, Attorney John Lloyd Branson and his beautiful, trusted, but often impetuous legal assistant, Lydia Fairchild scare up ghosts from the past and rattle family skeletons as they try to discover who murdered the young museum curator. It's no Halloween trick when Brad Hemphill materializes in a locked museum at midnight, the main feature in a prehistoric display. Who among the museum staff would kill the harmless, mild-mannered young curator, and why? What deadly secret did Hemphill know that made him a target for murder?
Someone is killing prostitutes on Amarillo Boulevard after sending each a cryptic invitation to "cleanse your soul in the blood of the lamb." One victim mails a letter to John Lloyd Branson, the Panhandle's most famous lawyer, begging for his help. When she is murdered before she can talk to him, and her appointment is kept by her pimp and his stable of girls, John Lloyd declines any involvement in the case. His legal assistant, Lydia Fairchild is so incensed that she goes undercover on the Boulevard to search out the killer without John Lloyd's knowledge. Lydia's bumbling attempt to masquerade as a prostitute causes chaos on the Boulevard, and catches the attention of the Butcher. The killer's taunting phone call to John Lloyd, promising that Lydia will be his next victim, brings the attorney roaring onto the Boulevard to protect Lydia and bring posthumous justice to the Butcher's prey.
The exciting sequel to A Time Too Late. Mattie Jo Hunter doesn't fit the norm of gently bred females of the late 1800s--she dares to run her ranch her way. And she does it alone because the love of her life, Jesse McDade, is doing time in prison for murder--the murder of her own husband.
