After a relatively calm and cozy holiday season, neither Emma Lord, editor and publisher of The Alpine Advocate, nor her husband, Sheriff Milo Dodge, are surprised when their new year gets off to a rocky start. A woman's body has been found in a squalid motel. Her driver's license shows that Dawn Purvis was in her late thirties and lived in Weaverville, California-and the only connection between that town and Alpine is their gold-mining and logging origins. When they discover that Dawn's room reservation was open-ended, Emma, Milo, and the ever-inquisitive Advocate receptionist, Alison Lindahl, are more than mildly curious. And never mind that the youthful Alison is a bit distracted by the new county extension agent's virile good looks. She can still sleuth while she stalks her newest crush. But that's not all the news that's unfit to print. There's something strange about the older couple who have moved into the cabin down the road that was once owned by a murder victim. The elderly wife seems anti-social. There's got to be a reason, which Emma, Milo, and Alison intend to find out-even if it puts them in deadly danger.
For a small town nestled in the Cascade Mountains' foothills, picturesque Alpine provides more than enough headlines to fill the pages of editor and publisher Emma Lord's Alpine Advocate.
The Labor Day edition's lead story features controversial timber baron Jack Blackwell's scheme to become Skykomish county manager, but the recent strangling deaths of two young women are all anyone can talk about. After a third body is found, Emma's husband, Sheriff Milo Dodge, suspects there's a serial killer in their midst. The latest victim is the sister of a dashing newcomer rumored to be working for Blackwell.
Black Jack, as he's known to his non-admirers, has a long-standing rivalry with Milo. To discover if there's any connection between the mogul and the murders, Emma recruits the Advocate's receptionist, Alison Lindahl, to do a little digging. But when the investigation puts Alison into the line of fire, Emma worries that her career will be over before it even begins.
Rodney Schmuck and his wife, Cleo, Hillside Manor's latest guests, seem completely ordinary. Judith McMonigle Flynn is touched to hear that the forty-something couple is in town to visit family. Rodney has come to visit his mother - who, he claims, is none other than Judith herself! Shocked to meet a son she's certain she never had, she insists he's made a mistake. Then Rodney shows her proof: a birth certificate from Norway General Hospital listing Judith Anne Grover as his mother. The father's name is Unknown. But she's got an even bigger problem on her hands when one of the B&B's own guests turns up dead. Then Rodney announces he wants Judith to financially compensate him for abandoning abandoning him. Perhaps she'll sign over Hillside Manor? Fat chance of that...
As an early summer heat wave beats down on Alpine, Emma and her staff are treading very lightly. For unfathomable reasons, the paper's House & Home editor, Vida Runkel, is in a major snit, refusing to speak to her colleagues. So when a peculiar young woman walks in claiming her parents have been murdered, and that she's in mortal danger, too, it fits right in with the rest of the craziness. Then, to the utter bafflement of her colleagues, Vida vanishes without a word to anyone. And just when Emma and her husband, Sheriff Milo Dodge, start to unsnarl these tangles, a male body, dead too long to identify, surfaces at the town dump - making what seemed merely weird feel downright sinister.
With the holidays gone and Hillside Manor almost empty, Innkeeper Judith McMonigle Flynn has a bad case of the blues. A housesitting stint at her aunt and uncle's retirement home on Whoopee Island with cousin Renie seems like the ideal pick-me-up. But it isn't long before a dead body pops up in their vicinity. Not surprising in an area full of older folks - until they learn it wasn't a bad ticker that did in the victim, but a very sharp knife. With clouds of suspicion hovering over her and Renie, Judith reluctantly begins sleuthing. The victim reputedly didn't have an enemy in the world - except for the killer. Digging for clams and answers, the cousins discover that retirement can be deadly - at least among the eclectic, eccentric residents of Obsession Shores.
An ill wind blows through Alpine, but Advocate publisher Emma Lord and Sheriff Milo Dodge seem immune to the prevailing angst. The newlyweds' domestic idyll is most definitely over when a dead man is discovered near the fish hatchery and nobody has a clue as to his identity. Moreover, whispers of scandal travel through the quaint streets when some high school girls mysteriously take a walk on the wild side. And then Milo's dedicated deputy, Sam Heppner, a true yeoman, suddenly goes AWOL. What's happening in Alpine? If Milo knows, he's not telling Emma. The situation grows even more fraught when a shocking link is revealed between the mystery corpse and one of Alpine's own, unearthing a long-buried dark secret.
Winter in Alpine should be quiet, but the town is humming. At the Alpine Advocate, editor Emma Lord and her staff are on deadline with a feature about the opening of RestHaven, a new rehab and mental health facility. Front Street is buzzing with gossip about Emma's recent engagement to Sheriff Milo Dodge. And now that fool Wayne Eriks has climbed an electric pole in the middle of a storm and got himself electrocuted. Sheriff Dodge doesn't buy the idea that Wayne's death is an accident. But how - and, more important, why - he died is only one of the conundrums that keep the sheriff and Emma working overtime. After the Advocate's House & Home editor disappears, Milo and Emma suddenly have too many loose ends to solve before they can even think about tying the knot.
USA Today best-selling author Mary Daheim’s juicy mysteries are quickly climbing every fan’s list of favorites. This madcap romp features Judith McMonigle Flynn, amateur sleuth and proprietress of Hillside Manor—an historic suburban inn that plays host to more than its fair share of murder and mayhem. Kirkus Reviews calls the series “absolutely intoxicating.”
Mary Daheim's wonderful world of Hillside Manor is zany, engrossing, and positively addicting! In Suture Self, Judith McMonigle Flynn is scheduled for a hip replacement. Instead of looking ahead to her new mobility, she's worried. "Routine surgery" recently cost a local actress and a star baseball pitcher their lives. Though Judith smells malice, she successfully survives her operation-but another patient isn't so lucky.
Stuck in this chamber of Hippocratic horrors, Judith feels compelled to get to the bottom of what could be the worst malpractice case ever recorded...or perhaps something much more sinister. The worst diagnosis of all is the one that suggests Judith's curiosity is terminal...and that a killer is saving a last lethal dose of medicine for her.
"Anna Fields performs a top-notch interpretation; she presents this quirky tale with precise yet soothing diction that immerses the listener in the events."-AudioFile
