Showing results by author "Carolyn Ridder Aspenson" in All Categories

I have a perfect life. I recently rented the most adorable little apartment on top of my favorite bookstore coffee shop on Main Street in Holiday Hills, the charmingest of charming small southern towns. I spend my days ghostwriting a cozy mystery series for a well-known author, and maybe just a minute or two crushing on the town’s police chief. But of course, I’d never let that cat out of the bag.

A drug overdose case hits close to home when a body is linked to the family of Rachel's friend. But the seemingly simple investigation leads her down a rabbit hole from her past - a past she fears has finally come back to haunt her. As bodies begin to accumulate, Detective Ryder knows in her gut that vengeance is upon her. Yet time and again, the evidence just doesn't add up. Increasingly isolated, Rachel begins to question her own sanity. Is she succumbing to fear? Or has Rachel's past finally caught up with her?

Standing over the body of a teenage boy on the lawn of a wealthy family, Rachel has no idea that three more will shortly follow. However, as the young bodies pile up, Rachel is called on to go undercover. Deputized as a Drug Enforcement agent and tasked to work hand-in-hand with the Hamby PD, she becomes a counselor at the local high school. When what seems like a basic sting operation ends in a shootout, Rachel must dig through layers of secrets and betrayal to protect not only the youth in her new community, but the lives of those she loves.

New to town and a little rough around the edges, Detective Rachel Ryder finds herself on the receiving end of a suspicious person’s call in Hamby, Georgia. When the call turns out to be a dead body, the medical examiner is quick to rule the death a suicide. But was it something more sinister? Everyone in the small department believes the case is closed - except for Rachel.

The past comes back to haunt a small town when one murder leads to the discovery of another. When a troubled young woman, Jenn Berman, goes missing at the summer fair in Hamby, her uncaring family fails to notice. That is, until a loose dog returns home with a bloodied hand. Investigators are led to a developing subdivision where they find the unthinkable: Jenn's body in a shallow grave.

When the fire department discovers a body near the scene of a suspicious blaze, Detective Rachel Ryder and her partner Rob Bishop are called to investigate. A set of numbers has been deliberately left near the body, and an autopsy reveals that the victim was killed before the fire. This death was no accident. When the investigation turns up few clues and no previous references to the killer’s calling card, Rachel and Rob turn to the media for help, eliciting contact from an unexpected source. It seems a killer from the past is back in the game...and the body count is growing.

Detective Rachel Ryder and her partner, Rob Bishop, are first on the scene. But, while the detectives have solved many tough cases in the past, they’ve never seen anything like this one. Because the dead woman lying at the surgeon’s side isn’t actually his wife - it’s her twin sister. With the same face, the same DNA, and the same ambitions in life, the two women are nearly impossible to distinguish - and every clue comes with a sinister mirror image. Rachel and Rob must untangle the web of dark family secrets, double lives, and deadly betrayals.

Three home invasions in a wealthy golf community have Hamby on edge. At first, only cash is taken. But with each break-in the crimes escalate. Jewelry is stolen. Victims are beaten. Then events take a deadly turn when the fourth attack leaves a young woman dead.

When her best friend Gen comes from Birmingham for an extended visit, psychic medium Chantilly Adair can’t wait to show her Castleberry, Georgia. Excited to introduce her to what makes her home town so unique, Chantilly plans to throw a party the size of Atlanta’s Mercedes Stadium. Though she hasn’t attempted an event that big since her own wedding, she’s ready and willing to take the ball and run with it.

Months after Detective Rachel Ryder exposed the madman who killed six people, she can’t forget his sinister puzzle...and when the body of a young woman is found on an elite golf course with a familiar set of clues, Rachel can’t escape the impossible feeling that an old enemy has risen from the grave.

It’s one thing to get attitude from her teenagers, but when Angela Panther’s newest ghost in distress is an in-her-face, snarky teenage boy, the psychic medium lays down the law. When an unidentified 14-year-old boy takes a dive off an interstate overpass, to solve the case, Atlanta area detective Aaron Banner calls Angela to get the truth about his junior John Doe.

Divorced mother Chantilly Adair didn’t take the job as the head of the Castleberry Georgia Historical Society because she thought it would be easy, in fact, she felt the exact opposite, and that suited her just fine. Desperate to get away from Birmingham and her ex-husband, she took her pre-teen son and high-tailed it straight to her childhood home in Castleberry, Georgia, and the echoes of her recently deceased parents.

I wear many hats. I'm a friend. A sort-of girlfriend. A ghostwriter, and...oh yeah, a witch. My editor always tells me to “write what you know.” Unfortunately, that’s what’s happening...literally. When the main character in my latest novel - a witch herself - takes a new job with the Magical Bureau of Investigators, she stumbles upon a threat so big, it could destroy everything she holds dear. Fiction, right? Nope. For reasons beyond my witchy sixth sense, everything I write is now happening to me in real life!

Witches don’t always follow the rules, and when they don’t, bad things happen. Like Cassandra Bloom’s death, for starters. Holiday Hills residents, magical and humans, were afraid of Cassandra. She was the bad witch in every fairytale, the one with the ugly wart and long, stringy gray hair. But she didn’t just look scary. She was scary. Sure, everyone in town might feel secretly relieved Cassandra’s no longer with us, but they’re missing the bigger picture. Cassandra didn’t die of old age. She was murdered.

My name is Abby Odell, and I’m leading a double life. Don’t get me wrong. I love it! But being a witch in a predominantly human world is challenging sometimes. My hometown, Holiday Hills, isn’t your typical small town. It’s a magical town, but not to the humans. At least not until recently. Something’s happening, and it’s not good. Magic is no longer hidden, and people are starting to witness events that don’t seem humanly possible.

Small town realtor Lily Sprayberry can’t catch a break. You solve new murders and uncover old crimes,but can you save someone from doing hard time?To return what was lost, solve my riddle at all costs. Travel back to ’83 and the murder of a girl from Forsyth County. The note sat inside an empty lock box on the dining room table of Bramblett County realtor Lily Sprayberry’s open house listing. A lockbox that formerly contained an expensive coin collection she promised would remain safe.

When psychic medium Chantilly Adair receives cryptic messages from the lacrosse park’s dead groundskeeper, she knows something bad is coming. What she doesn’t expect is tragedy to hit so close to home. Now her son’s best friend is missing and feared dead, and the only clues Chantilly has are the babblings of a confused ghost who won’t accept his death. Will Chantilly be able to decipher the obscure messages in time to save the boy, or will it be too little, too late?

USA Today bestselling author Carolyn Ridder Aspenson delivers a fast-paced mystery series filled with action and intrigue, perfect for fans of Kendra Elliot, Robert Dugoni, and Lisa Regan.

I try hard to help the restless dead find closure. And usually, I succeed. But this time my detective boyfriend is throwing a wrench into my efforts. I might be able to take the word of a dead guy, but the police sure can't. And as always, things don’t turn out as planned. Now I’m stuck in the middle of a double murder - one from the past - and one from now.

When the town’s biggest high school bully of all time decides to come back and haunt Castleberry High, it’s my job to stop him. The problem is, this job is bringing up a whole lot of personal baggage and bad memories...because that bully bullied me. The good news is, the town detective knows my secret and wants to protect me. The bad news is, the town detective knows my secret and wants to protect me. My goal is to send this ghost back to where he came from. But he’s pushing hard for me to solve his murder.