Showing results by narrator "Beth Richmond" in All Categories

Straight arrow lawman Josh Cummings retrieves over a million dollars from a snow filled gorge…and keeps it. As he relates his most interesting cases from 50-plus years in law enforcement to two young reporters, Steve Simon and George Smitts, he conveniently leaves this part out. Each chapter is a complete story running the gamut from dark comedy to crime thriller.

Imagine. You have cancer. You’ve been blasted and wasted with chemotherapy, along with every other poison the doctors could find to kill malignant cells. Most days you’re more dead than alive. Now there is one last chance for survival. Tomorrow you will be infused with your own, treated bone marrow frozen, stored, and safe in one of California’s most prestigious hospitals. Then comes the note: “We have your marrow.... pay or die."

Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman is always busy, but more so now than ever. The sheriff is still not completely recovered from his stay in the hospital, and she is recovering from a hospital stay herself. After a long day at work, Estelle is happy to clear off her desk and drive home, where her beloved family waits. She hears her cell phone ringing as she pulls into the driveway. A truck has gone off the road and the driver's body found near the wreck.

Cealie Gunther avoids things that bind - like control-top pantyhose and Gil Thurman. Widowed Cealie thinks she wants to avoid her hunky ex-lover Gil as she travels while trying to rediscover herself. But he opens Cajun restaurants in many cities, and Cealie's not great at avoiding temptation. She tries to avoid family members so she won't become dependant, but since her family is most important, constantly winds up around them. Murder is always involved.

Miffed that vacation plans with her chronically absent boyfriend Jenks Jenkins have gone awry, she accepts a job in Baja. So what if she and her friend Jan are spectacularly unqualified to take her yacht on a thousand mile cruise in the eastern Pacific Ocean in the middle of hurricane season? Hiring a handsome, if somewhat fishy captain for the trip might keep them off the rocks, but probably won t do the same for her future with Jenks.

Social worker Claire Conover honestly believed she could make a difference in the world until she gets the phone call she's dreaded her entire career. One of her young clients, Michael, has been found dead and his mother, Ashley, has been arrested for his murder. And who made the decision to return Michael to Ashley? Claire Conover. Ashley had seemingly done everything right - gotten clean, found a place to live, worked two jobs, and earned back custody of her son. Devastated but determined to discover where her instincts failed her, Claire vows to find the truth about what really happened to Michael.

In 1847, Marjory Turner struggles with the difficult journey west to the Oregon Territory, recording her feelings in her journal. On the cusp of womanhood, she is ill equipped to deal with the hardships after her father dies in an accident midway through the journey. The already-strained relationship with her mother grows worse as her mother's behavior becomes more mysteriously irrational and Marjory is forced to take on the responsibility of her much younger siblings. But the trials strengthen Marjory.

A rattlesnake fang pegged in a teenager's eye is just the beginning of a spring day for Posadas Undersheriff Estelle Guzman. The injured lad's older brother goes missing, and is found dead in an arroyo, apparently killed by his cartwheeling ATV. But most puzzling is what the dead boy found moments before he was killed...an astonishing discovery that takes deputies back to a five year-old killing. Estelle and the now retired Bill Gastner find themselves looking for a murderer altogether too close to home.

This love story takes place in Germany between the years 1936 and 1943. At the age of 17, Erna Neuman and Hans Traber fall in love. Nazi laws force their separation because Erna is Jewish. During World War II, Traber, now a soldier in the German army, finds Erna under circumstances that compel him to rescue her. Gradually and tenderly, their first love is re-awakened as he attempts to take her to safety on a perilous journey to Switzerland. He fails....

Louie Cameron, once a successful architect and musician, now a vagabond, is wounded while defending a damsel in distress, which leads him to become entangled in the lives of Andrea, an artist and professor, and her parents, habitués of a remote beach house in northern California. The blossoming of deep love between Louie and Andrea gives Louie the courage to return to Santa Cruz to make peace with Marie, the former love of his life, with unforeseen and startling consequences.

Throughout his career, Johnny Cash was depicted - and depicted himself - as a walking contradiction: social protestor and establishment patriot, drugged wildman and devout Christian crusader, rebel outlaw hillbilly thug and elder statesman. Leigh H. Edwards explores the allure of this paradoxical image and its cultural significance. She argues that Cash embodied irresolvable contradictions of American identity that reflect foundational issues in the American experience.

In 1985, Catherine DeMarco spent one hot July night where she shouldn’t have been, doing something she shouldn’t have been doing. This was a fatal mistake. Now Jimmy Taggart is sitting on death row. Details of that night are still hazy in his mind but the evidence was conclusive. No one believed in his innocence then. Only one person believes in it now. Sergeant Samantha Casey fought to clear the name of a Korean War vet in When the Dead Speak.

This is a fast-paced tale of intrigue, deception and betrayal. Madison McKenzie, a vacationing investigative reporter, overhears some old codgers talking about people disappearing, unexplained deaths and activity at the now defunct Annabelle Mine. Curiosity gets the better of her and she decides to investigate. What she unearths is a conspiracy of international proportions.

Just a second. That was all it took. In that second Anita Sherwood sees the face of the young boy in the window of the bus as it stops at the curb...and she knows it is her son. The son who had been kidnapped two years before. The son who had never been found and who had been declared legally dead. But now her son is alive. Anita knows it in her heart. She is certain that the boy is her son, but how can she get anyone to believe her?

Afraid of men, afraid for her sins, afraid for her sanity, and right now afraid for her life, Meggie McMurphy flees Boston once the fiendish terror - so long stalking in her nightmares - surfaces in the light of day. She escapes west to Denver in the wild Colorado Territory, hoping to lose herself among the multitude of townsfolk. The year is 1874. Twenty-five years old, alone, and near penniless, Meggie struggles to find honest work and to keep the dark secrets of her past just that: a secret. Not so easily done....

Former homicide detective, Sam Casey, finds it hard to stay away from crime scenes, especially those where victims have died violently, and where the killers are still unknown. Centuries-old skeletal remains of Native Americans along with artifacts are discovered during the construction of a downtown office building. Sam has a difficult time deciphering her visions of two moons and the sound of gravel crunching until she realizes the two moons are headlights.

One week before her wedding a young woman strips, takes the time to fold her clothes, then calmly walks into Lake Michigan. When Sam Casey is asked to look into the death of a young mother who left her infant in a high chair, walked down the street and jumped off the overpass, Sam finds a strange similarity-they each received a phone call just prior to committing suicide. Both calls were from disposable phones and both calls lasted four seconds. Were these really suicides or something more sinister?

Although drinking alcoholic beverages is legal for those 21 years and older in the United States, alcohol is a dangerous drug when misused or abused by those of any age. One of the most commonly used drugs among teens and adults, alcohol affects areas of the brain that influence pleasure, impulses, and coordination. Long-term abuse of alcohol has devastating effects on one's health and can be fatal to the user.

A body is discovered in a cement pillar. Clasped in his hand is a gold pin shaped like a lightning bolt. What secret did he carry to his grave and why is someone hell-bent on keeping that secret buried? Detective Sergeant Samantha Casey is more than just a cop. She is part Native American with a unique ability to hear the dead speak. They tell her secrets about their life and death. And sometimes what she learns can get her killed.

Hetta Coffey is a globe-trotting civil engineer with attitude who is working on coming of age, a little late. Pushing forty and still single, Hetta is the epitome of the "B" word: bold, bossy, brassy, breezy, and brash. After leaving a lifelong swath of failed multinational affairs in her jet stream, it is no wonder Hetta prefers living with her dog, R.J. But old habits die hard, and trolling for triceps is Hetta's hobby....