After a year of hard work in her Texas hometown, Harlow Jane Cassidy’s dreams are finally within reach—if she can just get it all done in time… Harlow’s designs will be featured in a big magazine spread, but she only has a few days to finalize her collection. Plus she’s busy helping to plan her mother’s upcoming wedding, playing host to her old friend Orphie, and avoiding a competitive Dallas designer set on stealing Harlow’s ideas. Harlow’s making it all work—until someone breaks into Buttons & Bows and the rival designer is found dead. But when a near miss makes it clear that Orphie could be the next victim, Harlow will have to untangle the threads of evidence if she wants to save her friend, her mother’s wedding, and her business from becoming fashion road kill…

With a needle and thread, Harlow Jane Cassidy is capable of magic. Her neighbors in Bliss, Texas, on the other hand, are capable of murder.... Any garment Harlow stitches together has the power to grant the deepest desire of whomever wears it. So when she’s asked to sew aprons for a local women’s group, Harlow must get to know each member. First up is Delta Lee Mobley, who doesn’t care much for Harlow’s family—or anyone else in Bliss, for that matter. Granting Delta’s greatest wish could only lead to trouble.... But trouble finds Delta all the same. The day after Harlow delivers her apron, Delta’s body is discovered in the cemetery. It seems one of the townsfolk harbored ill will toward one of their own. Harlow’s sleuthing skills are a cut above the rest, and with a few magical tricks up her sleeve, she is determined to cuff this killer once and for all.

Harlow Jane Cassidy is swamped with homecoming couture requests. If only she didn’t have to help solve a murder, she might get the gowns off the dress forms.... Harlow is doing everything she can to expand her dressmaking business, Buttons & Bows—without letting clients know about her secret charm. When she has a chance to create homecoming dresses with a local charity and handmade mums for several high school girls—including Gracie, whose father, Will, has mended Harlow’s heart—she is ready to use her magical talents for a great cause. But when Gracie’s date for the dance is accused of murder, Harlow knows things won’t be back on course until she helps Gracie clear the football player’s name. If Harlow can’t patch up this mess before the big game, her business and her love life might be permanently benched. INCLUDES SEWING TIPS

Hope and Glory McIntyre are about as different as sisters can be. Glory is the quintessential Texas beauty queen, while Hope wants nothing more than to dismantle Tumbleweed’s beauty queen scene with the mighty stroke of her journalist pen. Glory’s dreams of becoming Mrs. Tumbleweed might be over when her rival is found dead, and while they might be as different as water and Texas oil, Hope won’t rest until she clears sister of wrongdoing and gets to the truth. Four authors. Four stories. One Town. And a whole lot of trouble … The small town of Tumbleweed might sit in the remote desert of west Texas, but trouble still seems to find it. Someone’s always trying to kill someone else for one darn reason or another, and things get as tangled and twisted as a tumbleweed. The Trouble in Tumbleweed series is an entertaining and interrelated collection of mystery novellas from some of the genre’s most popular and bestselling authors.

From the author of the Magical Dressmaking Series comes a Christmas story filled with merriment, mystery, and murder. Bliss, Texas, is gearing up for its annual Winter Wonderland festival, but when a mysterious Scrooge ends the merriment with murder, it’ll take more than a ghost from Christmas past to set things right. Designing a holiday fashion show set in the town’s most prominent historic mansion seems like a job tailor made for dressmaker Harlow Jane Cassidy. But with the mansion’s restoration still in progress and threatening weather on the horizon, she’s feeling on pins and needles more than reveling in holiday cheer. Having volunteered to play Santa in this year’s festival, Dan Lee Chrisson was ready to move on after his divorce—until Bliss became his final resting place. Discovering his body puts Harlow at the scene of the crime. She’ll need plenty of help from friends and even her late great-grandmother’s spirited sleuthing if she’s to have a ghost of a chance of catching a killer who’s just jumped to the top of the naughty list…. INCLUDES SEWING TIPS

The 4th Small Wars JournalEl Centro anthology comes at a pivotal time, roughly a third of the way through the term, for the Enrique Pea Nieto administration in Mexico. The mass kidnapping and execution of 43 rural student teachers in Iguala, Guerrero in late September 2014 has only served to further highlight the corruptive effects of organized crime on the public institutions in that country. In addition, many other states in Latin America are now suffering at the hands of criminal insurgents who are threatening their citizens and challenging their sovereign rights. Dave Dilegge, SWJ Editor-in-Chief

Hailed as the most engaging and accessible introductory text available, Exploring Criminal Justice provides a clear, complete, and credible introduction to the U.S. criminal justice system. Using an easy-to-follow, attention-grabbing writing style, this text explains the overarching processes and purposes of the criminal justice system. The functions of each component—police, courts, corrections—and the relationships between them are described in detail while rich and captivating pedagogy encourages students to think about how each component affects their daily lives. This thoroughly up-to-date text provides contemporary data, case studies, and references for all topics. Exploring Criminal Justice devotes an entire chapter to the emerging crimes of terrorism and cybercrime and the role these controversial topics play in the modern criminal justice system. Special attention is also given to juvenile offenders and issues relating to women and minorities. In addition, this text provides thorough integration of criminological theory and policy as it presents both historical context and current features of the U.S. criminal justice system.