"One of today's finest mystery writers" —Carolyn G. Hart THE FAMILY THAT DIES TOGETHER... Everyone in the small, tightly knit community of Black Cat Ridge, Texas, knows everyone else’s business. And everyone is stunned by the slaying of the well-liked Lester family, minus its youngest member, in their own home. Apparently loving husband and father Roy did the bloody deed—before turning the murder weapon on himself. The Pughs were the Lesters’ nearest neighbors and closest friends. In fact, sharp-tongued housewife/romance writer E.J. Pugh first discovered the bodies... and four-year-old Bessie Lester, who may have witnessed the carnage. But Bessie isn’t speaking. And E.J. may be the only one in Black Cat Ridge who believes this case is not closed... and that a murderer still walks among them all. “Susan Rogers Cooper is a gifted and perceptive writer whose characters are second to none” —Sharyn McCrumb, author of The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter

A fourteen-year-old living with his grandparents learns his father is to be released from prison after killing his mother and feels apprehensive about renewing the relationship. Based on true events.

In this, the second novel about tiny redheaded comic Kimmey Kruse, Cooper does deal her readers a surprise—a deep and authentic knowledge of a colorful American subculture. She's got the lingo of Kimmey's East Texas Cajun relatives just right, and she lovingly describes the delectable and distinctive Cajun cuisine. Kimmey is summoned from a Pittsburgh gig by Me-Maw, her grandmother, because Paw-Paw, her grandfather, has broken his leg. Since Me-Maw banished him from her house years before ("You can't keep a house clean with a man in it, yeah.") and Kimmey's mother has gone off to the Antarctic with her professor husband, it is up to the comic to baby-sit the feisty old man. The picnic-family reunion that Me-Maw takes her granddaughter to turns out to have several memorable elements. There's the food, of considerable interest to ninety-pound Kimmey; there's her gorgeous cousin Willard, whom she's never known because Willard's mother, Letitia, and the female relatives have been feuding for ages; and then there's the death of Letitia, in her car, from a barrage of wasp stings. Two dead wasps in a jar in the dead woman's car convince Kimmey that Letitia was murdered; of course, no one believes her. Until the sexy and infuriating Chicago cop Kimmey met during her first murder case shows up uninvited to exasperate Kimmey and inflame her with desire. Eventually, she is proved right, but what's the good of that if the proof is being pursued by a killer at midnight along the top of a slippery sea wall! Kimmey is sassy, funny, and lovable, and her relatives and their neighbors are a treat to meet.

"EVEN A BRIGHT, SUNNY DAY FEELS MENACING IN THE HANDS OF THIS PRO." —Margaret Maron NEIGHBORHOOD BLIGHT Romance writer, suburban mom, and sometime sleuth E.J. Pugh is certainly not thrilled to have Michael Whitby for a neighbor. A convicted criminal, Whitby served his time in prison and now has moved to the quiet Texas community of Black Cat Ridge, the Pughs' hometown. Despite her fears, E.J. feels the townsfolk's campaign on harassment—which is affecting the ex-con's innocent family—is unnecessarily cruel and blatantly unfair. The local citizenry has decided that Whitby must go! And no method is too extreme if it removes him from the vicinity. But a line is crossed on Halloween night when a dead body is discovered on the Whitbys' front lawn. And now a morally outraged E.J. is on the trail of a killer, digging for dangerous secrets that might best be left interred—secrets that might possibly be buried in her own backyard. "A GIFTED AND PERCEPTIVE WRITER WHOSE CHARACTERS ARE SECOND TO NONE."—Sharyn McCrumb

Sheriff Milt Kovak, having joined his psychiatrist wife on a trip to a conference in Las Vegas, expects a welcome vacation, inspecting the casinos. He has left a capable second-in-command to watch over his small town in Oklahoma, but almost as soon as they arrive, Milt gets an S.O.S. call from his cousin Maida. Her pregnant daughter has been beaten by her husband, and Maida's husband, Burl, has thoroughly trounced his son-in-law. The young man is the son of a very powerful businessman in Vegas, and the police want to lock Burl up. Milt manages to talk his fellow cops into giving him custody of Burl until the trial and takes the still-steaming man to their hotel room; Burl reciprocates by disappearing. Milt doesn't think anything else can go wrong—except it does. The next morning, the young man is found dead. Now Milt must forego the wonders of Las Vegas to try to find Burl and clear him from the charge of murder. He expects to get some help from the young widow's several brothers, who descend on the town "volunteering to help.'' But they are more involved with quarreling among themselves than in finding the murderer. Will Milt hit the jackpot? Susan Rogers Cooper has upped the ante with her latest, fun-filled, adventure-packed addition to this consistently entertaining series.

"With a voice that's as comforting as a rock­ing chair and as salty as a fisherman" (Houston Chronicle, of Houston in the Rearview Mirror), Deputy Sheriff Milton Kovak of Prophesy County, Oklahoma, returns. Milt finally gets up the nerve to ask his longtime ladylove, Glenda Sue Rainey, to marry him—only to be rebuffed with no explanation and a good-bye at the door. When Glenda Sue is found dead the next day, brutally murdered, Milt is dazed. Enter Glenda Sue's long-lost daughter, who arrives in town for the funeral with her own little girl in tow. The only problem: little Rebecca is half-black, and the residents of Prophesy County aren't all as open-minded as Milt. As the threat of more violence looms, Milt begins to have strange dreams about Rebecca's safety, dreams whose common feature is the presence of a woman with leg braces. These dreams lead him to Dr. Jean McDonnell, a handicapped psychiatrist, whom Milt enlists to help him find out what happened to Glenda Sue—and why. When sister Jewel Ann announces plans to move herself and her family out of Milt's house and into the home of Harmon Monk, Milt begins to see Dr. McDonnell as having a role to play in his personal life as well.

ONE OF TODAY'S FINEST MYSTERY WRITERS." —Carolyn Hart A VIRGIN ISLAND LOSES ITS INNOCENCE There is no love lost between novelist/sometime sleuth E.J. Pugh and her three sisters: four high-strung Texas redheads who have made sibling rivalry an art form. In an attempt to ease their stretched-thin family ties, the ladies and their respective mates have rented a vacation home together on the Caribbean island of St. John. But reconciliation must take a back seat to crime detection when a waterlogged corpse is discovered clogging up the cistern of their stunning beachfront house. The body belongs to a former employee of the dentist husband of sister Liz, which leads the local police captain to surmise that the killer is a member of the clan—especially after an exploding pleasure boat and other untimely "accidents" rapidly raise the body count up from one. E.J., however, is not convinced. And, to the chagrin of her loving, long-suffering hubby, Willis, she's determined to salvage what's left of their vacation by exposing whomever is rapidly turning a family gathering into a wake in paradise. "E.J. is a Central Texas housewife and author who simply cannot keep her nose out of other people's business. If she's your friend, you couldn't ask for better. If she's on your case, you might just as well give up...The E.J. Pugh mysteries are among my favorites." —Austin American-Statesman