When Ruby Tooms, the world-weary barmaid she met at Oktoberfest, arrives at her bed-and-breakfast with some unexpected baggage, Judith McMonigle Flynn, after much coercing by her husband, agrees to help Ruby solve the 20-year-old mystery of her mother's murder.

When the pre-launch party for their cruise is interrupted by the murders of the cruise line owner and two additional victims, Judith and Renie prowl the streets of San Francisco in a case that is complicated by two fellow travelers.

"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 squalidmotel. Her driver's license shows that Rachel Jane Douglas was in her late thirties and lived in Oakland, California--and the only connection between that town and Alpine is their gold-mining and logging...

A conclusion to the long-running mystery series finds Emma investigating the arrival and illness of a young woman who is searching for the mother who abandoned her, a case that is complicated by Vida's altered state, a stalker and a reclusive artist. "The picturesque town of Alpine in the foothills of Washington state's Cascade Mountains--home to Emma Lord and her weekly newspaper The Alpine Advocate--has long charmed and enthralled mystery lovers....

Christmas is anything but quiet in Alpine, Washington, after a body turns up in a cave and Emma Lord and her beau, Milo, are stalked by a killer.

Members of the Burl Creek Thimble Club, a quilting circle in small-town Alpine, Washington, are planning a fete to welcome back Genevieve Bayard, who left Alpine, decades ago. But Gen's homecoming is cut decidedly short when she dies at a dinner party. Emma Lord, owner and publisher of the local newspaper, arrives on the scene to report the incident and sleuth her way to the truth.

A week of "mayhem-as-usual" at Hillside Manor kicks off with the arrival of a mysterious "Mr. Smith" and his floozie "Mrs." from New York City—and it accelerates into chaos when Mr. Smith himself kicks off, a victim of the foulest of plays. Hostess Judith McMonigle Flynn is shocked to learn that her now-defunct roomer was actually "Legs" Benedict—hit man for the notorious Ronzini Family—and that virtually every other guests at her B&B had good...