Crime & Mystery Books

Havana, 1952, a city throbbing with pleasure and danger, where the Mob peddles glamor to the tourists and there’s plenty of sex for sale. In the swanky hotels and casinos, and the steamy, secretive Red Light district of the Colón, Cantor Gold, dapper art thief and smuggler, searches the streets and brothels for her kidnapped love, Sophie de la Luna y Sol. Cantor races against time while trying to out run the deadly schemes of American mobsters and the gunsights of murderous local gangs.

Unemployed English professor Emily Murray has been given a chance of a lifetime: to work and study inside Gnarled Hollow, the former estate of one of her favorite authors. She doesn’t believe in the supernatural, but by the end of her first day, she knows something is wrong. The house has a disturbing habit of changing dimensions—and not just physical ones. Rooms go missing, doors close on their own, and time has a strange tendency to disappear. Emily is joined by other scholars, among them the beautiful art historian, Juniper Friend. Together they begin to research the history of the house, refusing to abandon their work despite the appearance of a mysterious, frightening presence. Spurred on by their desire to uncover the mysteries of Gnarled Hollow and its ghostly inhabitant, they’re determined to uncover the truth, even if it means risking their own lives.

Attorney Elizabeth Campbell and Detective Grace Donovan find themselves once again on opposite sides of a case when Elizabeth represents a young man accused of murdering an elderly woman, a case in which Grace is the lead detective. Initially even Elizabeth doubts his innocence, but as she begins to dig, she finds a much deeper, darker secret that leads to an abandoned antebellum plantation that was a former headquarters for the Knights of the Golden Circle – a secret society that was believed to have disappeared after the Civil War. 

When Elizabeth and Grace join forces to take down the Knights of the Golden Circle, they must also learn to separate work from love or risk losing each other forever.

A car lies crashed below a Welsh mountain road. One of the young women inside it is dead, the other badly injured, with no memory of who she is or what just happened. All she has is a bus pass showing her photograph and a name she doesn’t recognize.

As she struggles to recover from her injuries, a startling revelation shatters everything she thought she knew, forcing her into an uneasy alliance with Detective Bronwen Pryce. With danger closing in from all sides, the two women must work together to uncover the truth—even if it kills them.

What happens when nightmares come true?

Kieran Lee is plagued by disturbing demon-filled dreams that are bleeding out into reality. Driven to the brink of madness by a deadly compulsion she cannot control, Kieran finds herself an unwilling patient in a psych unit. She knows that no amount of medication or therapy is going to help her in this fight for her very soul.

Dr. Merlo Blue is no stranger to the human mind and quickly realizes Kieran is no ordinary patient. Instead, the assistance of a demon-hunting private investigator and select members from the Deviant Data Unit is required. They alone can determine if Kieran’s dreams are angst-filled nightmares or a dire warning sent from the underworld itself, foretelling death and destruction on a massive scale.

The world is full of discord and hatred, but how much of it is just human nature when an evil with sinister intent is invading people’s hearts?

Officer Belinda Riley knew the signs of a suicide bomber, but this time she was blind to the obvious. This time she didn’t want to believe what was right in front of her eyes.

Hammersmith was previously published in Girls With Guns: Three Novellas (Bold Strokes Books, 2016).

Local veterinarian Dr. Giselle Cutler’s world revolves around her profession and Marta, the woman she loves. She’s confident both will always be there to support her, until her cell phone rings in the middle of the night and her once-stable world begins to spin out of control. Her sister Tiffani is missing, and all fingers point to fifteen-year-old Leif, Giselle’s nephew. Life as she knows it is fading fast, and with it, the security that family provides. As the true nature of each relationship is revealed, Giselle begins to doubt her ability to keep—and deserve—a lasting partnership. But Marta’s not giving up, and her support is the lifeline that keeps Giselle from toppling over the edge as they confront the dangers and dark secrets behind Tiffani’s disappearance.

Lieutenant Leah Samuels catches the first homicide case of the new year 2235, and a monster blizzard is obscuring the evidence. The Murder Scene Investigators find only blood and microscopic pieces of flesh and bone of an estimated twenty-plus people. With a winter that will last another six months, she can’t wait until spring to find more evidence in the killing field. Leah resorts to good old-fashioned detecting—and trusting her gut. The motive for the murders is more bizarre than she could have imagined. Finally, when she thought things could get no worse, she learns the woman she loves has betrayed her in devastating ways.

Dr. Abigail Eaton stumbles into a massacre, but once someone tries to kill her it seems like no accident. While hunting for the perpetrators of a sex trafficking empire, Agent Riley Abbott saves Abigail from a professional hit and discovers the young mother might be the key to more than just her case. Riley takes Abigail and her family to what she thinks is safer ground, and runs right into the arms of reputed mob boss Cain Casey.

Hell Fire was previously published in Girls With Guns: Three Novellas (Bold Strokes Books, 2016).

Bounty hunter Luca Bennett has always lived on the edge of the law, but now she’s living with a cop and doing her darnedest to stay out of trouble. When an old enemy resurfaces, will the shady ways of Luca’s past come back to haunt her?

Bow and Arrow was previously published in Girls With Guns: Three Novellas (Bold Strokes Books, 2016).

Cash Braddock’s summer started bad and it’s getting worse. Her suppliers keep getting arrested. Her competition is poaching all her customers. Laurel isn’t who Cash thought she was. And her farm is under a microscope, which makes money laundering difficult. 

There’s a new dealer on Cash’s turf. When kids start dying from the dealer’s pills, Detective Kallen turns to Cash for answers. Turns out her reputation for selling pills doesn’t make her an expert. It makes her a suspect. Cash preferred it when she knew which cops were bad and good.

Last time, her business and reputation were on the line. Now, she’s got to worry about staying out of jail. And stay alive.

Second in the Cash Braddock series.

Kay Adler is a hardworking Chicago detective who seeks justice for the victims of murder. She has one close friend, no lovers, and a difficult family. Her life is her work. If she drinks enough on her off hours, it suits her just fine. 

When people she knows start dying, her team works to track down the killer. He’s a master of disguise and impossible to find, and she must look at uncomfortable parts of her past to find a suspect. She finds two. She’s removed from the case because of her personal involvement and is replaced by Detective Jamie Sidwell, a woman with whom she has a troubled relationship. Their uneasy alliance takes them places they never would have guessed, but their bond is tested when the killer turns his sights on Kay.

Prom was supposed to be the biggest night of senior year, but for Jenny Lewis it was the night she almost died. The night someone drugged her, loaded her in a car, and dumped her body in the river. 

The next morning, her soaked prom dress was found on the riverbank. Her body was never found. People whispered that she’d killed herself or gotten drunk and stupid. People moved on, went to college, and stopped thinking about her. Months later, her ex-girlfriend and three other classmates received a text from an unknown number accusing them of her murder and claiming to have proof. 

The text? It came from Jenny, not dead and ready to figure out who tried to kill her. There’s going to be an impromptu reunion and no one is leaving until the would-be murderer steps forward.

Two years ago, Ariel Montgomery left her wife and ran away from the beautiful estate of Sea Oats after an enormous argument. Older and wiser now, Ariel has returned to Sea Oats to try to save her marriage—only there is something sinister going on at Sea Oats. As Ariel tries to win her wife’s love back, she begins to suspect her own life is in danger, and has to find out the truth about what is going on at the beautiful mansion by the sea.

Wallace Lake, Ohio, takes care of their own. Unwelcoming of outsiders, the community closes ranks when four women are found murdered along the water’s edge. Agent Luce Hansen of the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation must find a way in before another woman loses her life to the ruthless serial killer.
 
With the help of her new team—a hot rookie and a smart, beautiful medical examiner—Luce uncovers a ring of devotion surrounding the prime suspect. As Luce works to unearth the dark secrets of this close-knit town, she learns to what extraordinary lengths people will go to protect the ones they love. And when Luce feels forsaken, both professionally and personally, she must regain trust in her most valuable investigative tool: herself.

Micky Knight reluctantly takes on two cases, one for money, one for pity. The first is a trawl though archives to solve a century old murder, for an arrogant grandson who thinks riches should absolve his family of any sins. The other, to answer a mother’s anguish as she tries to understand her daughter’s suicide. Micky sees no happy ending to either case; the dusty pages of history aren’t going to give up their secrets after holding them for so long. And even if she finds answers for the mother’s questions, nothing will bring her daughter back. But as Micky discovers, the past is never past and a young girl can lead a complicated, even dangerous, life. The secrets, both past and present, are meant to remain hidden—only the first murder is hard. The rest come easy.

Attorney Elizabeth Campbell turned her back on her silver spoon upbringing and finds emotional fulfillment in her work at a nonprofit legal clinic, much to the dismay of her parents.

Her propensity for bending the law, as well as uttering a few choice phrases, makes her pairing with a Catholic priest to investigate the case of a simple man with an IQ of a child, who confessed to a brutal killing, a challenge. But solving a gruesome murder is not even her greatest trial—it’s her growing attraction to sexy but cranky Detective Grace Donovan who is hell-bent on keeping her client in prison.

While chasing a mystery that found its way from the concentration camps of WWII to an abandoned Catholic school, Elizabeth and Grace struggle to set personal boundaries, as their relationship slowly evolves from one of hostility to indifference, to something neither wishes to define.

Advance praise from Foreword Reviews:

"A thematically compelling journey through a town’s dark underbelly, Sins of Our Fathers, by A. Rose Mathieu, is an excellent blend of mystery and romance....In addition to dealing with an ever-growing stream of murders, [Elizabeth] Campbell must also contend with her feelings for steely yet attractive Detective Grace Donovan....Sins of Our Fathers is excellently paced, introducing characters and situations in a way that allows for their natural extrapolation as the novel progresses. While the case that Campbell is charged with reinvestigating initially appears to be an open-and-shut claim, larger forces are shown to have influenced it. The novel weaves together a political and religious world outside of the courts....Sins of Our Fathers seamlessly blends a ghastly murder mystery with an intriguing romance."

In book three in the Dark Peak series, things are looking up for Detective Sanne Jensen and Dr. Meg Fielding. Dating each other seems to be working, their families are behaving themselves, and the worst of the post-Christmas crime wave is over. 

The discovery of a Pakistani girl’s body out on the moors changes all that. No one knows who she is, who hurt her, or how she came to be there. As pressure mounts on East Derbyshire Special Ops for a quick resolution, it becomes ever more apparent that the case won’t provide one.  

With the Pakistani community closing ranks, and threads of suspicion reaching farther than anyone could have predicted, the investigation leaves Sanne facing an ordeal she may not survive.