Christmas Special High Country Mystery Series- First Three Titles 99c each on Kindle!

Christmas Special High Country Mystery Series

For all of the month of December Thomas and Mercer has discounted the first three books in the High Country Mystery Series.  Now, read MURDER IN BLACK AN WHITE,  WHISPERS OF THE STONES, and STEALER OF HORSES for 99c each on Kindle!

MURDER IN BLACK AND WHITE

In this debut book, McQuede meets Loris for the first time and falls in love.  His troubles with his love life begin when Loris becomes a murder suspect!  

He also solves the mystery behind a young man who disappeared at the Spring Fling Dance years ago. 

 When a robber sneaks into the Coal County Museum and steals only one item--a black and white photograph, McQuede begins to investigate.  Under the name Jerome Slade the photographer had printed two ominous words: never graduated.

When a body is unearthed beneath the newly demolished school, McQuede realizes Slade may not have left Black Mountain alive. He soon uncovers hidden rivalries between Slade and his classmates. When he discovers that Heather Kenwell and the woman of his dreams, Loris Conner, were rivals for Slade's affection, McQuede fears finding out the truth. 

Click on link to order MURDER IN BLACK AND WHITE 

99c all of DECEMBER



WHISPERS OF THE STONES

Mummies and Murder in Wyoming!

Sheriff Jeff McQuede finds "Bartering Bill" Garr murdered at his rural antique store. Only one item is  missing--a rare artifact believed to be the Pedro Mummy.  First discovered in a caved in Wyoming, the Pedro Mummy was reported missing in the 1950s.  Dr. Seth Talbot, newly arrived in town, has put out a fifteen-thousand dollar reward for any information the mummy, hoping that modern technology will prove his theory that a tiny race of people actually existed: one the Shoshones call the Nimirgar, or Little People. 

McQuede is astounded to find the mummy in the trunk of Seth Talbot's car.  Talbot swears he's being set up by rival co-workers--Dr. Arden Reed, in particular--who plans to benefit from his research.

McQuede suspects the theft of the mummy is a red herring used to cover up the true motive for the crime.  The closer he comes to the truth, the deeper McQuwede is drawn into an elaborate hoax that threatens his career and places him in grave danger. 

Click on link to order WHISPERS OF THE STONES
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99c all of DECEMBER

STEALER OF HORSES

Art and murder in the new old west!  

The famous Carlo painting Stealer of Horses sells for cash in a small Wyoming town and gallery owner Sheldon Spence gives the $200,000 to his wife, who walks over to the bank to make the deposit...and never returns.

A witness claims to have seen a frightened-looking Susan Spence  in a battered old Chevy, speeding out of town.  And each succeeding clue reveals a different angle on her disappearance. Sheriff Jeff  McQuede begins to wonder if this is more than a simple case of kidnapping and robbery.  Was Sheldon involved in Susan's disappearance?  Or did Susan and a  lover fake the scheme planning ot run off with the money they stole from Sheldon?  The identity of a victim found shot behind the wheel of the Chevy holds the key to one ominous question: Is Susan Spence a kidnap victim--or is she part of some sinister ploy?

Click on link to order STEALER OF HORSES

99c all of DECEMBER

Celebrate the last of winter by reading the High Country Mystery AN ICY DEATH for only 99 cents! Limited Time Sale

It’s cold in Wyoming!  Cold enough to freeze to death.  This fact makes An Icy Death the only book we have ever written inspired by the weather.

Jamierodriguez37 Morguefile

In Wyoming the wise never leave home without a thermos of hot coffee, extra food, and blankets.  In winter it’s not uncommon for the temperature to dip to minus seventeen, often with a wind chill factor of thirty below zero.  Because many places still exist where cell phones cease to work and help is almost impossible to summon, blizzards and sudden whiteouts are extremely hazardous. 

An Icy Death opens with Sheriff Jeff McQuede discovering a stalled car on an isolated road far up in the mountains, one that has been closed.  Within the car he finds the frozen body of a middle-aged woman, Margaret Burnell.  The medication, her taped ankle, and footprints in the snow leading away from the car tell the rest of the story--about how she must have died of hypothermia while her husband went for help.  It sounds like a sad but simple story of man vs nature.

Until McQuede discovers that there are enough drugs in her system to cause an overdose, and her death may not have been an accident, after all, only staged to look that way.  It’s McQuede’s job to find out what really happened that snowy night so far from town.  He discovers that Margaret has traveled to Durmont to demand an audit from her business partner concerning the Trivino’s Sporting Goods chain.  In addition she plans to meet with her runaway daughter that she hasn’t seen in years.  Many people come into focus as possible murderers, not least among them her husband, Arthur, who would reap great financial profit from his wife’s death.

Either a relentless killer tracked and sabotaged the Burnells in the heart of a blizzard, or, more likely, Arthur simply abandoned his wife for his share of her vast inheritance.  In any event, Margaret Burnell had been set up to die an icy death.

Click on link to download a copy  for only 99c!   An Icy Death 

NEW RELEASE: MURDER AND THE GOOD OLD BOYS' CLUB

We are delighted to announce our new release, the 7th book in the High Country Mystery Series, MURDER AND THE GOOD OLD BOYS' CLUB. Our latest book in the series is now available in paperback, Kindle and is also on Kindle Unlimited.

 Review: “Murder and the Good Old Boys’ Club” is a brilliant new addition to their long list of captivating, clean-reading titles: a who-done-it that leaves readers wondering who did it." Author Stephanie Parker McKean

Threatened victim, waiting grave…Sheriff McQuede is called to the cemetery by Ben Ward, a member of Durmont’s Good Old Boys’ Club. Ward’s tombstone, where he plans someday to be buried with his first wife, is vandalized. A menacing date of death, fast approaching, has been drilled into the stone, and splotches of red paint drips over it like blood. Ben Ward and his four partners have sunk vast sums of money into a recreational community, Pleasant Valley Retreat, and this failing project has flamed anger among the investors. As the inscribed date of Ward’s death draws nearer, a killer stalks the resort. McQuede must act quickly before a vandal’s threats turn into reality.

We want to thank our faithful readers, and for those new to the series, each of our books contains a complete mystery and do not necessarily need to be read in order.  All you need to know is Sheriff McQuede has a long-standing girlfriend, Loris, and a best friend, Barry Dawson, who has a knack for getting in trouble.

These stories are more about human nature, about a good man trying to make the right decision in the often difficult situation of being a sheriff who knows everyone in town.  McQuede often must search his soul for not only a legal answer, but the right one.

How Haunted Bridges and Spooky Legends Became Inspiration for our Mystery Novel Crying Woman Bridge

          The idea for our latest Jeff McQuede mystery, Crying Woman Bridge,  started with a legend, specifically, the legend of La Llorona.  We had first heard about this prominent tale while visiting the Southwest.  The Hispanic stories have several variations, but they all deal with a woman who has sacrificed a child or children by drowning.  She commits this terrible act for the sake of her lover and ends up crazed with regret.  In many retellings of the story, the weeping woman, La Llorona, can be heard along the river’s edge crying Ay mis hijos!  which translates to, Oh, my children!   

          During our research we found that La Llorona wasn’t the only mother weeping for lost children.  Throughout the United States many tales exist about bridges haunted either by weeping women or crying babies.  Another story closer to home also caught our interest, that of Theorosa’s Bridge near Valley Center, Kansas, and Wichita.  Several versions of the Theorosa legend are well-known.  In the oldest version, a baby named Theorosa is stolen by a band of Native Americans, and the mother’s spirit still haunts the creek in search of her lost child.  In a more modern version, Theorosa has an illegitimate child which because of guilt she throws from the bridge.  Later she kills herself by jumping into the river.  In yet another, Theorosa was a witch who was hanged, and her baby drowned in the creek.  “If you say Theorosa, Theorosa, I have your baby,” she will appear and attack you.

                    Our latest High Country Mystery!

          Our story takes place in Wyoming and is a fictional tale with elements of these timeless legends that exist in so many forms.  Sheriff Jeff McQuede and his friend, Professor Dawson, are returning from a lecture Dawson has just given about local haunted places.  He has spoken about one that concerns a local bridge they must pass by, called Crying Woman Bridge, or, by some of the locals, Mirabella’s Bridge.  In this story a young pioneer woman named Mirabella got jilted by her lover and threw her baby over the bridge.  At night it is rumored that you can still hear her cries; if you say her name three times, she will appear and bad things will happen.  McQuede and Dawson are startled to find a modern-day woman standing on the bridge crying for her baby.  Has she thrown the infant into the river in a fit of madness as did the pioneer woman?  McQuede is even more stunned when Rae Harris claims that her baby was stolen--by a woman called Mirabella. 

         

McQuede discovers the truth through a strange and twisted turn of events which leads to Rae, the woman on the bridge…and a dark secret. 

Further reading: 

Legends of America  Click this link to read one of the more popular versions of the La LLorona Legend. 

Wikipedia: Theorosa's Bridge  Click this link to read variations of the Theorosa Bridge legends. 

Whispers of the Stones: Book Two in the High Country Mystery Series and the Mysterious Pedro Mummy 

      When I was living in Laramie, Wyoming, I came across tales of the Pedro Mummy.  According to old newspaper accounts, a tiny mummy was discovered in the 1930s by miners near Shirley Basin.  The mummified remains of a little man only 14 inches tall was found still sitting cross-legged on a stone ledge in a cave. 

There’s no question that the Pedro Mummy actually existed.  It became an object of curiosity and scientific speculation until its disappearance in the 1950s.  It was not a fake.

   

THE PEDRO MUMMY

Uhttp://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/The_San_Pedro_Mountain_Mummy.jpgnknown (Life time: 1936) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

     The curious little mummy, which was soon nicknamed “Pedro” because he was found in the Pedro Mountains, changed hands several times and was sold and resold.  For a time, it was displayed in a drugstore, then a used car lot, then a cigar shop in Casper.  In the care of Ivan Goodman in the 1950s, the mummy was examined and X-rayed.  It was found the mummy had a definite human rib-cage.

     At the time of the Pedro Mummy’s discovery, it was thought to be the remains of a tiny, ancient little man in his late sixties.  Many people believed that the discovery of the tiny mummy might be proof that the “Little People” of Native American legends actually existed.  The “Little People” are part of the legends and folklore of the Shoshoni, Arapahoe. and many other tribes.  In some tales the tiny men, who remain hidden in caverns and deep in the mountains, are good-natured tricksters, in others they are more mean-spirited and may shoot arrows at their larger counterparts.  In many tales the “Little People” serve as spiritual guides or helpers to lost travelers.

     In the 1980s the original X-rays were carefully studied and scientists indicated that the tiny remains were more likely to be those of a malformed infant who had been left in the cave to die instead of a full-grown man.  The infant might have suffered from anencephaly, which would account for the misshapen head.  But it didn’t explain fully developed rib-cage or reports that the mummy had teeth.  Since the mummy can no longer be found to examine, no one really knows who he was or how he got there.

     The last owner of the mummy was New Yorker Leonard Wadler.  After that, the mummy disappeared from history.  Many articles have appeared about the Pedro Mummy, including stories in the Casper Star Tribune.  Since its disappearance, scientists and collectors have had interest in finding the missing mummy, even offering rewards, so it can be examined.

     All of this caught my interest and after talking it over with my co-author and sister, Loretta, she became interested in the story as well.  We decided to write a mystery starting with the premise: what if some antique dealer actually had the mummy?  What would happen if such an artifact resurfaced?

Loretta with Shirley Basin signs

Loretta and Vickie in Mountains

     In our third Jeff McQuede novel, Whispers of the Stones, Sheriff McQuede investigates such an event.  The details concerning the mummy in this story are as true as we could make them from varying research sources.  The rest, of course, is fiction.

To read more about The Pedro Mummy:

As you read accounts of the Pedro Mummy, you will find many discrepancies, because even in newspapers and journals there are many different accounts of what happened.  When writing our story, we used those dates and sources from what seemed the most reliable references.  Here are some places on the Internet to read more about the Pedro Mummy and the “Little People”.

The Pedro Mummy:

UnsolvedMysteries Wikia

The Little  People:

Legends ofAmerica

Whispers of the Stones: A Jeff Mcquede Mystery by Loretta Jackson and Vickie Britton