Every family has its skeletons in the
closet, but Shane Hall’s relatives? They’ve got a cemetery’s worth. Yet when he
loses his job and gets evicted, Shane’s only option is to rely on his estranged
aunt and cousins for help. He returns to his hometown in rural South Dakota,
and despite having been out of touch for over a decade, is welcomed back with
booze-soaked hospitality. After settling in, Shane’s cousin approaches him with
an offer that’s almost too good to be true: if he comes on board as assistant manager
at the family’s salvage yard, he’ll get not only a sky-high salary but also the
down payment on a home. It seems like Shane and his girlfriend Katie will be
able to put the hard times behind them and start fresh—at least, until some
pesky skeletons rise up from the past, leaving Shane uncertain where to turn or
who to trust.
Private investigator and former homicide detective Alice James was just six
months old when her father, Leon Stapper, abandoned his family. Forty years
later, Alice has convinced herself she’s over it—until her half sister, Corina,
calls her up and wants to meet. But before Alice and Corina can get acquainted,
everything goes terribly, tragically wrong. Determined to uncover the truth
behind what happened to her sister, Alice calls in reinforcements: Jim Snow, her
partner in Las Vegas’s James & James Detective Agency who knows a thing or
two about family drama. Their investigation takes them from Sin City to Silicon
Valley, where Alice and Corina’s father reigns as a high-tech CEO. As Alice and
Jim dig for clues, they find that Leon’s best friend and attorney Ron Bale took
a very personal interest in Corina. Not to mention the fact that he used
to be married to Leon’s ex-wife—until she vanished without a trace. Alice is
convinced that if she and Jim can uncover the truth about the missing wife, they
will discover what happened to Corina. But first, they will need a little help
from some old friends.
Since first joining forces in Punctured, Alice James and Jim Snow
have been a great—if odd—crime-fighting team. He’s a forty-something former Las
Vegas homicide detective who quit the force to become a full-time poker player.
She’s a model-turned-cocktail waitress whose foray into casino security led her
into law enforcement. Together they are the James & James Detective Agency,
and their newest case is a doozy. Jack Roberts comes to them for help solving
the brutal murder of his daughter Laura, a cocktail waitress whose body was
found burning in the Nevada desert. Among the suspects: an obsessive
ex-boyfriend, a mentally unbalanced construction worker, a temperamental
roommate, a shady fiancé…perhaps even the client himself! Alice knows that if
they can crack this case, business will come pouring in. But first she will have
to manage Snow’s ill-timed midlife crisis and deal with the chemistry crackling
between them. Ashes to Dust is pure entertainment, sure to please even
the most hardboiled of mystery fans.
Jim Snow and his sister Karen have never been very close. In fact, they
haven’t seen each other since their mother’s funeral two years ago, despite
living just three miles apart. But then Snow gets a panicked phone call from
Karen telling him that her estranged husband has been murdered and she is the
number-one suspect. Snow agrees to help, seeing as he’s the only family she has
left. Plus he is a Las Vegas homicide detective—or at least, he was until he
quit the force to become a full-time poker player. But while his crime-fighting
skills may be a little rusty, even he has to admit Karen is a likely suspect.
She stands to collect on her dead husband’s life insurance, which is quite the
coincidence considering she’s been living on her first two husbands’
insurance for years. Snow isn’t sure whether or not his sister is innocent, and
there’s only one way to find out. He joins forces with feisty cocktail
waitress-turned-cop Alice James and together they set out amidst the glittering
lights of Vegas to solve this whodunit.
Johnny Buck has an attitude problem. Raised by a father with antisocial values,
he struggles to overcome his bad choices. But he needs help. Especially with
these women he's always meeting named Angela. There is also the mysterious and
reclusive novelist Samantha Sommers he'd like to meet. She thinks that's a bad
idea.