Books

It’s Fall, the special time of year the locals in the little Arizona mountain town of Big Lake call the sweet season between when the summer visitors have gone back to their homes in the crowded desert cities and when the snow has accumulated enough to draw the ski crowd. Things are moving at a slower pace for now as people draw a deep breath...

Everyone in Big Lake was surprised when hard-drinking good old boy Levi Bischoff left town and went to a rehab clinic to dry out. No one thought it would be long before he fell back into his old ways, but Levi proved them wrong, moving to the college town of Flagstaff, meeting a nice girl, enrolling in classes at Northern Arizona University, and...

When Chet Wingate is brutally assaulted on a Sunday morning on the small mountain town’s Main Street in front of a dozen witnesses, including Big Lake Sheriff Jim Weber and his wife, Deputy Robyn Fuchette, it seems like a simple case of road rage. But was it? With the victim clinging to life, the investigation into the attack opens a can of...

Willie Chandler didn’t even want to go fishing that dreary, rainy spring morning, and he darned sure didn’t want to spend any time with his rude, crude mooch of a brother-in-law, Larry Munson. But yet he found himself standing on the edge of the lake in the early morning drizzle, listening to Larry brag about how many women he had bedded and how...

When a construction crew unearths a skeleton in an unmarked grave, there is speculation that it might be the remains of a long-forgotten settler, or even a Native American. Whoever it was, the discovery of a bullet hole in the back of the skull reveals that death was not by natural causes. And why was a silver cross found in the grave?

Even...

Winter is a special time in the charming little mountain town of Big Lake, Arizona. Fireplace smoke rises from chimneys as kids build snowmen or skate on the frozen surface of Miller’s Pond, neighbors help neighbors shovel sidewalks and driveways, and there’s nothing like enjoying a hot toddy or a mug of cocoa to warm up after a busy day.
But...

Life is good in Elmhurst, Ohio. The war is over, the economy is booming, and the future looks bright. But just across the deep ravine known as Dog’s Run is a different life, one where times are always hard and dreams seldom come true. When Wanda Jean Reider, a beautiful young woman from the wrong side of town, is found dead in Dog’s Run secrets...

In the summer of 1951, Elmhurst, Ohio was shocked when the small town's war hero police chief, Lester Smeal, was killed putting an end to the bloody rampage of a rogue cop. It was the last violent act in a chain of events that began with the discovery of the body of Wanda Jean Reider, a beautiful young woman from the wrong side of the tracks....

Life is already complicated enough for John Lee Quarrels, what with his estranged wife dropping in for unannounced sleepovers, her oversexed sister tempting him, his pot smoking ponytailed grandfather growing his own stash, his Elvis obsessed grandmother, and being caught smack dab in the middle of a power struggle between the Sheriff and Chief...

When the father he never knew shows up at his house in the middle of the night, beaten and his body mutilated, with only a vague explanation of what happened to him, Somerton County Deputy John Lee Quarrels suspects there’s more to the story than he is being told. And when his father just as mysteriously disappears two days later, John Lee knows...

When Somerton County “bad girl” Leona Darling goes missing, Deputy John Lee Quarrels is ordered to find her. How hard could it be? Just look in the nearest gin mill, right? But Leona was nowhere to be found. As he begins asking questions, John Lee discovers that Leona was a badge bunny, a cop groupie who was well known on a less than...

Life has been difficult lately for Somerton County Deputy Sheriff John Lee Quarrels. He’s on the trail of a sexual predator, his love life is in turmoil, his soon-to-be ex-wife just served him with divorce papers, someone has stolen his police car and is using its radio to broadcast offensive jokes, a 350 pound redneck named Baby Bubba just...

Looking back on all of it later, Somerton County Deputy John Lee Quarrels couldn’t help but wonder what quirk of fate, stretching back more than 80 years, would connect three Depression-era outlaws with another man born long after their crime spree was over with. A man who would be on the run from the police for more than 50 years himself. And...

When a hidden gunman ambushes D.W. Swindle in the driveway of his own home, leaving the Somerton County Sheriff barely clinging to life, every one of his deputies and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are on the hunt for the attacker. The list of suspects include a father who blames law enforcement for the death of both his daughters, an...

Somebody is killing old men in Somerton County. Stalking and killing them in the most horrific way. The first to fall was Wilbur Forbes, murdered in his own garage in the middle of the afternoon. As Deputy John Lee Quarrels and the rest of the Somerton County Sheriff’s Department investigate the gruesome crime, the people around town are talking...

Some people seem to be born lucky and have it all. Audrey Rittenhouse and Lonnie McBride were just such a couple. Superstars in the real estate business in Somerton County, she was stunningly beautiful and he was movie-star handsome. Their futures looked bright, and their passion burned at a fever pitch.

Yes, Audrey and Lonnie had everything....

When a small town cop working the late night shift finds a battered woman dying of an overdose, Deputy John Lee Quarrels and the men and women of the Somerton County Sheriff’s Department know that even their rural Florida community is not immune to the scourge of hard drugs. As more addicts turn up dead a massive effort is launched to find...

When game warden Raymond McConnell is found murdered with his own knife in the cab of his state-issued pickup truck at a popular fishing lake, it’s hard to know where to begin an investigation because it’s doubtful that anyone in Somerton County had more enemies than McConnell. Even deputies John Lee Quarrels and Maddy Westfall are considered...

When a pair of would-be assassins ambush Somerton County Deputy John Lee Quarrels on a dark, lonely road late at night, it is only their ineptness and his quick thinking that saves his life. Wounded and disoriented, John Lee must make it through the forest on foot to find help, never knowing if his attackers are coming back to finish the job.

...

Curtis Darling was without a doubt one of the most annoying men who ever lived in Somerton County, Florida. And given the number of rednecks, racists, wife beaters, petty thieves, drunks, methheads, and other assorted losers who called that part of rural north Florida home, that was saying a lot. Even so, the county was shocked when Curtis and...