Showing results by author "Donna Muse" in All Categories

Paisley Burger runs the best-known pet store in Wrangler’s Hill. She’s known as much for her clumsiness as her critters—snakes, turtles, and raccoons have a habit of escaping into the city, sometimes terrorizing schoolchildren. When Paisley is found dead in her store shortly before Christmas—having struck her head against the corner of a table—her friend Geneva Pomolo suspects foul play.

With the holidays approaching, amateur sleuth Geneva Pomolo takes a minor role in a community theatre’s musical stage adaptation of A Christmas Carol. A lifelong Dickens fan, Geneva is hoping for a calm respite from the rigors of crime-solving, but her stage debut proves anything but calming. The cast is stacked with powerful egos who have deluded themselves into thinking they deserve a career in Hollywood — such as Peter Vankirk, who lands the starring role of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Amateur investigator Geneva Pomolo is once again steeped in drama after she accepts a party invitation. After 10 years in the realtor business, Biff Wellington has finally obtained his PhD in history, and is about to achieve his lifelong dream of becoming a professor. But as often happens in Wrangler’s Hill, the serenity of the evening is shattered by a series of nasty confrontations. Biff has spent his entire life alienating anyone who ever loved him, and now these former friends and family are out for revenge.

Running low on funds, Macey Spade has accepted a new job—as a teaching assistant at Whaler’s Bay College, presiding over a class on Time-Travel in Film and Fiction. Macey anticipates a relaxed semester grading papers and browsing the stacks of the college library, but fate has several cruel tricks in store for her.

Feeling guilty for spending too much time on her phone and wanting to get back into the spirit of literature, amateur sleuth Geneva Pomolo attends a Jane Austen-themed party hosted by the Brixton family. Tensions are simmering between Kerri and her husband Jeremy. The party is thrown into disarray when a quarrel erupts between the couple, provoking Jeremy to storm out.

The crime-solving duo Geneva Pomolo and Iris Reeves are invited to a comeback party hosted by country-music legend Dick Morrow. In the past 20 years, Dick’s style of folksy country had lost favor on the radio, having been crowded out by the louder, more aggressive brands. Dick released an acclaimed bluegrass album that sold approximately three copies, but now he’s ready to reclaim the stage that made him a star.

Macey Spade has always loved mysteries. As a girl, she read every crime novel in the school library, and memorized the plots of her favorite British detective shows. A brainy, awkward girl with few friends and a knack for getting into trouble, she dreamed of becoming a sleuth like the heroes of her beloved Agatha Christie novels.

Amateur sleuth Geneva Pomolo and her assistant, Iris Reeves, are on a quest to visit every major tourist attraction in Northern Indiana. Their efforts lead them to the town museum, where a meeting of the Cryptid and Paranormal Society dissolves into chaos over disputed sightings of the Wrangler’s Devil. Howard “Hefty” Gulch advocates putting a team together to find the beast, but is shouted down by opponents who feel he’s meddling in things best left alone. When Hefty is found dead on the slopes of a cliff during a routine camping trip, Geneva is certain of foul play.

For nearly 20 years, Chester Claus had run a year-round Christmas-themed diner in Wrangler’s Hill. For many Indiana locals, he was the embodiment of the holidays - gregarious, portly, his eyes radiating amusement as he handed out candy to children. The idea of anyone wanting to murder him was simply preposterous. But when Claus is found dead in his kitchen during the Christmas Feast, poisoned with his own favorite knife, it falls on Indiana’s finest amateur detective, Geneva Pomolo, and her partner, Iris Reeves, to investigate.

Regina Baldwin was once one of the most famous runners in the world. Back in her prime, she ran a marathon in under three hours. After retiring from sports, she continues to host and MC races all over America. Her podcasts and documentaries have made her a fitness guru to millions. So, it’s all the more baffling when she drops dead whilst overseeing a marathon in Wrangler’s Hill. The evidence points to murder—but who would want to kill such a beloved figure? Amateur investigator Geneva Pomolo and her partner, Iris Reeves, are determined to find out.

Geneva Pomolo and her investigating partner, Iris Reeves, visit a local nightclub where up-and-coming entertainers read poetry and perform music. A young folk singer named Leora Kismet is interrupted during her performance by Mrs. Maribel Smythe’s ranting about “depravity” and “the end of days”. The rich widow’s outburst provokes consternation and confusion — all the more so when she is found dead on her front porch just a few days later.

Iris Reeve’s young niece, Nanette, invites Iris and Geneva Pomolo to a birthday party at a lavish estate belonging to Leandra Bosworth. Iris and Geneva - both of them amateur sleuths - are expecting a relaxing weekend getaway in rural Indiana. But the Bosworth household proves to be anything but relaxing. There’s the aggressive ex-boyfriend who is still hanging around...the daughter who is secretive, anxious, and high-strung...and the teenage granddaughter who seems entirely too invested in boys...

Amateur sleuth Geneva Pomolo is once again drawn into mystery when her investigating partner, Iris Reeves, signs up to read from her novel-in-progress during an open mic night at the local club. The proceedings are interrupted by a scuffle between best-selling young adult novelist William Miller and his former boss and fiancée, Ava Warner. Ava has been feeling salty toward William ever since he suddenly broke off the relationship. William was forced to file a restraining order when she began following him around hoping to humiliate him in public...

In early spring, amateur detective Geneva Pomolo receives a wedding invitation from a friend she hasn’t thought about in 10 years. Gladys Button has already been married six times—five of those marriages ended in divorce or annulment and the sixth ended in death. Now she’s getting married again, and she wants Geneva to be there. Baffled by the invitation, Geneva accepts. But when she and her detective partner Iris Reeves drive up to Fort Wayne to meet Gladys, they learn all is not as it seems. Gladys wants Geneva to investigate a murder—her own.

When a real murder spoils the opening of an old-fashioned murder-mystery theme park, Mrs. Pomolo and her partner, Iris, go along for the ride. All this intrigue, and right before Christmas!

Amateur sleuths Geneva Pomolo and Iris Reeves are invited to the local high school by their young friend Suzie Orleans, who is rehearsing for a performance of Agatha Christie’s Murder at the Vicarage. From the moment they set foot on campus, Geneva senses mysterious things afoot. When not one, but two murders take place on campus in the span of an hour, Geneva and Iris are thrust neck-deep into their most dizzying case yet. When an innocent teenage girl is targeted, Geneva tangles with a culprit both cunning and ruthless.

In the sleepy town of Raven’s Point, the annual ball at the opulent Park Mansion is the highlight of the year—a night of pure fantasy. This year, the Regency masquerade theme adds an extra layer of allure, and sisters Helen and Maybelle can hardly contain their excitement. Dressed in exquisite period costumes, they enter the grand estate, eager to glimpse the luxurious lives of the Park family, the town’s wealthiest residents. But the glittering evening takes a dark turn when Jeffrey Park, the man controlling the family fortune, is brutally murdered during a sudden power outage.

When Richard Jackson goes missing in the small town of Raven’s Point, the entire community is baffled. Helen Wright discovers his body in a freezer, revealing that Richard didn’t disappear—he was murdered. Maybelle, having been reprimanded before for interfering with police investigations, vows to conduct her sleuthing in secret this time.

Temporarily lost on a long walk, Amateur Sleuth Geneva and her crime-solving partner, Iris, stumble across a shocking sight—the body of retired circus performer, Lawrence Lavelle, a man who spent his sunset years alone on a sprawling ranch watching circus movies and dreaming of days past. Lavelle has no shortage of enemies—Shorty Sycamore, who fantasizes about murdering him; Rita Toboggan, who loves and hates him in equal measure, and to whom he leaves all his money; Donald Fenugreek, a former business partner—still smarting from the loss of the girlfriend Lavelle stole from him.

Wandering through Indianapolis one weekend, amateur sleuths Geneva Pomolo and Iris Reeves visit a local jewelry store owned by Derek Wattle and his girlfriend, Estelle Landliner. Within 24 hours of their visit, Estelle is dead, Derek is a suspect, and Geneva and Iris plunge once again into a mystery with no easy answers.