Showing results by author "Dianne Harman" in All Categories

Sheriff Rich got the call every lawman dreads – a relative’s murder. And it’s even worse when it’s your sister. Brigid moved back to Cottonwood Springs to be with friends and family when her marriage and her publishing company both ended. When her best friend’s murdered, she’s determined to find the killer. A new romance and an adopted big Newfoundland are pretty comforting at times like these.

An old lover, technology knockoffs, a missing self-defense instructor, and a dead convention exhibitor. They must have something in common, but what? When DeeDee, Jake, Al, and Cassie, from the Northwest Cozy Mystery series, meet up with Brigid and Sheriff Davis, from the Cottonwood Springs Cozy Mystery series, at a law enforcement convention in Denver, it’s almost a given there will be a mystery to solve. Or maybe two. So much for getaway vacations.

The editor of Chic magazine, JoJo Morales, was a fashion icon. Too bad she was murdered at the meeting of the world’s leading fashionistas on Jupiter Island, Florida. She had a lot of enemies, and they were all at the dinner Chef Dani catered for at JoJo’s partner’s spectacular waterfront home. And how fitting - she was poisoned using her grandmother’s antique atomizer, the very grandmother who had groomed her to rise to the top of the fashion industry.

When Marty is hired to do an appraisal at a storage unit and the residence of the wife of a Palm Springs detective, she has no reason to think that there would be a problem. The appraisal looked pretty run-of-mill with its small antique items and furniture, but that was before Marty discovered that all of the antiques had been stolen. And then several hours later her friend, Carl, who was appraising the antique books at the client’s residence, found the note. The note that caused an all-points bulletin to be issued for a man who was about to be murdered.

When you’re a tycoon and you sit on top of the business mountain, seems like a lot of people want to see you fall. And Cooper was at the top, but he’d made a lot of enemies in order to get there. Then there were the women in his life, and he’d be the first to admit he’d wronged a few. When it became clear that someone was out to destroy Cooper by ruining his reputation and the companies he owned, he hired Jake and Al, the retired ex-mobster, to find out who it was. But sometimes there’s nothing better than a dog to save the day!

Being hired to cater a wedding in Provence provides an incredible opportunity to see and explore the area. And the who’s who in France will be attending it at the enchanting Chateau Madrigal outside of Marseilles. There's plenty of time off to explore Michelin restaurants, where Van Gogh lived and painted, and to see Provence in all its beauty, with its flamingos, black bulls, and miles of Camargue salt flats. To say nothing of imbibing in the award-winning wines the chateau produces. Sounds ideal, right? Not quite!

Telling someone that the antique they paid a lot of money for is a fake isn’t always welcome news to the owner, or for that matter, the dealer who sold it to them. Is that why Carl, the owner of the Palm Springs Antique Shop, had his life threatened? Or maybe someone thought dressing his dog in silks and jewels was ridiculous? Or maybe it was telling his adult daughter, a daughter he didn’t know he had, and who wanted to have a relationship with him, that he wasn’t interested. Our pasts have a way of catching up with us. Maybe it was just Carl’s time.

Kelly, the owner of Kelly's Koffee Shop, and her husband, Sheriff Mike, fly to Virginia to see a friend receive her doctorate degree. What Kelly didn't plan on was becoming involved in trying to solve a murder. The mystery leads Kelly to Boston, Maine, and Oregon. The murdered woman's mother is the multimillionaire owner of a huge insurance company and convinces Kelly to try and help find her daughter's killer. She has stage four pancreatic cancer, and her doctors don't give her much time to live. Can Kelly find the killer in time?

Did the famous movie star fall off the cliff or was she pushed? The last thing Sheriff Mike needed in the final weeks leading up to his run for re-election was to have his wife, Kelly, discover the dead body of a famous movie actress. Join Kelly, Mike, their dogs, and a helpful neighbor as they try to find out what really happened on the cliff that night and win the election.

The famous cowboy movie star had become the dearly beloved mayor of Palm Springs. Too bad he was murdered. But who could have done it, and what was their motive? Greed? Political rival? An environmental extremist? Son? Stepdaughter? Ex-wives? And what about his present trophy wife? Then there’s that pesky proposed desert windmill turbine project.

Planning a wedding is hard enough without having your florist disappear. And it’s even worse when there’s a chance that people engaged in human trafficking may have come to the small town of Cottonwood Springs and she's a victim. When the missing person’s husband asks Brigid to help, she has no choice but to put her wedding on the back burner. It becomes close and personal when she’s afraid that Holly, the girl she’s taken under her wing, may also have been abducted.

The excitement is building for the grand opening of the long-awaited addition to the Read It Again bookstore, and Holly’s in charge of making sure everything is ready for it. But when the books to be put on the shelves are stolen from a storage unit, her best-laid plans fall apart. Obviously, someone has a grudge against the bookstore, Holly, or the owner, Fiona. But who and why?

The famous cowboy movie star had become the dearly beloved mayor of Palm Springs. Too bad he was murdered. But who could have done it and what was their motive? Greed? Political rival? An environmental extremist? Son? Stepdaughter? Ex-wives? And what about his present trophy wife? Then, there’s that pesky proposed desert windmill turbine project.

Kat Denham, a popular author of steamy romance novels, has decided to write a book in a different genre. She has a friend who's a doctor of acupuncture, has just lost over 100 pounds, is getting married in mid-life for the first time to a doctor, and seems like the perfect role model for the protagonist in Kat's soon-to-be-written book.

Jackson Kelly may have been middle-aged and the vice president of the exclusive Oceana Resort Hotel. But Jackson loved to surf. And he loved the ladies, who were mostly young women he referred to as his “diversions”. When he dies on the beach while surfing with no apparent injuries, the question is: “What happened to him?” Too bad he had an angry-looking rash on his leg.

A celebrity television chef with a fledgling VIP catering company. A 10-year-old niece she didn’t know she had. Mix those with poison, car bombs, and murderers, and her carefully laid-out plans for a future life become completely upended.

When several members of Brigid’s book club are threatened with blackmail and ask her to help them, she can’t refuse. Their secrets are too private to be exposed, so she tries to handle the case on her own, without any help from the sheriff. Her family isn’t so sure she should get involved. The blackmailing case and her marriage are on a collision course, and she doesn’t know what the right thing is to do.

Marie Moorhead looked like a million bucks, even at the age of 84. In Hollywood, you never outgrow the need to prove your relevance. Too bad she was murdered on the eve of her book launch. Marie knew secrets about everyone in Hollywood. And when you’re 84, why save them? Because those who are outed might just kill to keep those secrets from going public. Join Kat, the ghostwriter and amateur detective, and her dog Rudy as they search for the murderer before Kat becomes the next victim.

They didn't expect to look like Stepford Wives. They just wanted to have a little "work" done. Someone in the wealthy Palm Springs area murdered the plastic surgeon, but who? Was it one of his former patients disappointed with the result of a facelift? An associate, jealous of the doctor's success, and who wanted more money so he could buy a bigger yacht?

When a mistaken identity murder happens at her sister’s bookstore in Cottonwood Springs, Brigid has no choice. She has to find the person who intended to murder her sister. Not everyone liked her sister, Fiona. Several people could have done it, including the competing bookstore owner, the religious fanatic, the psychic, and her landlady. Now all Brigid has to do is figure out if it was one of them or just a random event. Sometimes it’s a good thing to have a 125-pound Newfoundland dog for a pet, particularly when the creek runs deep and fast.