Mad, Bad and Dead — Sherryl Clark

A dead employee. A missing child. Anonymous phone calls in the dead of night. Judi Westerholme's troubles aren't over yet...

Already struggling to juggle co-running the local pub with her childcare responsibilities for her orphaned niece, Judi does not need life to become any more complicated.

Yet, as usual, complications arrive in spades: she starts receiving threatening, late-night phone calls before discovering one of her employees, Kate, shot dead.

Judi finds herself caught up in a murder investigation, as well as the hunt for the Kate's fourteen year-old daughter, who has been missing since the murder.

Add in the uncertainty of her relationship with Melbourne-based DS Heath and the fact that her estranged mother's nursing home keeps urging her to visit, and Judi might finally be at breaking point.