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Charles Ray
Full Series List in Order
An Al Pennyback Mystery
1 - Color Me Dead (May-2012)2 - Memorial to the Dead (May-2012)
3 - Deadline (May-2011)
4 - Dead, White, and Blue (Aug-2010)
5 - A Good Day to Die (Mar-2011)
6 - The Day the Music Died (Nov-2010)
7 - Die, Sinner (Jul-2011)
8 - Deadly Intentions (Dec-2011)
9 - Death by Design (Apr-2012)
10 - Till Death Do Us Part (Aug-2012)
11 - Deadly Dose (Sep-2012)
12 - Dead Man's Cove (Oct-2012)
13 - Dead Men Don't Answer (Dec-2012)
14 - Death from Unnatural Causes (Feb-2013)
15 - Deadly Paradise (Mar-2013)
16 - Kiss of Death (Jun-2013)
17 - Death in White Satin (Oct-2013)
18 - Death and Taxis (Jan-2014)
19 - Drop Dead, Gorgeous (May-2014)
20 - Deadbeat (Jul-2014)
21 - A Deadly Win Blows (Nov-2014)
22 - Death Wish (Mar-2015)
23 - Deadly Vendetta (May-2015)
24 - A Time to Kill, a Time to Die (Aug-2015)
25 - Dead Ringer (Jan-2016)
26 - Death of Innocence (Apr-2016)
27 - Dead Reckoning (Jun-2016)
27 - Over My Dead Body (Mar-2017)
28 - Murder on the Menu (Oct-2016)
Buffalo Soldier
0.5 - Homecoming (May-2012)1 - Renegade (May-2013)
2 - Escort Duty (Sep-2013)
3 - Yosemite (Dec-2013)
4 - Battle at Dead Man's Gulch (Mar-2014)
5 - Comanchero (Sep-2014)
6 - Range War (Jan-2015)
7 - Mob Justice (Jul-2015)
8 - Chasing Ghosts (Jan-2016)
9 - The Piano (May-2016)
10 - Family Feud (Jan-2017)
11 - Trial by Fire (Jan-2012)
12 - Buffalo Soldier (May-2012)
13 - Incident at Cactus Junction (Sep-2012)
The Chronicle of Pip of Pandara
1 - Awakening (Nov-2017)2 - Pip's Revenge (Aug-2012)
3 - Here, There Be Demons (Dec-2015)
An Ed Lazenby Mystery
1 - Butterfly Effect (Nov-2015)2 - Coriolis Effect (Mar-2016)
3 - The Cat in the Hatbox (Sep-2016)
Book List in Order: 72 titles
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The Tarheel Connection
- Feb-2005
- / General Fiction
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Charles Ray has published numerous poems and short stories. The Tarheel Connection is his first novel or chantefable as he sometimes refers to it. Charles Ray is an utterly original intellect; his novel successfully melds a vast array of styles and v...
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Angel on His Shoulder
- Jun-2010
- / General Fiction
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Winston Nesbitt is a 40-year-old loser. His bosses abuse him, his parents have deserted him, and he's in love with a co-worker who doesn't know it. As if things couldn't get any worse, his grandmother comes to visit. Problem is, she died when he was ...
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Dead, White, and Blue
- Aug-2010
- / Mystery
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Al Pennyback's friend Buster Mayweather and his wife Alma witness a crime while on vacation. The perps later kidnap Alma and Al's girl friend Sandra to keep Buster from exposing a crime far more serious than a simple homicide. Al is faced with a mora...
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The Day the Music Died
- Nov-2010
- / Mystery
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Al Pennyback is hired to be a bodyguard to an up and coming young singer, Cindy Caton, who is also receiving death threats via email. There's no shortage of suspects, from her agent-manager, Conrad Bierbaum, to three frustrated singers who are jealou...
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Child of the Flame
- Dec-2010
- / Fantasy
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Child of the Flame is the story of Pip, a fosterling in Lands End, capitol of the Kingdom of Pandara. Neither he nor his foster parents know his origins. When he is taken hostage by Barbarians trying to force Queen Daphne of Pandara to marry their ki...
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A Good Day to Die
- Mar-2011
- / Mystery
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The is another in the Al Pennyback mystery series, featuring DC-based PI Al Pennyback and his friends who get caught up in odd-ball cases as Al tries to keep his bank account healthy, while at the same time helping the poor and needy....
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Wallace in Underland
- Aug-2011
- / General Fiction
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Wallace in Underland is a contemporary urban fantasy; Wallace Johnson is a lonely, scared little boy whose life is changed the day he meets a talking rat who helps him escape from the clutches of the neighborhood bullies. Ralph the rat takes him to U...
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Dead Letter and other Tales
- Sep-2011
- / General Fiction
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A collection of short stories, originally published in 2011, featuring the ‘Dead Letter’ series, the story of Louis Dumkowski, a ne-er do well from Detroit who, no matter how hard he tries, can’t stay out of trouble. He also has a tendency to d...
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Trial by Fire
- Jan-2012
- / General Fiction
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After the Civil War, Ben Carter walked from east Texas to New Orleans to enlist in the 9th (Colored) Cavalry Regiment. A good field soldier, he gets into trouble when he can't deal with the prejudice of white settlers. His commander gives him a las...
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Death by Design
- Apr-2012
- / Mystery
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Franklin ‘Pierre’ Honeywell is one of Washington, DC’s best-known fashion designers. A man with an acerbic personality, he comes to Al Pennyback, claiming that someone is threatening his life. At the urging of his partner, Heather Bunche, Al ta...
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Color Me Dead
- May-2012
- / Mystery
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Al Pennyback retired from the army when his wife and son were killed in an auto accident and became a private detective based in Washington, DC. He has few friends and lives alone in a converted farm house in suburban Maryland, and likes it that way...
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Memorial to the Dead
- May-2012
- / Mystery
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The second book in the Al Pennyback mystery series; A Vietnam War vet comes to Al with an improbable story of a decades-old smuggling ring that has help from some high placed people in Washington. Al considers the man just a suffering derelict from ...
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Homecoming
- May-2012
- / General Fiction
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Ben Carter, a sergeant in the 9th U.S. Cavalry posted to the Texas frontier, is allowed to go back to his east Texas home to visit his father. Torn between his guilt at leaving his father alone, and his realization that he can't live as a black farm...
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She's No Angel
- Jun-2012
- / Fantasy
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Winston Lee Nesbitt and Megan Berman finally end their single and celibate existences and get married – to each other. Winston’s grandmother, who died when he was 20, but came back as a nine-inch tall, mischievous spirit when he was 40...
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Dead Men Don't Answer
- Dec-2012
- / General Fiction
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Another Al Pennyback mystery. Al is asked by a young woman to find out why her fiance, supposedly dead for six months, answered his phone. As he investigates, a ghost from his past - a military operation gone terribly wrong - comes back looking for r...
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Death from Unnatural Causes
- Feb-2013
- / Mystery
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Al Pennyback mystery series. Al is hired to investigate a suspicious death in a retirement community. His efforts are complicated by the fact that the deceased has been cremated, erasing all traces of the crime....
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Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon
- Mar-2013
- / General Fiction
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In his biography of Mrs. C. H. Spurgeon, Charles Ray shares the blessings and struggles of this mighty woman of God, bearing witness to her close relationship with Christ and loving devotion to her husband, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, as she endured var...
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The White Dragons
- Mar-2013
- / General Fiction
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A tale of suspense and international intrigue. Thriller set in fictional country of Dagastan that tells of shadowy group of senior American officials who manipulate events that put lives at risk. A gallant group of junior officers set out to thwart t...
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Deadly Paradise
- Mar-2013
- / Mystery
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Number 16 in the Al Pennyback mystery series. Al and Sandra go to Hawaii to attend the wedding of one of Quincy's cousins. The festivities are interrupted by a sniper who plans for death to part the couple before they can even say 'I do.'...
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Kiss of Death
- Jun-2013
- / Mystery
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The 16th title in the Al Pennyback mystery series. Al is hired by a low-level gang member whose boss has put a contract on his life. Reluctant at first to take the case, Al does it anyway when he learns that the mob boss is exploiting underage girls....
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In the Dragon's Lair
- Jul-2013
- / General Fiction
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After assassinations and a coup in the country of Dagastan plunge State Department officials David Morgan, Alison Chambers and Lee Kennedy into the midst of a morass of intrigue, double-dealing and murder, things only get worse when Soviet forces mov...
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The Last Gunfighters
- Aug-2013
- / Historical
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The wild west is becoming less wild, and bounty hunters Esau Brown and Jacob Hardin are caught right in the middle of the change. To complicate matters, they also find themselves in the middle of a war between ranchers and farmers near the town of Br...
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Escort Duty
- Sep-2013
- / Historical
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Sergeant Ben Carter and his men have been in the field, fighting outlaws and renegade Indians for a long time. Their commander decides to give them a break and assigns them ‘light’ garrison duty, primarily escorting work details, mail wagons, and...
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Death in White Satin
- Oct-2013
- / Mystery
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Al Pennyback is not overly fond of rich people â€" he firmly believes they are selfish and greedy, and that they have no consideration for those they consider lesser beings. When he’s asked by his friend Quincy Chang to take a client who is the son...
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The Culling
- Dec-2013
- / General Fiction
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It was the Apocalypse. By 2072, the civilizations of earth, great and small, rich and poor, had ceased to exist â€" replaced by small feudal landholdings ruled by vicious leaders who were little more than warlords. Communication and cooperation betwe...
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Death and Taxis
- Jan-2014
- / Mystery
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Someone is killing DC cab drivers, and the authorities are looking in all the wrong places for the killer. Al's friend, DC police detective Buster Mayweather enlists the aid of the ace PI to help him get to the bottom of the mystery. The two friends ...
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Frontier Justice
- Feb-2014
- / Historical
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In 1875, Indian Territory, in what is now the state of Oklahoma, was a haven for thieves, swindlers, and murderers, all trying to escape the reach of the law. When President U.S. Grant appointed Judge Isaac Parker judge of the Western District of Ark...
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Battle at Dead Man's Gulch
- Mar-2014
- / Historical
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First Sergeant Ben Carter and his detachment are dispatched to the western part of New Mexico Territory to track down a band of renegade Apache who have bolted the reservation. After days on the renegades' trail, they've come up dry, until they encou...
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Drop Dead, Gorgeous
- May-2014
- / Mystery
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When fashion designer Calvin Rigg was accused of murdering his partner, he turned to Al Pennyback for help to prove his innocence. Now, he and his staff are being threatened by a mysterious caller who wants money and revenge. It couldn’t come at a ...
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Dragon Slayer
- Jun-2014
- / General Fiction
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Thanks in large part to the support of a powerful U.S. Senator with ties to a shadowy group of politicians and bureaucrats, David Morgan’s career survived the debacle that was Dagastan, and three years later he is posted to the West African country...
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Comanchero
- Sep-2014
- / Historical
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After one of his men is killed in an attack by hostile Apache Indians, Ninth Cavalry First Sergeant Ben Cooper has begun to doubt his ability lead men in battle. Returning from a routine work detail, he and his men encounter a young Apache who has fl...
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A Deadly Win Blows
- Nov-2014
- / Private Investigator
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Why would someone who stands to inherit millions run away from home and live the life of a hermit? Al Pennyback’s friend, lawyer Quincy Chang asks him to answer that question. He wants Al to find Megan Sutliff, heir to the Sutliff Pharmaceutical fo...
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Battle at the Galactic Junkyard
- Mar-2015
- / Science Fiction
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Planet M1369X, known to its inhabitants at End of the Line, was settled by a band of escaped convicts. Now, three generations later, this backwater ball of rock and its two moons are at the center of a potential conflict between the human Federation ...
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Death Wish
- Mar-2015
- / Private Investigator
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In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on Washington, DC and New York City, everyone is tense. The country is on a war footing, and this spells huge profits for defense firms. One such firm, Armcor, has a lucrative contract to s...
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Deadly Vendetta
- May-2015
- / Private Investigator
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When a bomb goes off in a grocery store parking lot in a small Pennsylvania town, killing a local criminal, it also kills the wife of one of Al Pennyback’s old army colleagues, Lucky Luciano. Lucky feels the local law isn’t giving him the answers...
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Mob Justice
- Jul-2015
- / Historical
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On the way back to Fort Union after an escort detail, Sergeant Ben Carter and his detachment decide to stop in the town of Trinity to get some rest. Trinity, however, is no rest stop -- a lynch mob is threatening the sheriff, who asks for Ben’s hel...
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A Time to Kill, a Time to Die
- Aug-2015
- / Private Investigator
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Henry Waylon spent ten years on death row, before finally being executed. A day after his death by lethal injection, DNA evidence shows that he was innocent of the crime for which he’d been convicted. The judge who sentenced him to die receives a t...
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Mountain Man
- Oct-2015
- / Historical
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Caleb Johnson is one of a dying breed, a mountain man who lives in a log cabin near the town of Bear Creek, Colorado. What sets him even more apart from others; he is a black man who has chosen to set himself apart from what others call civilization....
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Butterfly Effect
- Nov-2015
- / Cozy Mystery
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Ed Lazenby and Ernesto Cardoza are residents of Potomac Valley Community (PVC), a full-service retirement community just outside Rockville, Maryland. Their favorite pastimes are playing golf and spending time chatting with their friends the Wertheim ...
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Here, There Be Demons
- Dec-2015
- / Fantasy
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Pip, now head of Pandara’s army, and soon to be a father, finds himself longing for the excitement of the Battlefield. His responsibilities, how- ever, confine him to the capital, until an emissary from Princess Miko, ruler of the lands to the sout...
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Chasing Ghosts
- Jan-2016
- / Historical
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Ninth Cavalry First Sergeant Ben Carter has been ordered to take his detachment into the mountains of central New Mexico Territory to capture the elusive and vicious Apache, Grey Wolf, known as the Ghost Warrior. Grey Wolf and his band are leaving a ...
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Dead Ringer
- Jan-2016
- / Private Investigator
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Jackson Meredith wants to hire Al to find his wife, Caroline. But, Caroline’s father has identified his daughter’s body after a one-car crash. Suspecting there is more to the case than meets the eye, and bored because he’s between cases, Al tak...
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Devil's Lake
- Feb-2016
- / Fantasy
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"Stay away from the lake," the old man warned. "The devil lives in that lake." Bradley heard him, but he was compelled to go to the lake. When Bradley Matthews’ wife, Lena, died he was cast adrift. An orphan, Lena, and his friend, William Lewis, al...
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Coriolis Effect
- Mar-2016
- / Cozy Mystery
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A straight line is not always the shortest distance between two points. Ed Lazenby knows that sometimes you have to aim at where your target’s going to be rather than where it is at the moment. That was the last thing on his mind, though, when a ne...
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Death of Innocence
- Apr-2016
- / Private Investigator
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Leana Sonnenberg didn't usually accompany her writer husband, Jacob, on his trips. Then, the one time she does go with him to a vineyard in Northern Virginia, she disappears. The local police don't have a clue, so Jacob hires Al Pennyback to stick hi...
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Dead Reckoning
- Jun-2016
- / Private Investigator
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Al Pennyback is just your run of the mill private investigator. He and Heather Bunche, his partner, are on retainer for a law firm, doing routine legal investigations. They handle the occasional over the transom case, so they’re accustomed to stran...
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Peace River Anthology
- Jul-2016
- / General Fiction
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The Peace River Anthology is a poetic novel by a Native American about the fragile experience of peace and tranquility in his life. He grows to maturity in an idyllic environment in the Peace River in Canada, an actual geographical place. After the p...
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The Cat in the Hatbox
- Sep-2016
- / Cozy Mystery
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Beatrice Terwilliger, an elderly resident of the Potomac Valley Community is found dead in her home, apparently from a heart attack. But, her niece, Zelda, thins otherwise, and to make matters worse, her aunt’s will is missing. At the urging of Vio...
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Murder on the Menu
- Oct-2016
- / Private Investigator
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Competition in the restaurant industry is cutthroat, but it’s not supposed to be literally fatal. When Al and Sandra accompany Buster Mayweather to upstate New York to attend the opening of a new restaurant by Buster’s old college friend, things ...
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Family Feud
- Jan-2017
- / Historical
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Ninth Cavalry First Sergeant Ben Carter and his men are sent to the little town of Oakton, in New Mexico Territory, to help the sheriff maintain order. Two brothers, Dwight and James Oakley, are at odds over the division of the ranch left to them by ...
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Over My Dead Body
- Mar-2017
- / Private Investigator
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Al Pennyback will do anything for friend and kin, so when an offer is made to buy his cousin, Winston’s land, an offer that seems to good to be true, Al is asked to look into it. Back in East Texas, a place that Al left as a teen and swore never to...
