Murder at Blue Falls — Maggie Bishop

Tall, strong but discouraged Jemma Chase returns home to lead trail horse rides at the family's Blue Falls Dude Ranch near the Appalachian mountains' cozy resort town of Boone, North Carolina, and earn some cash from free-lance carpentry and photography. A series of minor crimes in the valley escalates to arson in this whodunit mystery novel. When her horse finds a body, Jemma, a CSI wannabe, investigates to solve a mystery. Detective Tucker is called in and it twists and turns like the valley's Elk Creek Road which drops a thousand feet in three miles. A mystery of this magnitude involves many suspects, including these: Is it the neighbor caught hunting out of season? A guest on the dude ranch? The Christmas tree farmer using the wrong chemicals? Could the farrier be involved? The former skateboarder who imports Mexican pottery? The brothers raising marijuana in the woods? Jealous husband? Besides the murder, who hates the dogs in the valley? Because of her argument with a neighbor whose son is tearing up the horse ride trails with his four-wheeler, Jemma becomes the number one suspect when the neighbor's dog is poisoned. Detective Tucker of the Watauga County Sheriff's Department is a dedicated peace officer, single and prone to working long hours. Standing six feet tall, Jemma intrigues Detective Tucker when he finds that he can look straight into her eyes. During her interview, Jemma reveals that years before, she was arrested in Colorado on a drunk driving charge. He hates drunk drivers. He interviews Jemma Chase about the dog poisoning and decides she is too calm and her answers too ready to be completely innocent. Jemma figures the only way to prove her innocence is to solve the crime herself. By this time, she and Detective Tucker have called a truce. He might as well go along with her since she'll go ahead on her own anyway. But someone doesn't want Jemma snooping around. The dog-poisonings quickly fade to the background, when, during a ride up a steep trail leading a passel of guests, Jemma's horse reacts to a peculiar stench. Jemma, eager to be the detective and solve a mystery, immediately ties her horse and goes into the bushes to investigate. A recently deceased body lay partially hidden by a rhododendron bush. As a fan of TV's CSI, she knows just what to do...take a lot of pictures and don't disturb the evidence. Now Tucker is a part of Jemma's daily life, and Jemma finds herself enthusiastically (and somewhat to Tucker's dismay) finding a CSI side to her makeup. As they combine their assets to investigate, Tucker (whose first name appears to be Detective) and Jemma find that their styles are not so incompatible after all. Against his better judgement, Detective Tucker uses Jemma's findings and uncontrollable curiosity to help find the killer. Take the horse ride along with Jemma, see if you can solve a mystery, be the amateur detective yourself, and enjoy this fiction book. “Murder at Blue Falls” is the first mystery book in the Appalachian Adventures Mystery series.