Some family secrets shouldn’t stay buried…    Music professor Gus LeGarde and his wife Camille are looking forward to a relaxing vacation at Paines Creek Beach on beautiful Cape Cod. But Gus barely has a chance to feel the sand between his toes before a near-miss car accident drags him right into the middle of a local family feud — and a centuries-old mystery that’s begging to be solved.   As Gus is drawn further into the conflict between the Cooks and the McNabbs — two families with a grudge going all the way back to Colonial times — he and Camille keep uncovering more questions than answers. Where is the long-lost Cook family treasure? What’s really wrong with Beckett, the McNabb-side member who’s the father of young Jane Cook’s son? And who’s telling the truth about Beckett and Jane’s clandestine relationship: Jane’s grandfather, surly patriarch Albert Cook; or Beckett’s slightly odd parents?   Before long, mounting tension gives way to true danger as people start vanishing. And in the middle of a fast-brewing hurricane, Gus discovers the real secret at the heart of the feud: someone who will stop at nothing to make sure their side wins. Including murder.   Packed with shocking twists, exciting action, and fascinating tales of family lore and pirate treasure, Murder on the Brewster Flats is the first LeGarde Mysteries crossover novel with award-winning author Aaron Paul Lazar’s popular Paines Creek Beach series. Don’t miss this installment!

After four lonely years, music professor Gus LeGarde is still reeling from the death of his wife Elsbeth. To deal with the loss, he plays endless Chopin etudes on his piano and lavishes love on his grandson and dog, but nothing lessens the pain.   Life spirals out of control when Gus heads for the snow-covered hills on an early morning skiing excursion to find a mute child shackled to a bedpost in a cabin. Gus rescues the child but the kidnapper, Baxter, escapes into the woods to stew in hot revenge.   Unexpectedly thrown together with Camille, a social worker who takes the child into her own home, Gus falls hard. The first woman who’s stirred his soul since his Elsbeth, Camille is polite enough toward him -- but her own dark secrets have her pulling away despite the mutual attraction.   When Gus’s little grandson goes missing, he fears the worse. Does Baxter have the little boy? Does he want to trade for the mute child? Gus braces for the fight of his life, struggling to protect Camille and his family before time runs out.

Every family has its secrets…   Summer, 1966: For thirteen-year-old Gus LeGarde, summertime always means Loon Harbor, his grandparents’ idyllic fishing resort on Great Pond. The season is a grand tradition of swimming, boating, and new adventures with his best friends, twins Siegfried and Elsbeth. But this summer, everything changes when a new lodge down the shore threatens the resort—and triggers a chain of events that will transform Gus and his friends forever.   Customers are leaving Loon Harbor in droves for The Seven Whistles, owned by the wealthy LaFontaines. The Baton Rouge family arrives with better amenities and a much larger staff—among them Wilhelmina “Willy” DuPont, a young black girl whose family works for the LaFontaines. Gus and the twins immediately bring Willy into their circle…but their friendship is soon challenged when events at The Seven Whistles take a terrifying turn.   A mysterious figure haunts the windows of women and young ladies at both camps, escalating from peeper to dangerous stalker. Then the LaFontaines’ spoiled and demanding daughter goes missing—and Willy’s innocent older brother is arrested.   Gus soon discovers that dark secrets lurk beneath the surface of the LaFontaine family, and the stakes are higher than ever imagined as they race to exonerate Willy’s brother and find the real perpetrator—before he finds them.

Past and present collide when an Alzheimer’s patient’s fragile memory holds the key to solving mysteries dating back to World War II—including a long lost secret love affair.   Music professor Gus LeGarde is just doing a favor for a friend when he agrees to play piano for church services at a local nursing home. He doesn’t expect to be drawn into a new friendship with an elderly Alzheimer’s patient dubbed “the music man” or to stumble across a decades-old mystery locked inside the man’s mind.   Octogenarian Kip Sterling doesn’t know his own name—but he speaks Gus’s language, spouting jazz terms like “cadence” and “interlude” and “riff.” He’s also obsessed with “his Bella,” but nobody knows who she is.   When Kip is given a new drug called Memorphyl, he starts to remember bits and pieces of his life. Gus learns Bella was Kip’s first and only love, but their relationship was shrouded in scandal. Intrigued, Gus agrees to help search for her. Could she still be alive?   Horrified when the miracle drug suddenly stops working and patients begin to backslide, Gus panics. Can he help Kip find his beloved Bella before his newfound memories disappear?

The LeGarde Mysteries Boxed Set contains the first four books in Aaron Paul Lazar's award-winning Gus LeGarde mystery series. Book 1. Double Forté - Gus LeGarde's life essentially ended four years ago, when his beloved wife leapt to her death. Today, Gus lavishes love on his family, trying to bury the pain. But trouble arrives when his arrogant son-in-law's business partner goes missing, and Gus's innocent friend is set up to take the fall. Book 2. Upstaged - When Gus LeGarde agrees to play piano for the high school drama club's production of "Spirit Me Away," a sixties-style musical he wrote in college, he doesn't expect to face a barrage of menacing pranks played on his fiancée Camille and the drama club. Who's sabotaging the show? And what do they have against Camille? Gus must unravel the mystery before the backstage saboteur stakes his final, deadly claim. Book 3. Mazurka - Join Gus LeGarde in this European rollercoaster ride where he unearths a scandalous family secret linked to a nineteenth century composer. When brother-in-law Siegfried is framed for a neo-Nazi’s murder, they’re plunged into a sizzling cat-and-mouse game where the stakes are lethal. Book 4. FireSong - What would you do if your country church was hit by a rogue tornado during services? What if the shrieking winds unearthed the bones of a missing parishioner in a nearby wheat field? Now add the discovery of heroin in your elderly minister's bloodstream. When Gus LeGarde is thrown into the middle of the mess, he knows life has finally gone berserk in East Goodland, New York. Join Gus as he's lured into a bizarre network of underground tunnels to expose the most shocking discovery ever to rock the Genesee Valley.

What do you do when your past comes back to kill you?   After escaping her abusive husband, life is finally good for Camille LeGarde and her daughter, Shelby. She has a great relationship with her new husband, Gus, who also loves Shelby like his own child. But the LeGarde family’s fragile oasis is shattered when the man of Camille’s nightmares is released from prison.   Greg Robinson never wanted to be a father. But he’s playing the biological card for all it’s worth to get close to Shelby, so he can realize his true goal—revenge against Gus LeGarde, the man who “stole” his wife and daughter.   Lured by the promise of connecting with her real dad, Shelby vanishes, sending Gus and Camille on a desperate race through the worst ice storm of the century to find her before Robinson can act on his chilling threat…   If I can’t have them, neither can you.

When young Gus LeGarde befriends Tully, a cranky old hermit in the woods who speaks to an Indian spirit, he wonders if the man is nuts. But when the spirit rattles tin cups, draws on dusty mirrors, and flips book pages, pestering him to find evidence to avenge her past, things change fast. What Gus doesn’t understand is why his mother hates Tully and forbids him to see the old man. What could Tully have possibly done to earn this distrust?   Faced with long-buried family secrets and danger, Gus summons courage beyond his years in this poignant and powerful telling of the sultry summer of 1965.

When young Gus LeGarde befriends Tully, a cranky old hermit in the woods who speaks to an Indian spirit, he wonders if the man is nuts. But when the spirit rattles tin cups, draws on dusty mirrors, and flips book pages, pestering him to find evidence to avenge her past, things change fast. What Gus doesn’t understand is why his mother hates Tully and forbids him to see the old man. What could Tully have possibly done to earn this distrust?   Faced with long-buried family secrets and danger, Gus summons courage beyond his years in this poignant and powerful telling of the sultry summer of 1965.

What do you do when your past comes back to kill you?   After escaping her abusive husband, life is finally good for Camille LeGarde and her daughter, Shelby. She has a great relationship with her new husband, Gus, who also loves Shelby like his own child. But the LeGarde family’s fragile oasis is shattered when the man of Camille’s nightmares is released from prison.   Greg Robinson never wanted to be a father. But he’s playing the biological card for all it’s worth to get close to Shelby, so he can realize his true goal—revenge against Gus LeGarde, the man who “stole” his wife and daughter.   Lured by the promise of connecting with her real dad, Shelby vanishes, sending Gus and Camille on a desperate race through the worst ice storm of the century to find her before Robinson can act on his chilling threat…   If I can’t have them, neither can you.

Marcella Hollister realized a lifetime of hopes and dreams when she was given custody of a child. A cousin of her half-Seneca husband, Quinn, the baby’s mother was murdered in a political plot—and Marcella, who’s never been able to have children of her own, formed an instant bond with little Kimi. Then a distant relative comes forward to claim Kimi—and Quinn, who Marcella thought understood her pain better than anyone, allows them to take the baby without a fight. Confused and deeply wounded, Marcella takes off for Tall Pines, their secluded Adirondack cabin. She hopes the peace and natural beauty of the mountains will help clear her head and decide whether to forgive Quinn…or leave him. But the situation at Tall Pines is anything but peaceful. Her high school lover, Sky, arrives to help out—and Marcella discovers her old feelings may not be as distant as she thought. Worse, a serial killer is stalking young women in the area. And when a teen girl whose mother works with Sky goes missing, Marcella and everyone she cares for wind up dead center in the killer’s sights.