When Stella Crown hires a new farmhand to help run her Pennsylvania dairy business, she gets more than she bargained for in a Mennonite widow who arrives burdened not only with grief, but with rumors of infidelity and murder. And a young child. Before you know it, Stella, battling deep sorrow herself over the loss of her long-time friend and employee Hank as well as worries over her shaky finances, copes with an influx of nasty in-laws, heartbroken beaus, and spiteful vandalism. It all strikes Stella as an empty vendetta. Maybe. Determined to protect herself and her farm, Stella sets out to discover the truth while trying to give her new employee a respectful benefit of the doubt.Meanwhile, Stella's good friend and fellow biker, Lenny, is riding a crisis. At one moment jovial, the next angry and suspicious, Lenny is haunted by pain and secrets he won't share with Stella. His bizarre behavior is soon complimented by vicious attacks on his home and his business."Three can...

Casey Maldonado is haunted by the deaths of her husband and young son. She hopes traveling through the vast reaches of Idaho will offer peace. Instead, she fights off three drunken locals before escaping to a quiet town where she wants to heal from her injuries and constant sorrow. Her traveling companion, invisible to all but Casey, is Death, wearing a series of disguises and offering expert commentary on her difficulties. Unfortunately, the village of Armstrong carries its own darkness. Casey finds a job and a comfortable guest room with the proprietor of the small general store, Vern and his ill wife, Dottie. Death keeps a close watch on Casey. She's surrounded by trouble. She captures a teen spray-painting nasty graffiti on the store's wall. The town shuns Dottie and blames Vern for jilting his fiancee to marry an outsider - forty-five years ago. The woman's still stalking Vern today. Casey finds a hateful letter accusing Dottie of tragedy based on a Halloween party, a fatality, and a woman missing for forty-five years. Residents ignore the couple at a free outdoor movie they sponsor. Casey stops another attempt to spray-paint graffiti on the store. Danger and cruelty range free beneath the calm surface of the town. When Dottie dies in the hospital, brutality overrides grief. A resident notifies the three attackers, who arrive to finish what they started with Casey. Finally, the painful truth explodes in violence based on revenge.

When Casey Maldonado and Death hitch a desperate ride away from one disaster, they throw themselves right into the middle of another one.  The semi in which they are traveling crashes, and before the Grim Reaper takes Evan the Trucker away, Evan whispers to Casey about a stash hidden in the truck that she should keep away from them .  Them turns out to be a band of men who want that package no matter what it takes, and they believe Casey knows where – and what – it is.  Alone and injured, with neither money nor identification, Casey escapes from under the noses of the ER doctors and her pursuers, and hides out in the cornfields of Kansas.  The valuable stash turns out to be photos, truck manifests, and other information pointing Casey toward something big and complicated – a conspiracy?  Smuggling?  Blackmail?  She can’t be sure. Casey, uncertain how to proceed, is led by Death to a group of teenagers looking for something other than dust and crops to fill their days – and their nights.  Using their limited resources, she finds her way into a maze of greed and desperation – and into the clutches of people who don’t care who gets hurt as long as they get what they want. Casey is determined that no one else should die because of the desires of one group of criminals, and finds herself defending not only herself, but the teenagers, a few other kind locals, and perhaps even the trucking industry itself.

Devastated by the deaths of her husband and infant son in a car crash that she alone survived, Casey Maldonado has taken to traveling, accompanied by Death, whom only she can see. She ends up in Clymer, Ohio, a small town devastated by the defection of a manufacturing company. She quickly becomes involved with Home Sweet Home, an organization that feeds struggling families, and she also takes a part in a local theater production. When she learns of the apparent suicide of a local woman, Ellen Schnieder, she begins an investigation, along with Ellen’s boyfriend, to prove that the death was actually murder. Complicating matters, the theater’s director seems to be in some kind of trouble with some unsavory men, and Casey is being pursued by executives from the car company who paid her settlement. An interesting premise (shades, almost, of The Fugitive) and a vulnerable but strong protagonist are the highlights here, though the character of Death adds an unexpected dimension.

Stella Crown rarely takes a break from managing her Pennsylvania dairy farm unless it's to take a spin on her Harley, but in the midst of the Christmas season she treats herself to a new tattoo. Halfway through the sitting at Wolf Ink, her tattoo artist and his wife, Mandy, disappear into the back room and Stella dozes off. When she awakes, annoyed to realize they've not come back, she drives home. Before long the police arrive to inform her that Mandy has been discovered dead—knocked out and left to freeze behind the tattoo parlor. And Wolf is nowhere to be found.Angry and guilt-stricken that she hasn't protected her friends, Stella—something of a suspect herself—sets out to assist the cops and rescue the missing Wolf.With the help of another tattoo artist and an old flame who's arrived at the farm, Stella dives into the world of tattooing, where she finds not only a close-knit and knowledgeable community, but also its underworld of back alley hacks,...