What does a human finger bone found by a signing gorilla have to do with Detective Matthew Finn's case of two missing girls? Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.Memorial Day starts off strangely when a signing gorilla hands Detective Matthew Finn a human finger bone, and then explains the bone's origin with the mysterious clues of up, bird, and Snow, a favorite white cat. Finn's day gets far worse when his small police department in Evansburg, Washington, loans him to the adjacent county to investigate the case of two missing teenage girls. Adding to the chaos, an arsonist is torching abandoned buildings in the area, and Finn soon discovers a troubling history of young women who have vanished in the rural area. Frantic parents and demanding reporters are breathing down his neck. Can Finn fit the puzzle pieces together in time to save the girls?

Just as society is celebrating the fade of the COVID quarantine restrictions, Sam Westin suddenly finds her life in shambles. While she and her friends were enjoying a spring snow outing in the North Cascades, an earthquake launches multiple avalanches to wreak destruction on the slopes. Now skiers are dead and Sam's lover, Chase, is fighting for his life. In her logical mind, Sam knows that she can't blame two wolverine poachers for the cascade of events that killed and injured so many in the mountains. But if she hadn't needed to answer the call to rescue a trapped wolverine, she wouldn't have been buried, and her friends would have been safely off the mountain and back home. And criminal associates of her troubled young protégé Maya wouldn't have trashed her unoccupied house and injured her cat. Why did two teens want to capture a wolverine, and why has nobody come forward to claim their bodies? Are baby wolverines, still hidden beneath the snow,...

Wildlife photographer Jade Silva's last text message is a photo of a rare jaguar at the US-Mexico border wall. When Jade vanishes, her fellow Southwestern Research Station volunteer, Sam Westin, agonizes that something terrible has happened. But finding Jade seems an almost impossible mission in a rugged area overrun by undocumented immigrants, Border Patrol agents, vigilantes, construction crews, human traffickers, drug smugglers, and violent cartel thugs. Meanwhile, the ever-increasing militarization of the Arizona-Mexico border is destroying ecosystems and trampling the rights of US citizens. Trying to rescue her friend, Sam is sucked into a maelstrom of desperation, deceit, and danger.

**Winner of the Mystery & Mayhem Grand Prize**Gorillas that communicate in sign language aren’t exactly commonplace, so when Dr. Grace McKenna reluctantly hosts the first open house at her research center, half the town of Evansburg, Washington shows up to gawk. The next morning, Grace discovers that her worst nightmare has come true. All three apes—Gumu, Neema, and baby Kanoni—have vanished, leaving behind only one clue: a huge pool of blood. Grace is frantic. She hopes the apes have simply escaped into the nearby forests. If the press learns of her gorillas’ disappearance, the county will revoke her permit to keep the apes. Detective Matthew Finn is sure that a criminal is at work. He risks his job for Grace by agreeing to keep the disappearance secret while doing his best to solve the crime. Has the maniac who murdered Grace’s first gorilla returned? Have Grace’s trusted staff members, who...

A novel of mystery and suspense from Daphne Award Winning Author Pamela BeasonKIDNAPPING...OR MURDER?A MISSING BABY Seventeen-year-old Brittany Morgan dashed into the store for just a minute, leaving her sleeping baby in the car. Now Ivy's gone and half the town believes Brittany murdered her daughter.A HAUNTED DETECTIVEDetective Matthew Finn, a big-city fish out of water in small-town Evansburg, Washington, struggles with his wife's betrayal as he investigates Ivy Morgan's disappearance. The clock is ticking and he can't find any witnesses.AN UNUSUAL RESEARCH SUBJECT Imaginative, manipulative, and volatile, with the intelligence of a five-year-old child, Neema cannot speak, but she knows enough sign language to invent jokes and insults. She can also hurl a grown man across the room. Neema is a gorilla.A DISTRESSED SCIENTISTAfter a psycho murdered one of her "talking" gorillas in Seattle, Dr. Grace McKenna relocated to the Evansburg area. Now with the economy on the rocks and her funding cut, her beloved gorillas Neema and Gumu are in jeopardy. When Neema repeats a story of a crying baby, a cucumber car, and a snake, Grace realizes her gorilla is the only witness to whatever happened to baby Ivy. Does Grace dare go public with Neema's sketchy clues? Can she afford not to?

Scuba diving off the Galápagos Islands, wildlife biologist and freelance writer Summer "Sam" Westin is not only out of her element—she's plunged right into a dangerous conflict between fishermen and environmentalists...When Sam is hired to cover a marine survey expedition to the Galápagos, she jumps at the opportunity—though she has to fudge the truth about her diving expertise. But amidst the giant tortoises, marine iguanas, and schooling hammerheads of Darwin's enchanted islands, Sam gets caught up in deadly game of survival of the fittest, and her dream assignment turns into a nightmare.When her diving partner's air supply is contaminated with carbon monoxide on their very first dive, she wonders if someone is trying to sabotage the expedition. Sea cucumbers and shark fins are valuable commodities in the Asian market. How far will the poachers go? With no one watching their backs, Sam starts to suspect they may already be in...

Sam Westin is rarely afraid in the wilderness, but maybe she should be now. Her friends Kyla and Kim were murdered on a popular hiking trail only a few weeks ago and the murderer is still unidentified. When Sam steps in as a substitute for Kim to shepherd six troubled teens through the backcountry, she can't help watching over her shoulder. Has grief at the violent deaths of her friends made her paranoid, or is she right to suspect her rag-tag band is sharing the mountain wilderness with the killer?