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Author
Summary
In the small Minnesota shore town of Flame Lake, a close-knit group of friends find their comfortable lives taking some unforeseen turns. Best friends Devera and BiDi were recently voted "Least Changed" at their twentieth high school reunion, but Devera is starting to think of the label as insulting. Sure, she loves her husband and still believes being a wife and mother is the main entree on life's plate . . . but she longs for some more exotic side...
2) May Day
Author
Series
Murder-by-month mystery volume 1
Summary
Minneapolitan Mira James has been taking it easy since college graduation - too easy. Due to a dead-end job and a cheating boyfriend, the Twin Cities have lost their charm, and Mira decides to begin a new life in rural Battle Lake. Right away she is offered jobs as an assistant librarian and part-time reporter, and falls into an unexpected romance.
Author
Summary
Harry Griffin is a loner who's witnessed some of war's rawest moments. A survivor, he is guided in all things by his unfailing loyalty and honesty. But a tragic altercation in Minnesota's North Woods that leaves a young man dead and suspicions of murder hanging in the air tests Harry's courage as never before. Nothing could have prepared him for the eerie silence that has fallen over the incident, the challenge to his nerve, and the raw carnality...
Author
Summary
Comic Lorna Landvik gives Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon a feminine perspective with her story about Patty Jane and Harriet Dobbin, two wacky Minnesota sisters. Patty Jane's downfall is to marry the gorgeous but irresponsible Thor Rolvaag. Before she can say "annulment," a baby is on the way and Thor is gone, leaving Patty to rely on sister Harriet. It would be Patty Jane's entrepreneurial spirit that moves her to establish a beauty shop, her House...
5) Home song
Author
Summary
A novel that strikes a universal chord in all of us and asks: Are there sins of the heart beyond forgiving?
When a new student transfers to principal Tom Gardner' s school, Tom instantly recognizes that this teenager is the son he never knew he had, the result of a one-night stand years before. Raised by an adoring and fiercely independent mother who never revealed the name of his biological father, Kent is a fine young man. But his very...
Author
Series
Hannah Swensen mystery volume 8
Summary
Hannah Swensen and her bakery, The Cookie Jar, bask in the glow of Hollywood glamour when Main Street becomes a movie set. And although tensions simmer as the cameras roll, no one expects the action to turn deadly . . . until it's too late . . .
There's no such thing as privacy in Lake Eden, but Hannah never thought things would go this far. Everyone has been telling her what to do ever since she got not one but two marriage proposals....
There's no such thing as privacy in Lake Eden, but Hannah never thought things would go this far. Everyone has been telling her what to do ever since she got not one but two marriage proposals....
8) August moon
Author
Series
Murder-by-month mystery volume 4
Summary
Maybe it's time for me to leave this crazy town, hightail it back to Minneapolis, and become a cat-collecting, fist-shaking, asexual English professor...Furious after being stood up by local hottie Johnny Leeson, Mira decides to abandon Battle Lake, Minnesota, where the women are churchgoers, the men like to hunt, and the body count is above average. But when a cheerleader bites the dust, Mira loiters long enough to snoop. Mira is highly suspicious...
9) Crewel world
Author
Series
Needlecraft mystery volume 1
Formats
Summary
When Betsy's sister is murdered in her own needlecraft store, Betsy takes over the shop and the investigation.But to find the murderer, she'll have to put together a list of motives and suspects to figure out this killer's pattern of crime...Includes a beautiful embroidery pattern!
Author
Series
Summary
It's not just the winter murder of a young woman that has Jake Hines concerned. When the body is found at the river near a highway overpass, Jake's girlfriend Trudy is supposed to be there as a crime scene expert from the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Trudy is missing, the BCA is understaffed, the Rutherford Police Department needs more officers, and the snowstorm is covering up the body and evidence.
Author
Summary
A politician’s past war crimes are revealed in this psychologically haunting novel by the National Book Award–winning author of The Things They Carried.
Vietnam veteran John Wade is running for senate when long-hidden secrets about his involvement in wartime atrocities come to light. But the loss of his political fortunes is only the beginning of John’s downfall. A retreat with his wife, Kathy, to...
Vietnam veteran John Wade is running for senate when long-hidden secrets about his involvement in wartime atrocities come to light. But the loss of his political fortunes is only the beginning of John’s downfall. A retreat with his wife, Kathy, to...
Author
Series
Murder-by-month mystery volume 7
Summary
What's so wrong with admiring from a distance? Mira's quirky puppy love for Chief Wenonga, a well-muscled fiberglass statue in her Minnesota small town, might be a safer love pursuit than online dating. But when the 23-foot Chief goes missing from his cement base, Mira's not the only citizen to be crushed.
The town of Battle Lake is celebrating their statue's 25th anniversary and no amount of blue, sugar-soaked popcorn balls at Wenonga Days can uplift...
13) Night sins
Author
Formats
Summary
A peaceful Minnesota town, where crime is something that just doesn’t happen, is about to face its worst nightmare. A young boy disappears. There are no witnesses, no clues—only a note, cleverly taunting, casually cruel. Has a cold-blooded kidnapper struck? Or is this the reawakening of a long-quiet serial killer?
A tough-minded investigator on her first, make-or-break case . . . A local cop who fears that big-city evils have come...
A tough-minded investigator on her first, make-or-break case . . . A local cop who fears that big-city evils have come...
14) The emigrants
Author
Series
Summary
Considered one of Sweden's greatest 20th-century writers, Vilhelm Moberg created Karl Oskar and Kristina Nilsson to portray the joys and tragedies of daily life for early Swedish pioneers in America. His consistently faithful depiction of these humble people's lives is a major strength of the Emigrant Novels. Moberg's extensive research in the papers of Swedish emigrants in archival collections, including the Minnesota Historical Society, enabled...
15) Deadline
Author
Series
Virgil Flowers novel volume 8
Summary
"In southeast Minnesota, down on the Mississippi, a school board meeting is coming to a close. The board chairman announces that the rest of the meeting will be closed, due to personnel issues. "Issues" is correct. The proposal up for a vote before them is whether a local reporter should die. And the vote is four to one in favor. Meanwhile, not far away, Virgil Flowers is doing a favor for a friend by looking into a dognapping, which seems to be turning...
Author
Series
Murder-by-month mystery volume 9
Summary
Mira James' life is perfect. She's just consummated her relationship with Johnny Leeson, she's a freelance investigator for a local attorney, and she hasn't uncovered a dead body in nearly two weeks. That lucky streak comes to an icy halt when she joins the reopening festivities at the Prospect House, Battle Lake's oldest structure. Mira is covering the event for the Battle Lake Recall when she ice skates over a corpse frozen into the lake in front...
17) December dread
Author
Series
Murder-by-month mystery volume 8
Summary
Silent Night, Deadly Night. With Christmas just over a week away, ?tis the season for grinning elves, maddeningly jolly Muzak, and a guilty Nut Goodie addiction. But the holidays are marred by something far worse?a serial killer leaving candy canes as his calling card. His target? Thirty-something brunettes who look just like Mira James. When a woman from her high school graduating class becomes his latest victim, Mira plows through a case of online...
Author
Series
Hannah Swensen mystery volume 10
Formats
Summary
Summertime has finally arrived in Lake Eden, Minnesota, and Hannah Swensen, owner of The Cookie Jar bakery, is looking forward to warm, lazy days, eating ice cream, and sharing picnics with friends. But when a family reunion takes a deadly turn, it's up to Hannah to find a killer . . .
Hannah Swensen has a lot on her plate, baking up a storm for The Cookie Jar. But she'll always make time for her business partner, Lisa, who's preparing...
Hannah Swensen has a lot on her plate, baking up a storm for The Cookie Jar. But she'll always make time for her business partner, Lisa, who's preparing...
20) Purgatory Ridge
Author
Series
Cork O'Connor mystery volume 3
Formats
Summary
Cork O'Connor is called in to investigate when a deadly explosion rocks the lumber mill of Karl Lindstrom, a wealthy, anti-environmentalist industrialist, whose mill is near an ancient tract of pine forest sacred to the Anishinaabe tribe.