Showing results by narrator "Margaret Strom" in All Categories

Everyone is enchanted by Olive’s new puppy - even an initially wary Taco. Thinking she might want to add a furry friend to her own home, Daisy convinces Kay to go with her on a whirlwind tour of shelters, rescues, and breeders. But puppy loves comes to an abrupt end when the two women find well-known animal advocate Prucilla Downing dead in a pile of broken trophies and slashed fur coats.

Kay's first real case as a licensed investigator is to track down a suspected mistress and the possible hidden assets of an estranged husband. It all seems pretty routine, but when the financial trail leads Kay down a rabbit hole of laundered money and bank fraud, a boring divorce case gets interesting.

Life at 60 isn't quite what Kay Carrera expected. She's working as a skip-tracer for a PI who is desperate to land his own reality TV show. She has a new roommate who arrived with more than the usual amount of baggage. And her attempts at knitting are less than stellar - way less than stellar. Worse, the cataract surgery that restored her sight has also delivered an unexpected and disturbing side-effect. Kay sees ghosts. And when the dead turn to her for help, she just can't say no.

On a wintery vacation with the kids, Kay and the judge stumble across a barn fire. What appeared to be an accidental blaze turns out to be arson, with the charred timbers hiding a dead body. Adding sleuthing to her holiday itinerary, Kay finds herself investigating and ghost-hunting the murder with two new kindred spirits.

When a typically closed-off Peg attempts online dating at Rose's strong urging, the experience plays out like an embarrassing mistake. At least, until she matches with Nolan Abercrombie—intelligent, attractive, and a self-proclaimed dog lover. The two share an instant connection that has Peg cautiously excited to finally bring someone special into her busy world of Standard Poodles and conformation shows.

David Driver isn't the only one buried in his grave. Kay's friend Olive has a family feud on her hands over who should have inherited the only remaining plot in their family section of the cemetery. When a cousin finally gives in and agrees to relocate her son's casket, the cemetery staff discover there's an extra body in the plot.

Donations are pouring in for the charity yard sale, but as Kay and her friends sort through the glassware and gently used appliances, they discover a real skull in a box of old Halloween decorations.

The stroke of midnight brings murder. What could be more magical than a black-tie Christmas party where those attending will socialize and rub elbows with the most prominent lawyers and judges in the state? Kay is enjoying the food, the wine, the conversation - and a dance with Judge Beck to the music of an elegant string quartet. But when she finds a dead body in an upstairs bathroom, Kay’s fairy-tale evening hits a sour note. Is the murderer a jilted lover? A rival for a lucrative position? A disgruntled client?

A narrowly escaped tragedy has Suzette thinking about filling in the old pond at the rear of her property—or even selling off that section of land entirely. Kay’s friend and neighbor has tried to keep the remaining portion of the family farm as unchanged as possible, but pond restoration is an undertaking too expensive for her budget.

Here is the essential guide to kick-starting a career you love in any job market. There is an epidemic in this country, one that continues to spread despite fluctuations in the economy. A dishearteningly large number of people dislike what they do for a living. In this revised and updated edition of I Don’t Know What I Want, but I Know It’s Not This, career coach Julie Jansen shows how anyone unhappy with their employment - or lack of it - can implement a real and satisfying career transformation.

In the early 1960s, the head of a prominent New York City Child Development Center and a psychiatrist from Columbia University launched a study designed to track the development of twins and triplets given up for adoption and raised by different families. The controversial and disturbing catch? None of the adoptive parents had been told that they were raising a twin - the study's investigators insisted that the separation be kept secret.

For my birthday, my best friends Gilly and Pippa signed us up for a weekend at the Central Midwest Spa Convention. Yay. Massages, fine dining, maid service, and best of all, as long as we attend a few workshops, the weekend is a tax write-off. It should be all sunshine and roses, right? Wrong. My former intern at Belliza Beauty aka the Job Stealer, Carmen Carraway, is a featured presenter. Yuck. Throw in an ex-boyfriend, a number one fan, a brewing scandal, and a dead body, and my relaxing birthday weekend is DOA.

If you're longing to become more attentive to God - to listen to him, know his voice and experience his love, spiritual direction can point the way. In Seeking God Together, experienced spiritual director Alice Fryling offers a unique introduction specifically for group spiritual direction: a place where individuals can experience what it means to be listened to and loved by others, so that they can learn to listen more attentively to God in their daily lives and be used by God.

Guiding Rory through crocheting-for-beginners will have to wait, as Molly suddenly has to untangle the mysterious death of a new Tarzana Hookers member. Marianne Freeman and her live-in companion, Connie Richards, haven't exactly been gabby since they joined the Hookers, but Connie's voice is silenced permanently when she is electrocuted while walking on a wet lawn—electrified by an old radio plugged into a faulty extension cord.

While Peg feels comfortable again judging pedigree pups over Labor Day Weekend, Rose judges a shocking new turn of events. Jim has been found dead on the farm and a young employee needs help convincing police she didn't kill him. As disjointed clues lead to a list of misdeeds swirling around Six Oaks, everyone connected to Jim agrees on one thing-he had it coming . . .

At the urging of Vista Del Mar's owner, Casey Feldstein takes on the job of combining a murder mystery game with her next weekend yarn retreat. Enlisting the help of the hotel's staff to play the roles of victim and suspects, she lays out a plot and plants some red herrings. And as her intrigued guests watch the murder play out and the clues unfold, Casey is certain she's pulled off the perfect make-believe murder—until a real murder intrudes and everyone at the hotel is named as a suspect.

Fifties are the new forties and I'm living my best life ever. I may have a few more aches and pains, graying roots, and couple extra pounds, but I also have two quirky best friends who always have my back, business is booming, and my love life has never been better or hotter. That is until my sweetie Ezra Holden invites me home for Christmas to meet his family. The season is full of surprises in Ezra's hometown, like a missing cousin, a case of mistaken identity, and a slew of painful memories—none of them my own.

Prison abolition and decarceration are increasingly debated, but it is often without taking into account the largest exodus of people from carceral facilities in the 20th century: the closure of disability institutions and psychiatric hospitals. Decarcerating Disability provides a much-needed corrective, combining a genealogy of deinstitutionalization with critiques of the current prison system.

Mr. Peter has lived across the street long before Kay moved into her house, and over the decades, the collection of old washing machines, lawn mowers, and refrigerators in his front and back yard has reached the point where it's nearly impossible to find the front door. The man is an eccentric recluse, but how can anyone dislike a kindly person who loves old pottery and dinnerware, and slips Taco, the cat, chicken sandwiches every chance he gets? Evidently someone disliked him - disliked him enough to kill him.

My name is Nora Black. I'm fifty-six years old, and I'm having the midlife adventure of my life. I'm all set for the ultimate winter escape: an adults-only cruise with my sweetheart Ezra, and my best friends Gilly and Pippa, along with their husbands. We are ready to hit the high seas for sun, fun, and definitely no crime-solving. The plan is simple . . . cocktails, sunsets, and endless laughter. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans . . .