Showing results by author "Denise Grover Swank" in All Categories

Celia Burrows thought she had it all - a handsome husband, two successful children, and a gorgeous beach house on the northern coast of Maine. But her perfect life cracks apart when her husband of 30 years informs her that he's leaving. In a note. And since problems come in threes, her adult children reveal they've both been struggling with issues of their own.

When a body shows up south of Henryetta, Rose knows trouble is on the horizon. Rufus Wilson worked for the county crime lord, Skeeter Malcolm, and she soon discovers Wilson had a special skill set - he could crack safes. Now everyone is looking for Wilson’s girlfriend, including Rose, and it doesn’t take her long to realize Wilson’s murder might actually be connected to something else, something bigger. Hardshaw Group, a Dallas crime syndicate, is meeting a South American drug cartel in the county, only no one knows the time and place.

It’s been nearly three years since the fall of the Hardshaw Group, and Rose is living a low-key life in Fenton County. She’s happily married to Joe Simmons, raising her own two children along with her niece and nephew, and running her landscape business. Everything is coming up…well…roses! And still, when she and her best friend Neely Kate unearth a peculiar wooden box in a client’s yard, she finds herself yearning for the good old days of solving mysteries. Be careful what you wish for.

Megan Vandemeer meant to tell her parents about her broken engagement, but a month and a half later she finds herself boarding a plane home to her wedding. Having stretched avoidance to its limits, it's time to come clean - a terrifying prospect since her mother is sure to blame her rather than her cheating, emotionally frigid ex. A couple of drinks and two Dramamine later, Megan finds herself spilling her sob story to the tall, dark, and handsome stranger in the seat next to her.

With a friend’s child missing, and the police failing, disgraced ex-detective Harper enlists the aid of a former crime boss to untangle a mystery that strikes too close to home. Disgraced, ex-detective Harper Adams is perfectly content wallowing at rock bottom. She’s lost her job, house, and reputation, and it only gets worse when she’s forced to move back home to Jackson Creek, Arkansas, the one place she swore she’d never return.

Rose Gardner is trying to build a new normal. One that leaves the Fenton County crime world - including James "Skeeter" Malcolm, the current king - behind. Her best friend and roommate is a big part of that effort, but Neely Kate is busy building her own life anew. She disappeared for a few days, scaring the spit out of Rose - which is why Rose finds it impossible to deny her when she suggests they look for a missing parrot. Only this time Neely Kate isn't interested in the reward money - she's set them up to work with a cranky private investigator.

Ten years ago, Magnolia Steele fled Franklin, Tennessee, after an incident that left her with hazy memories and a horror of the place where she had been born and bred. Though her abrupt departure destroyed most of her treasured relationships, she vowed never to return...until she has no choice. When Magnolia's breakout acting role in a Broadway musical ends in disgrace, there's only one place she can go. She finds herself on her momma's porch, suitcase in hand.

Rose is called into action when Neely Kate's cousin goes missing and the police refuse to take it seriously. But while the authorities - Rose's ex-boyfriend, included - are certain the missing woman has run away, mounting evidence points to foul play. Rose agrees to help her friend, even if it means partaking in Neely Kate's shenanigans, including an impromptu trip to a strip club.

Rose Gardner and Neely Kate Colson are thrilled with Mason's early present to Rose - a trip for the two of them to New Orleans for shopping, great food, and awesome seats to Wicked. Neely Kate plans to use the opportunity to visit a psychic and find out once and for all what her paranormal ability is. But when the psychic is murdered, and Neely Kate and Rose were the last people to see her alive, they find themselves the main suspects in a Christmas killing.

For Rose Gardner, working at the DMV on a Friday afternoon is bad even before she sees a vision of herself dead. She’s had plenty of visions, usually boring ones like someone’s toilet’s overflowed, but she’s never seen one of herself before. When her overbearing momma winds up murdered on her sofa, instead, two things are certain: There isn't enough hydrogen peroxide in the state of Arkansas to get that stain out, and Rose is the prime suspect.

Rose Gardner feels like she’s up a creek without a paddle. Her sister is dying, her secret boyfriend, James Malcolm, is struggling to protect the county underworld from an upstart drug dealer, and her ex has moved back to town with a bee in his bonnet and a mission to root out corruption in the county.

Book Nine in the New York Times Best Selling mystery series by Denise Grover Swank.

Rose Gardner collects secrets the way other people collect junk - and now she’s being asked to expose them. Special prosecutor Mason Deveraux has called a grand jury to investigate the corruption in the Sweet Branch police department, and he’s summoned Rose as a witness. Any topic is fair game, and the criminals in Fenton county are rightly scared of what she might share under oath. While trying to placate the lawless men, Rose is also caring for her dying sister, Violet.

One wrongly accused man. Twenty-nine reasons for Rose to clear his name. When Rose reports for Fenton County jury duty, she figures she’s lucky to get out of a morning working at the DMV. Instead, despite a disastrous encounter with the new assistant district attorney, Mason Deveraux, she’s picked as a juror on a murder case. As the trial progresses, she realizes an ominous vision she had in the men’s restroom proves the defendant is innocent. And there’s not a cotton picking thing she can do about it. Or is there?

For as long as Magnolia Steele can remember, the past has had its hooks in her. Her time as a Broadway actress in New York City was an escape that ended in public humiliation, but now that she's back home in Franklin, Tennessee, she's feeling the grip of the two incidents that stole her innocence. The first was the disappearance of her father when she was a teen, who left home for a meeting and never came back. The other incident...well, her memories have returned, but it's best left where it belongs - in the past.

Trouble always comes to those who court it. Rose Gardner's ability to see glimpses of the future has gotten her into hot water time and again, but so have her curiosity and her sense of daring. Those very qualities helped her defeat the most powerful man in Arkansas - a man so adept at hiding his crimes there was no way to defeat him inside of the law - but her success came at a steep personal price. Now she's throwing herself into her landscaping business, trying to live a life that's as orderly as one of her gardens.

Rose Gardner feels responsible for the death of a woman she tried - and failed - to save with her visions, and though she intends to do the “right” thing and tell James Malcolm she can’t possibly accept his offer of a relationship, she hasn’t yet mustered the strength. Worst of all, her sister is terminally ill, and there isn’t a thing she can do to save her. When a new case falls into Rose’s lap, she eagerly shifts her attention to someone else’s problems - except it’s Henryetta, and every person, and problem, is somehow connected.

Book eight in the New York Times and USA Today best-selling Rose Gardner Mystery series. Rose Gardner has survived plenty of close scrapes in the past, but her latest bit of trouble has landed her in the Fenton County holding cell on trumped-up charges. The most powerful man in Southern Arkansas, J. R. Simmons, is determined to put her behind bars for good and destroy everything she holds dear, including her boyfriend, Mason, and her friend, Skeeter, reigning king of the Fenton County crime world.

Rose Gardner hates seeing her normally flamboyant best friend Neely Kate struggle with depression. So when Rose stumbles onto a piece of evidence indicating her birth mother might have been involved in a crime, she does the one thing guaranteed to cheer Neely Kate. She convinces her friend to help her solve a mystery. Though their penchant for investigating has gotten them into plenty of pickles in the past, what can go wrong?

Life in Henryetta, Arkansas, is turned upside down with the arrival of a televangelist, but it’s the death of a little old lady on Rose’s street that catches her attention. The Henryetta police deem her death natural causes, but Rose suspects foul play, and so does an unlikely supporter - the president of the Busy Body Club, her 82-year-old neighbor Mildred.