by Sandra Murphy

Details at the end of this post on how to enter to win a copy of Come Homicide or High Water, and links to purchase it.

It’s not easy living in an RV with a husband and three-month-old twin babies. Every day Skye Denison-Boyd looks out the RV’s door to see if the contractor’s truck is at their new house. He promised they could move in before Christmas but late starts and no-shows make that unlikely.

Skye is the school psychologist and only on maternity leave until the New Year. She and husband/police chief Wally, are exhausted. While Skye is at home, an intern is doing her job but needs help. Skye ends up at the school a few hours a week.

When an older woman goes missing, Wally has to set up a search and rescue for her. There’s no sign of her, no indication of how she got out of the house. Her husband says she’s suffering from dementia. Searchers find nothing.

Skye is meeting her intern and a mother who feels the intern didn’t read the test results correctly for her gifted daughter. During the meeting, a substitute principal is rude to the woman who is recording their conversation. It turns out she’s also a paralegal and will sue both the school district and the principal. When her body is found, obviously murdered, the principal is a prime suspect. On the other hand, there is one more suspect—Earl Doozier. His entire clan is disreputable. When he calls Skye for help and she finds him at the scene of the crime (wearing a turkey costume no less), it’s hard not to think Earl’s gone a mite too far this time.

The spouse is always suspect and hers has been lying about his whereabouts every day. Skye thinks the missing woman and the murder might be connected, but how?

The holidays, Skye’s overbearing mother, Wally’s overprotective father, a nanny who quit without notice, and a definite lack of furniture for the new house, plus two crimes, school, and consulting for the police department and Skye has her hands full. Going back to work is starting to look relaxing.

This is book three of the Return to Scumble River series. The relationship between Wally and Skye only got better after the birth of the twins. Skye shows more patience with her mother than ten people could be expected to have. There are hints that Wally’s dad may be making changes in his love life which could present its own set of complications.

Swanson also writes the long running Scumble River mysteries, the Deveraux’s Dime Store mysteries, and the Chef-to-Go mysteries, as well as the Change of Heart contemporary romances.

To enter to win a copy of Come Homicide or High Water, simply email KRL at krlcontests@gmail[dot]com by replacing the [dot] with a period, and with the subject line “high water,” or comment on this article. A winner will be chosen February 22, 2020. U.S. residents only, and you must be 18 or older to enter. If you are entering via email please include you mailing address in case you win, it will be deleted after the contest. You can read our privacy statement here if you like.

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You can use this link to purchase any of these books from indie bookstore Mysterious Galaxy, and KRL gets a portion of the sale:

Come Homicide or High Water (Welcome Back to Scumble River #3)

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Sandra Murphy lives in the shadow of the Arch in St. Louis Missouri. A Murder of Crows, edited by Sandra Murphy (a popular title so you need her name to search), has twenty-one cozy stories. Each features the collective name of an animal and a crime. The animals range from tarantulas, koalas, wolves, bears, jellyfish, toads, cats, dogs, alpaca, goats, penguins and more. No animals were harmed. The people weren’t so lucky. Available at the usual outlets, print or ebook.

Disclosure: This post contains links to an affiliate program, for which we receive a few cents if you make purchases. KRL also receives free copies of most of the books that it reviews, that are provided in exchange for an honest review of the book.