Keith Crandall was found dead of a heart attack near the beautiful red rocks in the Verde Valley of central Arizona. Could his death have been prevented? His wife thinks not. But his girlfriend Charlene, a local firefighter and his sister Leslie, a court reporter from Orange County, California, believe otherwise. When another death occurs, this one clearly a murder, Leslie believes it to be directly related to her brother's death. She takes a leave of absence from her job and returns to Arizona to investigate. In the process she learns many surprising things about her brother and his family. Before long, she finds herself suspecting several people close to her brother, including: his wife, an agoraphobic; his best friend, a handsome, charismatic park ranger; a neighbor, an Irish herbalist; his co-workers, especially a red-neck firefighter named Tex, and a Navajo sheep rancher and college professor who's also a suspected drug dealer. But in this high desert country nature herself can be as lethal as some of her inhabitants and Leslie learns the hard way that beautiful scenery can quickly give way to life-threatening danger. Leslie Crandall is a complex character with doubts and insecurities, who finds herself in an unfamiliar situation and environment. Mystery lovers who enjoy Marcia Muller's Sharon McCone and J.A. Jance's Joanna Brady will find Leslie Crandall appealing. Environmental issues and the fascinating red rock country itself both play essential roles in this intriguing mystery.
About the Author: Raised in Orange County, California, Terry Tschann Skelton was employed as a court clerk and supervisor for Orange County Superior Court for 12 years. Her writing during that time consisted mostly of memos, letters, agendas and classroom materials. She moved to Cottonwood, Arizona in 1990 and worked in various capacities for the City of Cottonwood at the Cottonwood Fire Department, the Cottonwood Public Library and the local magistrate court. During this period she joined several writing groups and took creative writing classes with Barbara Hahn (who writes under the name of Barclay Franklin). With Barb's encouragment she decided in 1992 to see if she could write a book, instead of short stories and bad poetry. That manuscript, Murder on Bill Gray Road, has followed her around from Arizona to Maine to California, surviving numerous computer glitches and resulting (finally!) in this book. In 2004 she retired with her husband to Kingston, a so-called ghost town in the Black Range of southern New Mexico where she and her husband have restored an old, run-down rock and adobe house on two acres. A mother and grandmother, Terry loves to hike, garden, read and crochet when she's not writing. More road mysteries are under construction.