A fifth go-around for Benni Harper (Goose in the Pond, 1997, not reviewed, etc.), the ranch-bred widow of Jack Harper, whos now married to San Celica, California, Police Chief Gabe Ortiz. San Celica is having a Heritage Days celebration, and Benni, as curator of the Folk Arts Museum and Artists Co-op, is in the thick of it. Her elegant southern cousin Emory Littleton (with a mega-crush on Bennis best friend Elvia Aragon) is staying with her, and at her fathers ranch, presided over by Grandmother Dove, a huge family gathering is in progress. Disaster strikes when talented young photographer Shelby Johnson is found dead one early morningmurder or accident? Ranch-hand Kip Waterman and hard-drinking Wade Harper, brother of Bennis late husband, had come to blows over Shelby the night before. Matters worsen when, days latter, Kips drowned body is discovered behind the Frio Saloon. Through it all, Benni has to calm her artist friends Olivia Contreras and Greer Shannon, deal with a zillion chores, and cope with the unexpected presence of renowned photographer Isaac Lyons, Shelbys stepgrandfather, who seems smitten with Grandma Dove. In the end, its Bennis investigative collaboration with Isaac (over Gabes strong objections) that brings a killer to a kind of justice. The quest for whodunit is all but buried under Bennis breezy down-home chatter, sometimes mawkish soul-searching, and descriptions of the celebrations endless eventsfrom the local gallerys show of women artists to the Cow-Plop contest. But Bennis warmly likable persona makes it all worthwhileespecially for lovers of the cozy genre. -- Product Description Benni Harper, the spirited ex-cowgirl, quilter, and folk-art expert, has an eye for murderous designs--and a talent for piecing together the most complex and cold-blooded crimesBenni and her relatives and friends are gathered for the family's annual barbecue and cattle roundup. Among the guests is Shelby Johnson, a young photography student from a wealthy Chicago family. In Benni she finds a favorite subject and a new friend. But when the young woman's body is discovered on the ranch the next morning, Benni's closest relatives suddenly develop into prime murder suspects...* Fifth in the popular Benni Harper mystery series* Each book features a different quilt pattern

SUMMARY:Probing the death of the San Celina Senior Citizen Prom king, museum curator Benni Harper goes against the wishes of her police chief boyfriend and uncovers the victim's fifty-year-old affiliation with a World War II Japanese blackmailing ring. Reprint. PW. LJ.

New from the national bestselling author of The Saddlemaker's Wife and the Agatha Award-winning Benni Harper mystery series.After being widowed, Love Mercy Johnson has come to terms with her life in Morro Bay, California. She spends her time writing columns for a regional magazine, helping her in-laws work their ranch, and trying to move on. But her dreams of reconciliation with her long-estranged grandchildren come true when her eighteen-year- old brokenhearted granddaughter, Rett, unexpectedly shows up. Together they struggle to co-exist while confronting old resentments and painful memories. When a family crisis forges an unexpected connection between the two grieving women, they must discover if by working together, they can change their lives, and the lives of those they love, for the better.

SUMMARY:Ninth in the Agatha Award-winning series that's been hailed as engrossing, Steps to the Altar finds California folk art expert Benni Harper preparing for two upcoming weddings, digging up clues to a decades-old unsolved murder-and struggling with a very personal crisis of the heart...

SUMMARY:When Benni finds a dead woman lying facedown in the lake, dressed in a Mother Goose costume, her investigation takes her inside the Storyteller's Guild.There she discovers that Mother Goose was telling more than fairy tales -- she was a gossip columnist who aired the kind of secrets that destroy lives -- and inspire revenge...

SUMMARY:Benni Harper is back in an unforgettable new mystery from national bestselling author Earlene Fowler. The Memory Festival is a celebration of recollections and loved ones through crafts. But when a local cop is wounded by a mysterious sharpshooter who seems to have a vendetta against the police, Benni fears for her loved ones, especially her police chief husband. Benni is determined to make her hometown safe-before their peaceful street fair becomes a day to remember in the worst way.

Jacob Chandler knew everything about Benni Harper, and in his house were pieces of her life: a hand-carved statue of her childhood horse and a scrapbook of newspaper clippings that covered her work, her marriages, and the death of her first husband. And when Jacob Chandler died, he left his home in Morro Bay and all its contents to Benni - the only stipulation being that Benni had to stay in the house, alone, for two weeks before the inheritance became hers. But Benni Harper has never even heard of Jacob Chandler. Now she has two weeks to follow his scavenger-hunt set of clues to discover whether he is her guardian angel or personal demon. The waters are rough and the direction unclear as she finds herself setting a course to a time and a place in her own past - a place Benni Harper and Jacob Chandler both knew as home...

SUMMARY:While trying to unravel a feuding family's tragic past, Benni Harper, an ex-cowgirl who is now a quilter and folk art expert, uncovers a shocking pattern of tragedy--and stitches a hodgepodge of clues into a very disturbing design.