Kelly O'Connell Mysteries Series

In Judy Alter’s Danger Comes Home, dogs, drugs and death take Kelly on a wild ride with a runaway girl and her abused mother, a relapsed former gangsta, and a drug-dealing gang in her own neighborhood. Add in an imperious recluse for variety, and as usual Kelly’s life is anything but calm. Husband Mike Shandy is right: she has a talent for trouble.

Kelly O’Connell never thought real estate was a dangerous profession. But while updating early-twentieth-century Craftsman houses in an older neighborhood in Fort Worth, Texas, she stumbles over a skeleton and begins unraveling an old murder. The police call it a cold case, but Kelly knows she must solve the murder if she is to finish the house and sell it. She and her two young daughters quickly become the target of threats and vandalism, and someone is telling her ex-husband in California what’s going on. Tim Spencer arrives to protect his daughters by taking them to California with him but is soon found shot to death. Then a new client barges into Kelly’s life, and she finds herself facing a gun, a deadly killer, and the solution to the mystery of the skeleton and Tim’s death.

None of the pieces of the puzzle fit. What does the disappearance of a young girl and her disreputable boyfriend have to do with harrassment and threats against Kelly? How does a nurse in her doctor's office fit into the puzzle, and why are two men using the same name? Who is stalking Kelly and why? What does a surprise inheritance entail? Kelly can't make the pieces fit but she knows she must protect her daughters and the unborn child she's carrying. Come along for a wild ride of hostages, kidnapping, and someone desperate for death.

The Color of Fear marks Judy Alter’s return to mystery fiction and the Kelly O’Connell series after an absence of more than a year. This time, the indomitable Keisha narrates the short tale wherein Kelly and her family live under the threat of infant Gracie’s kidnapping. The story serves as a reprise of many of the previous novels in the series, as Keisha, in her search for the kidnapper, recalls Kelly’s earlier adventures. And the fear for Gracie colors the overall story, Keisha remains outspoken and independent as she balances her need to protect Kelly and her family with her love for new husband, José Thornberry. Some but not all of Kelly’s friends and foes from previous stories appear here, along with such new characters as Clyde, the guard dog, and Cowboy, the homeless guy with a soft heart.

When four young men sign the rental contract on a Fairmount House, realtor Kelly O'Connell has no idea she has just signed a contract for chaos. But the racial tensions sweeping the country erupt in Fort Worth, and her tenants fan the flames.  A young black policeman shoots an unarmed white teenage thief who charged him, the chief of police is shot by a sniper, and Kelly's husband, Mike, is appointed interim chief of police. Life changes dramatically for Kelly and her family. Protests, threats, beatings, and graffiti mark daily life in Kelly's beloved city. She must protect her infant, reassure her older daughters, and support Mike as he deals with the racism and dissension creeping through the police force and the city. How can she keep her family safe and stop the hate? Will the mayor's city-wide Celebration of Neighbors calm a city on the edge?

Dallas developer Silas Fletcher sees endless real estate opportunities in Wheeler, Texas if only he can "grow" the town. Blue Plate Café owner Kate Chambers likes her hometown just the way it is, thank you very much, without big box and chain stores. When Fletcher tries to capitalize on a thirty-year-old unsolved murder, Kate know she must fight for her town, and she uses historic preservation of the old bus depot as one of her weapons. A suspicious death and a new murder make her also fight for her own life. All your Wheeler friends are here—Kate's partner David, Chief of Police Chester, brother-in-law Tom and difficult sister Donna—along with some new faces, such as the adventure-seeking Steffens of Ohio, Silas, Bronx-born minister Tony Russo and his wife Ambra, and Delia Jackson, sole survivor of a doomed and sad family.

When a serial killer begins targeting older women in Fort Worth’s Fairmount neighborhood, realtor/renovator Kelly O’Connell investigates, in spite of the pleas of her companion, policeman Mike Shandy, and her assistant, the colorful Keisha, that she stay out of it. Kelly knows a serial killer will hurt business, and she worries about the frightened old women in the neighborhood. And when Claire Guthrie, a friend and former client, shows up at Kelly’s front door announcing that she’s just shot her husband in the butt, Kelly becomes her champion. Kelly knows about bad marriages and bad husbands from her own experience. Then Kelly’s mom, the needy Cynthia O’Connell, decides to move to Fort Worth to be near her grandchildren. Kelly, a harried, hassled, and loving single mom of two young girls, unwittingly puts her children, her mom, and herself in danger and almost derails her love life.

Kelly O’Connell has her hands full: her husband Mike Shandy is badly injured in an automobile accident, developer Tom Lattimore wants to build a big-box grocery store called Wild Things in Kelly’s Fairmount neighborhood, and someone is stalking Kelly. Tom Lattimore’s pressure turns to threats when Kelly activates a neighborhood coalition to fight the project and tries to find out who is stalking her and why. Mike is both powerless to stop her and physically unable to protect her and his family. After their house is smoke-bombed and Kelly survives an amateur attack on her life, she comes close to an unwanted trip to Mexico from which she might never return.