Ria Quinn Mysteries Series

A legacy that sets her up for life from a relative she never knew existed…A secret that began at a boarding school and haunted someone who wanted revenge…An ancient circle of stones that unravels it all…   On a cold March day, Ria Quinn, amateur archaeologist, arrives in Shokan Falls in upstate New York to claim an inheritance—but who was Aunt Harriet, her benefactor? No one she has ever heard of! Ria discovers there is a mysterious, prehistoric stone circle in the nearby woods that has an impossible connection to the girl's boarding school her aunt attended thirty years before. Along with this, on her first day she finds a dead body in the snow, gets an anonymous call in the night, and encounters a set of quirky townspeople with too many secrets. How is she supposed to make sense of any of it? When a second victim is found, Ria wonders if she should just return to London, where until recently she had a lowly job as a film researcher with no dead bodies lying around, no real ones, anyway.   Yet against the sheriff's orders that she stay clear of his work, Ria intends to find out who the killer is and what link the ancient stone circle has to her aunt's past.   Hailey, the golden retriever who befriends her, is a joy to have near, reading Beowulf in Old English keeps her calm, and she finds the local sheriff more than easy on the eyes, even if he does find her irritating. Those things, together with the gorgeous and ancient Shawangunk and Catskill mountain ranges of the Hudson River Valley, already have a hold on her.   But her desire to get at the truth threatens someone in Shokan Falls, someone who is willing to put her life at risk.  

During the annual Halloween festival in Shokan Falls, Ria Quinn discovers a prehistoric peat bog on the outskirts of town. It lies near an abandoned state hospital that was originally built as an insane asylum.   As an amateur archaeologist exploring artifacts in Britain, Ria had come across unstable bogs before, places where ancient bodies lay hidden beneath. She just has to check this one out. Only, when she takes a few careful steps across it, the body of a woman surfaces, one Ria knows has not spent millennia in such a watery grave.   Soon after, remarkable footage shows up in an old film she is given, suggesting the insane asylum may have been built over a Neolithic village, though this is in wild dispute.   Ria is pulled into a mystery that inextricably links the woman in the bog to the asylum and to a Native American legend drawn out of the landscape of the Hudson River Valley. Despite the wishes (and orders) of local Sheriff Gareth Matheson and resistance from the mayor of Shokan Falls, she cannot help but investigate it all, with her golden retriever Hailey at her side.   And when the mayor is found dead inside the ruins of the asylum, Ria must discover the truth about a secret held in silence for too long.

A consciousness-raising group is holding their retreat at the Merlyn Inn. Their plan for a fire ceremony in the meadow across Druid Lane makes innkeeper Deidre frantic, until Ria agrees to help. When a lute-player she meets at the retreat persuades Ria to join him in exploring an ancient boulder field behind the inn, he shows her how the stones ring in bell-like tones when tapped with a hammer. While clambering over the field, they are shocked to discover the bludgeoned body of a man in a business suit, a hammer beside him that has been used for much more than tapping on the stones.   Amateur archaeologist that she is, Ria wants to know why he was digging in that field. Is it possible the River Writers club staying at the inn knows what is going on? She has never met a quirkier group of people. What about their leader, who knows too much about Ria? There's no chance to find out. After the fire ceremony, amidst celebrations inside the inn, he is found murdered.   The fire ceremony itself haunts her. Ria joins the drumming circle, surrounded by high posts topped with flaming torches, the dark woods behind as a backdrop. It is mesmerizing. So often while exploring archaeological digs, she had imagined living in the prehistoric times the digs revealed. With the drumming, she feels suddenly as if she has come close.   Seeing a phone video of a hooded figure digging through the boulder field, Ria and friends go there and witness the same figure, only to end up scaring him away. Yet her presence and her constant questions have awakened someone else's curiosity. Whoever it is wants whatever the stones are hiding, and Ria knows he is not done yet. She feels safe in her home with her precious golden retriever Hailey at her side—but is she?

Tarot readings, ancient stone chambers, a JULY 4th summer fair, and too many secrets in a small town...join Ria Quinn to solve yet another mystery in Book 4!  Treasure both ancient and hidden as Ria seeks to find the secrets held in a prehistoric stone chamber and to outwit an intruder who sees the Fourth of July as a cover for murder... "It's the Fourth of July in Shokan Falls, grand cause for a jubilant celebration with bunting and streamers and flags, picnics in the park, a Ferris wheel, and a brass band playing in the gazebo. Yet once more, Ria finds herself in the middle of a deadly puzzle. Near dawn, before the festive day begins, she goes with the Benedictine monk Brother Jocelin to explore a sacred prehistoric stone chamber, long hidden in the nearby woods. As the rising sun enters the opening to it, they find a body lying under a shroud on a high bier. Not long after, when the celebration is in full swing, another suspicious death occurs, this time in the park. Searching for answers, Ria discovers quartz gold deposits were once mined in the area, knowledge that sends her into danger. But it is when she is at Deidre's for an evening of psychic readings that the mysterious power within the ancient stone chamber is suddenly revealed to her. And the identity of a killer."