M.R. Rutter was born in the mountains of Colorado to an ex-hippy and former Marine. She spent much of her childhood on her grandparents ranch near Leadville CO.She studied forensic anthropology and ancient history in college and started her professional life as an assistant to her advisors while working on her coursework and thesis. After years of teaching other professors' classes and putting murdered children back together rather than working on her focus, ancient remains, M.R. left the field to pursue a career as a writer.She now lives and works on a sustainable agriculture research farm in Minnesota with her husband, daughter and a menagerie of animals where she is a full time farmer, research assistant, mother and writer.Happily for M. R. she can still fill her novels with mummies, skeletons and corpses.
A sinkhole is the perfect place to hide a body. Or is it?While standing over the skeletons of young women discovered deep beneath the earth, Deputy Sheriff Ingrid Olaffsen knew she was facing the challenge of her career. One she thought she’d never see working in rural Minnesota.She was wrong.Soon there’s the disappearance of yet another girl and Ingrid realizes that she’s on the trail of a killer. One she has to stop, before the unthinkable happens.When Michael Wilson appears in Ingrid’s life and investigation, Ingrid is torn. She is attracted to the handsome, enigmatic former marine with sad eyes, a slow drawl and a killer smile. More so than she has ever been in her life, but she doesn’t fully trust his motives.Ingrid doesn’t know whether to cuff him or kiss him. But she does know that the only place she feels strong, safe and whole is in his arms.How can Ingrid believe in love when she can’t even trust the ground beneath her feet?
Mode of death: accidental.
Or is it?
Marilyn Olaffsen knows it wasn’t an accident. Or the cruel gossip that Faith killed herself.
She knows, down to the toes of her scuffed boots, her friend was murdered. Just as she knows the horrors, hidden behind plain clothes, Faith had endured.
Enlisting the help of Colonel William Talbot, Marilyn sets out to find justice.
Soon, she’s torn between her need for answers and an attraction to a man who is wrong for her, even if she feels complete in the shelter of his arms.
For Will, a friend’s wedding is the perfect hiding place from his family’s machinations. Will’s plans don’t include a mesmerizing redhead in mud spattered jeans, who is off limits by every rule in the “Bro Code”.
As the body count rises, it becomes clear that some secrets are worth killing for.
Despite their burning attraction, Marilyn and Will realize they need to work together to find a killer, before becoming victims themselves.
In a lethal world determined to tear them apart, love is the biggest risk of all.