Rock Shop Mysteries
(2023)(A book in the Rock Shop Mystery series)
An omnibus of novels by Catherine Dilts
Stone Cold Dead
Business at the Rock of Ages is as dead as the fossils cluttering the shop’s dusty shelves. Morgan Iverson, recently widowed and jobless, expects managing the family rock shop for two weeks will be more vacation than work. When she arrives in Colorado, her brother slaps the keys in her hand and announces he’s never coming back.
Her first day in charge, two pet donkeys escape. While rounding them up on a snowy mountain trail, Morgan discovers the body of a Goth teen. After the newspaper splashes the front page with more sensation than truth, Morgan becomes the victim of an escalating series of near misses. She suspects the killer wants to eliminate the only witness to the crime. The problem is, she didn’t see anything.
As Morgan struggles to save the Rock of Ages—and herself—from extinction, a handsome shop owner pursues her. He seems more eager to get his hands on her property than on her middle-aged body. Selling the rock shop would toss a homeless old cowboy out into the winter cold, and send the escape-artist donkeys to the glue factory.
New friends convince Morgan to join a running club, but racing on remote trails exposes her to more danger. Unless she can dig up the identity of the murderer, Morgan’s life won’t be worth a pile of fossilized dinosaur dung.
Stone Cold Case
Rock shop owner Morgan Iverson’s discovery of human remains reopens a cold case and unhealed wounds in a Colorado mountain town, while her find of a rare gemstone sparks a dangerous treasure hunt.
Fifteen years ago, prom queen Carlee Kruger vanished. When Carlee’s mother asks Morgan to investigate her death, the clues seem as convoluted as the coils on a fossilized ammonite. The local newspaper editor joins the hunt to uncover the past, while the rock shop’s mascot donkeys and an elderly cowboy chase after a Sasquatch look-alike. Whoever knows what happened to Carlee will do anything to keep the truth buried.
Stone Cold Blooded
A small-town Colorado rock shop owner—and amateur sleuth—has a new case involving explosions, aliens, a dinosaur, and murder.
Morgan Iverson's reclusive survivalist neighbor is blown to bits. The police believe he stumbled into his own booby trap, but his granddaughter asks Morgan and newspaperman Kurt Willard to prove it was murder. After the explosions, mysterious white creatures make elusive appearances near the rock shop, drawing a summertime invasion of true believers hoping to prove the existence of aliens. Meanwhile, Morgan learns there may be more to her Triceratops than just the brow horn, and that finding the rest of the dinosaur may solve her neighbor's demise.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Business at the Rock of Ages is as dead as the fossils cluttering the shop’s dusty shelves. Morgan Iverson, recently widowed and jobless, expects managing the family rock shop for two weeks will be more vacation than work. When she arrives in Colorado, her brother slaps the keys in her hand and announces he’s never coming back.
Her first day in charge, two pet donkeys escape. While rounding them up on a snowy mountain trail, Morgan discovers the body of a Goth teen. After the newspaper splashes the front page with more sensation than truth, Morgan becomes the victim of an escalating series of near misses. She suspects the killer wants to eliminate the only witness to the crime. The problem is, she didn’t see anything.
As Morgan struggles to save the Rock of Ages—and herself—from extinction, a handsome shop owner pursues her. He seems more eager to get his hands on her property than on her middle-aged body. Selling the rock shop would toss a homeless old cowboy out into the winter cold, and send the escape-artist donkeys to the glue factory.
New friends convince Morgan to join a running club, but racing on remote trails exposes her to more danger. Unless she can dig up the identity of the murderer, Morgan’s life won’t be worth a pile of fossilized dinosaur dung.
Stone Cold Case
Rock shop owner Morgan Iverson’s discovery of human remains reopens a cold case and unhealed wounds in a Colorado mountain town, while her find of a rare gemstone sparks a dangerous treasure hunt.
Fifteen years ago, prom queen Carlee Kruger vanished. When Carlee’s mother asks Morgan to investigate her death, the clues seem as convoluted as the coils on a fossilized ammonite. The local newspaper editor joins the hunt to uncover the past, while the rock shop’s mascot donkeys and an elderly cowboy chase after a Sasquatch look-alike. Whoever knows what happened to Carlee will do anything to keep the truth buried.
Stone Cold Blooded
A small-town Colorado rock shop owner—and amateur sleuth—has a new case involving explosions, aliens, a dinosaur, and murder.
Morgan Iverson's reclusive survivalist neighbor is blown to bits. The police believe he stumbled into his own booby trap, but his granddaughter asks Morgan and newspaperman Kurt Willard to prove it was murder. After the explosions, mysterious white creatures make elusive appearances near the rock shop, drawing a summertime invasion of true believers hoping to prove the existence of aliens. Meanwhile, Morgan learns there may be more to her Triceratops than just the brow horn, and that finding the rest of the dinosaur may solve her neighbor's demise.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Used availability for Catherine Dilts's Rock Shop Mysteries