Tell Me No Lies: An Ava Logan Mystery

Ava Logan, the plucky heroine of this well-plotted series launch from Willis (Wink of an Eye), owns the local newspaper in Jackson Creek, N.C. A young widow with two children, Ava is smart, sensitive, and resilient. While taking two-year-old Ivy, whom she is babysitting, back to the child’s home, she discovers Ivy’s mother, Trish Givens, gruesomely murdered. When Trish’s parents refuse to take Ivy, Ava, a former foster child, offers to adopt her. This brings the two men in Ava’s life—Sheriff Grayson Ridge and Rick, her on-call attorney and sometime boyfriend—into conflict. It also makes it imperative that she discover the identity of Ivy’s father. Her investigations lead her into a ginseng-poaching scheme, and she suddenly finds herself dodging sniper bullets. Who’s waiting in the shadows ready to take Ava’s life, and why? Well-drawn characters, a dash of romance, and enough logically constructed red herrings to keep the reader guessing right up to the end distinguish this tightly woven tale. Agent: Michelle Johnson, Inklings Literary Agency. (Feb.)