Loon Lake Mystery Books
The new chief of police in a small Wisconsin town is an accomplished anglerr, but when fishing on the local lake lands a corpse, she will soon be casting for clues throughout the community. Original.
In Wisconsin's Northwoods, fishing buddies Doc Osborne and female Police Chief Lew Ferris find their lives in jeopardy when a baffling murder mystery threatens to reveal dark secrets that someone will do anything to keep hidden. Original.
Loon Lake, Wisconsin, Police Chief Lew Ferris and her unofficial deputy, retired dentist Paul Osborne, investigate the bizarre double murders of two women and find themselves on the trail of an elusive and dangerous killer. Original.
Between a fishing tournament and a biker convention, Loon Lake is flooded with friendly visitors-and some unsavory ones. Pretty soon Doc and Police Chief Ferris are spending less time catching bass and more time catching crooks...
When advice columist and local loon lake resident Hope McDonald is murdered, police chief Lewellyn Ferris, with the help of diehard fisherman Doc Osborne, sets a trap to reel in a clever killer. Original.
When Peg Garmin is murdered in the company of two exotic dancers, this bizarre triple homicide leads Lew, Osborne, and Ray to one of the richest families in Chicago who will do anything to keep their dark secrets buried forever. Original.
The charming resort town of Loon Lake, Wisconsin is once again rocked by murder and retired dentist and fly fisherman Doc Osborne is deputized to help Police Chief Lew Ferris handle two grisly murders committed on one summer morning.
The charming resort town of Loon Lake, Wisconsin is once again rocked by murder and retired dentist and fly fisherman Doc Osborne is deputized to help Police Chief Lew Ferris investigate the death of heiress Nolan Reece, whose body is washes ashore on Thanksgiving morning.
A sunny Thursday heading into the Fourth of July and retired dentist, Doc Osborne, is helping his daughter, Erin, who has just opened her own legal practice. They are assisting an elderly client of Erins reclaim an antique chest from an uncooperative antique dealer when Doc Osborne stumbles over a rug and human remains tumble onto the floor.
It's late January in Loon Lake and bodies abound: a woman on snowshoes has been discovered wedged under a wooden bridge on a cross-country ski trail. A day later, Police Chief Lewellyn Ferris interviews a couple who alleges that the wife, a former nun, is being stalked. Meanwhile, Loon Lake is hosting an International Ice Fishing Festival with problems.
A hot August afternoon and Midwest Clinic CEO John McNeil has been working late. Working on his latest conquest, that is. Jen Williams is twenty-six, in charge of graphics for the hospital's PR divisionand quite attractive in a healthy, athletic kind of way. She is quick to laugh and a little too quick to fall for guys. She is no virgin. And she is one of three womenincluding his wifeintimately familiar with McNeil. When Jen's youthful body is found with a single stab wound through the heart, suspicion falls on both McNeil's wife, who insists she is being stalked, and the striking hospital physician with whom he had just ended an affair. Pressure to find the killer falls on Loon Lake Police Chief Lewellyn "Lew" Ferris and Dr. Paul "Doc" Osborne, the retired dentist and forensic dental expert whom she has deputized to help with the investigationwhen they are not taking a break for fishing and other personal pursuits. When the mayor demands Lew take early retirementand Doc has to babysit his teenage granddaughter who won't stop textingthe frustrations mount. Desperate for a few hours offand persuaded by Ray Pradt (a fishing guide who wears a stuffed trout on his head, so they should have known better)to try fly fishing from kayaks, Doc and Lew find themselves in life-and-death straits on the river. This leads to an unexpected and macabre discovery that just may break the case.
In the midst of a catastrophic August rainstorm, a grisly discovery shatters the serenity of a summer evening in northern Wisconsin. Moving quickly to prevent a panic among tourists, Loon Lake Police Chief Lewellyn Ferris enlists the forensic and interrogation skills of her close friend and fellow fly fisherman, the retired dentist "Doc" Osborne. Within hours of launching their investigation, they find themselves faced with a national media circus as Loon Lake becomes the focus of a murderous scenario that links the murder to the race for the U.S. Senate by a woman who is heir to a Northwoods fortune and other, less savory, family traditions. In the meantime, Doc Osborne's eldest daughter, Mallory, enters into a relationship that may put her life at risk--unless her father and Chief Ferris can find the killer stalking the residents of Loon Lake.
Police Chief Lewellyn Ferris unravels a double mystery deep within the national forest in the fourteenth installment of the gripping Loon Lake Mystery series. It's mid-July in Loon Lake, and Police Chief Lewellyn Ferris has her hands full with the discovery of the skeletal remains of a missing bank executive and the murder of graduate student. To complicate matters, both victims were discovered on a hidden river deep in the heart of the national forest—a place that just so happens to be a dangerous wolf rendezvous site. Lew recruits her close friend and fellow flyfisherman, retired dentist "Doc" Osborne, for his forensic and interrogation skills. But Doc has his own set of problems to worry about: his grandson is hospitalized with a grave illness, and now Lew seems to be getting too interested in the father of the murdered student—a well-to-do widower who is teaching her the Japanese art of tenkara flyfishing.
A Los Angeles Times Page-Turner "...populated with sympathetic, well-drawn characters... ouston also delivers beautiful descriptions of the bucolic setting, along with plenty of sharply rendered fly-fishing scenes." -- Booklist It's the dead of winter in Loon Lake when a wealthy widow is run down and killed by a logging truck on an icy street. The truck driver insists he saw a man shove the woman into the path of his truck. A lone witness who may have seen the man who shoved the victim is soon found dead--drowned in icy waters where he was ice fishing. Within hours, Police Chief Lewellyn Ferris finds herself dealing with malicious family members related to the dead woman, a cache of grisly paintings, and strange disturbances on the land surrounding the widow's contemporary mansion--all of which point to various people who may have wanted her dead. Lew recruits her close friend and fellow flyfisherman, retired dentist "Doc" Osborne, for his forensic and interrogation skills. Meanwhile, Ray Pradt, ice fishing guide and expert tracker, helps with the initial investigation even as he threatens to engage in an inappropriate relationship with a key witness. Lew's life and career is further complicated when a young woman calls, convinced that Lew is her birth mother.
An investigation becomes personal when Chief Lewellyn Ferris and Doc Osborne investigate a mysterious fatal accident in the sixteenth installment of the gripping Loon Lake Mystery series. It's a bright summer morning in Loon Lake when Police Chief Lewellyn Ferris is called to the scene of a horrific accident that occurred in the dead of night at a local gentleman's club. The club is owned by one of the victims, a member of the private Deer Creek Fishing and Hunting Preserve and the scion of a wealthy Wisconsin family. When the county coroner is unavailable due to a car accident, Chief Ferris deputizes her close friend and fellow fly-fisherman, retired dentist "Doc" Osborne, to step in. Osborne's discovery of mysterious footprints confirms Chief Ferris's suspicions: this is no accident; it's murder. Leaning on Doc Osborne for his forensic and interrogation skills, Lew also hopes to enlist the help of Ray Pradt, fishing guide and expert tracker. But Ray's time is limited as he is coaching the University of Wisconsin's fishing team in a muskie fishing tournament. Things get complicated when Doc Osborne's granddaughter disappears on the first day of the tournament. Sunny June days turn dark as a desperate search ensues.
In the next installment of the Loon Lake Mystery series, Lewellyn Ferris and Doc Osborne must solve a murder that shatters the picturesque Wisconsin lake town community at the height of summer. On a lovely Sunday afternoon in late June, the annual Loon Lake Youth Fishing Tournament is coming to a close. People are happy, kids are full of ice cream, and teenagers are setting off firecrackers so loud that no one hears the gunshot. But when the crowd thins out, an attractive young wife makes a grisly discovery: A single bullet to the head has killed her much older husband—the richest man in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, as the murder investigation gets underway, Police Chief Lewellyn Ferris's good friend and deputy coroner, “Doc” Osborne, is alarmed to hear that his oldest grandchild, fifteen-year-old Beth, has been caught in a drug sting. And Loon Lake’s idyllic summer is further shattered when numerous elderly patients in the local nursing home discover they have been robbed. “Victoria Houston’s love for her Wisconsin setting—and her wonderful characters—is evident on every page of her fine series” ( New York Times bestselling author Laura Lippman).
Murder She Wrote meets Fargo in the eighteenth installment of Victoria Houston’s “engaging” ( Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine ) and critically acclaimed mystery series set in the northwoods of Wisconsin. "My wife and Gordon Maxwell tried to kill me this morning." Doc Osborne is startled by the unexpected words tumbling out of the mouth of his friend and fellow AA member Chuck Pelletier, the recently remarried lead accountant for a planned luxury fly-fishing lodge preserve under construction in the area. Alarmed, Doc tries to alert Police Chief Lew Ferris, but she is tied up with law enforcement teams across the state. They’re searching for thieves who have been cutting down and stealing hundreds of thousands of precious birch trees from public and private property across northern Wisconsin. But it’s too late. Pelletier is found dead not two hours later. Doc is shocked, saddened, and determined to get to the bottom of the murder. With one man dead, evidence of lakeshore properties being stolen from elderly owners, and an attempted sexual assault, short-handed Chief Ferris deputizes Doc and his skilled tracker neighbor to help with the investigation. Then, just as they seem to be getting somewhere, things grow even more complicated. Just another summer in Loon Lake.
Murder, She Wrote meets Fargo in the Northwoods of Wisconsin in the nineteenth “gripping, atmospheric, and smart” (T. Jefferson Parker, New York Times bestselling author) installment of the Loon Lake series. When the bodies of a wealthy Chicago industrialist and his wife are discovered in their summer home at the same time that a local lawyer disappears, life becomes complicated for Loon Lake Chief of Police Lew Ferris. Relying on the forensic dental expertise of her close friend and acting coroner, Doc Osborne, Lew soon finds the investigations are even more complicated than she thought when a rarely used computer belonging to a local sawmill operation is taken over by foreign hackers. Add to that the family issues facing both Lew and Doc, and this Northwoods summer becomes both hot and dangerous. Engaging and fast-paced, Dead Big Dawg is a clever mystery perfect for fans of Lee Goldberg and Janet Evanovich .