Restaurateur and part-time P.I. Jane Lawless is taking some much-needed time off at her family’s lodge when her best friend, Cordelia, arrives with news that Tess, one of their good friends, has taken a nasty fall and needs their help with rehearsals for a play that is set to open in a week. When Tess isn’t on crutches, she helps run the Thunderhook Lodge, the premier resort on Lost Lake. And while she clearly needs Jane and Cordelia’s assistance, she isn’t exactly acting all that grateful.

A man who claims to be a journalist has arrived in Lost Lake with an old photograph and some questions for Tess that go back decades. His questions have put her on edge, and when he shows up peeking through her kitchen window, everyone else is right there with her. As beloved as Tess is, there are plenty of people who don’t care about any so-called journalist and are happy to protect her, but how far are they willing to take it? And when will they need answers to questions that that only Tess can provide?

In The Lost Women of Lost Lake—the most engrossing mystery yet from Lambda and Minnesota Book Award–winning author Ellen Hart—Jane’s only hope of protecting her friends from the secrets that are surfacing all around them is to uncover the whole truth before anyone else can.

Minneapolis restaurateur Jane Lawless is at crossroads. The rough economy has put her plans for a third restaurant on hold, and her long distance romance is on the rocks and quite possibly unsalvageable. Unsure of what to do next, she takes her good friend A. J. Nolan up on his standing offer to take her on as a private investigator.

While still in training, her first job seems simple enough. All she had to do is find Annie Archer’s stepfather. Jane tracks down a likely match—a man who has made a small fortune in real estate. While she’s happy to close her first case, she finds it hard to reconcile the difference between PI work—finding what people pay you to find—and uncovering the truth, the whole truth, especially when clues in this seemingly simple case point to more threatening family secrets than where Annie’s father has been hiding out.

Ellen Hart’s The Mirror and the Mask is another engrossing mystery filled with the deceit and psychological intrigue that fans have come to expect from this Lambda and Minnesota Book Award--winning author.

Lambda and Minnesota Book Award–winning author Ellen Hart delivers another high-caliber mystery with Sweet Poison, her newest Lambda Award Finalist in a mystery series as loved for its delightful charm as for the absorbing psychological depth of its characters.

Jane Lawless is at her wit’s end keeping her Minneapolis restaurants running while volunteering on her father’s campaign for governor. With a solid lead, the race is Ray Lawless’s to lose, but that changes when his rival posts a list of criminals who are on the streets, thanks to Ray’s work as a defense lawyer. Corey Hodge is one of the ex-cons who took Ray’s advice to plead guilty for a crime he swears he didn’t commit, and revenge is never far from his mind. Then one of Ray’s volunteers is killed in such a way that mirrors the crime Corey was convicted of, and Jane must bring in the killer to save her father’s political career and to keep Corey from going to prison again.

The high stakes and intrigue that fuel Sweet Poison make for a gripping novel of ambition and obsession.