Jubilee Days: Laramie, Wyoming's annual rodeo bash and sin fest. It's a whole week of broncos bucking, guitars twanging, and cash registers ringing. Nobody much wants to spoil the party, not even when a local loser turns up dead in the mountains east of town.Almost nobody. Sally Adler and Hawk Green, a couple of college professors out for an afternoon hike, find the body, and for Sally and Hawk, murder is anything but academic. Like the victim, Sally's done her time in the glare of the late-night neon lights, and she knows how thin the line can be between honky-tonk angels and lost souls. She's determined to do what she can to see justice. Hawk knows he'd better stay close and keep his eyes open. Sally has a way of attracting the wrong kind of attention.From the jam-packed barrooms to the wide-open spaces, Sally and Hawk unravel the dark threads of a sinister scheme. It's a race to find the killer before Sally becomes the next victim.

In the third book in Virginia Swift's acclaimed mystery series, Sally Alder, hailed by USA Today as "Wyoming's version of TV's Jessica Fletcher or Agatha Christie's Miss Marple," is back with her colorful cohorts to investigate a bizarre murder.Okay, it's embarrassing for a woman of her professional stature and self-image still to have a crush on singer Thomas "Stone" Jackson, a guy whose nickname derives from his legendary propensity for addictive substances. But when Jackson appears one day and asks college professor and sometime sleuth Sally Alder for a little help, she can't say no. Jackson is worried about his ex-wife, folksinger Nina Cruz.It turns out his concern is justified when Nina is found shot to death in the snow-covered forest behind her house. While the sheriff's office believes Nina's death is most likely a hunting accident, Sally is unconvinced. It's up to her to get to the truth, as she uncovers a plot fueled by a twisted mixture of altruism and...

Sally Alder is a couple of ears past her wild youth as the hard-drinking, guitar playing, hell-raising singer known as Mustang Sally. But then she's grown with age, She's wiser and more coolheaded now, and, more important, Sally has learned how to keep a secret. It's a good thing, too, because she's going to need every advantage she's gained in order to handle the job she's just taken.Imagine having to move from LA to Laramie to get a thrill.A professor of history at UCLA, Sally has just been offered the hugely endowed and deliciously secretive Dunwoodie Distinguished Chair in American Women's History at the University of Wyoming. Job description: Move into the late Meg Dunwoodie's posh residence in Laramie (the only one of its kind) and, with sole proprietors of her papers, construct the definitive Meg Dunwoodie biography—without telling anyone anything about it.Sally Alder is a couple of ears past her wild youth as the hard-drinking, guitar playing,...

Book description to come.