Books by Loretta Ross
Julia’s Heart
Julia’s Heart was a pebble, shaped by the sea. Her toddler son found it on an Oregon beach and her husband had it engraved with their initials and hung on a chain.
It was the one piece of jewelry she never took off, the most identifiable possession found with her remains, and the thing to which her restless spirit is tied.
Julia was a Black woman married to a white man and raising a small son. When she woke up next to her own skeleton in a sea cave, she had no idea how she got there. And when her remains were eventually discovered she learned that the year was 2018. She’d been a missing person since August of 1986. The detective assigned to her case was a racist cop she had a personal history with and the prime suspect was her own beloved husband.
The Auction Block Mysteries
Wren Morgan lives in the small Missouri town of East Bledsoe Ferry, where she grew up. An auctioneer and expert appraiser, she works for a small, family-owned business, Keystone and Sons, Auctioneers. On a typical day she calls auctions, prepares future auctions, finds dead bodies, and gets shot at. Well…at least since she met Death, that is.
Death (pronounced Deeth) Bogart is a disabled Marine combat vet starting over as a private investigator and part-time bounty hunter. A “big, dumb, jarhead,” Death was used to solving his problems with muscle and mulishness. But a chest full of shrapnel has left him with compromised lung capacity. Now he’ll have to rely on his intellect…and learn to accept a little help from his friends.
DEATH and the VIKING’S DAUGHTER
There’s a body in the rosebushes and it’s gonna be a problem.
Death Bogart and Wren Morgan are ready to settle down and make a life together, but, of course, it’s never that simple. Their dream house has a John Doe buried in the garden. Death has been hired by a museum to solve the complicated theft of a not-very-valuable painting. And Wren, helping prepare a long-abandoned yacht club for auction, gets caught up in the mystery of a missing teenage girl. Ingrid Larsen disappeared from a renaissance festival in Cincinnati in the late 1970s but her father, a Viking reenactor, claimed he saw her ghost on the shore by the yacht club.
When their investigations begin to dovetail, it will take all of Death’s and Wren’s wits and ingenuity to keep the ghosts of the past from stealing away their future.
And check out the previous books in the series:
Death and the Gravedigger’s Angel
When former army medic Tony Dozier is accused of killing a member of the hate group that disrupted his wife’s funeral, the prosecution charges premeditated murder and the defense claims temporary insanity. Former marine Death Bogart and auctioneer Wren Morgan think there’s more to the story.
They’re both led to the long-abandoned Hadleigh House, where Wren begins preparing the contents for auction but ends up appraising the story behind an antique sketchbook. As Wren uncovers the century-old tale of a World War I soldier and his angel, Death finds a set of truths that will change…or end…their lives.
Death and the Brewmaster’s Widow
When firefighter Randy Bogart perishes in the arson fire at an abandoned brewery known as the Brewmaster’s Widow, Death Bogart and his girlfriend Wren Morgan travel to St. Louis, Missouri, to find closure. They discover that Randy left his badge behind at the firehouse before going to the brewery. But the coroner finds another badge on Randy’s body, leaving Death and Wren with more questions than answers.
Desperate to know what really happened, Death and Wren begin to investigate. Their digging leads to a connection between Randy’s death and the mysterious Cherokee Caves once used by 19th-century beer barons. But the Brewmaster’s Widow is jealous of her secrets. Prying them loose could cost Death and Wren their lives.
Death and the Redheaded Woman
When auctioneer Wren Morgan begins cataloging the contents of the Campbell mansion, she’s unprepared to find something that can’t be appraised―a dead man. After the body turns out to be a criminal with ties to a recent jewel heist, Wren comes face-to-face with Death Bogart. A private eye and part-time bounty hunter, Death is searching for the stolen jewels needed to convict a murderer.
Death finds a friend and willing ally in Wren, but they aren’t the only ones searching for treasure. Two ruthless men are also on the hunt, and they will do anything to eliminate the competition. To survive, Death and Wren must solve two mysteries spanning a century and a half and outwit a pair of cold-blooded killers.
