Donna Ball's Blog

Dogleg Island Mystery #7 Coming Soon!

 

Now available for pre-order here
Coming September 25
The Saga of the Hunter trilogy, which began with Dead Man's Trail (Raine Stockton Dog Mystery #16) and continued with Undefeatable: A Buck Lawson Mystery (Blood River series Book #3) concludes on Dogleg Island with A FLASH OF SHADOW.  Patrick Henry Jessup, who has left a bloody trail of victims across America's parks and national forests, returns to the Gulf Coast of Florida where he was born.  But has he come home to die, or to kill?
Even if you haven't read the other two books in the series (though I hope you do!) fans of Flash won't want to miss this one.  Changes are coming to Dogleg Island, and you'll want to be a part of them.  The paperback and hardcover editions will be available September 25, with the audio version coming shortly thereafter, but you can pre-order your copy for Kindle now.





  

Now available from for Kindle and in paperback HEREThe S...

Now available from  for Kindle and in paperback HERE
The Saga of the Hunter Continues with Book # 3 of The Blood River Series.

The quiet little south Georgia town of Mercy is rockedby the brutal murder of one of its most unassuming citizens. Within hours ofthe discovery of the crime, the remains of another victim are found in theBlood River. And then another.  Thingslike this simply don’t happen in Mercy.

Until they do.

Police Chief Buck Lawson is still finding his wayaround his new hometown and his new job, but he is no stranger to the savagerythat appears to be stalking the residents of Mercy once again. The black watersof the Blood River have a reputation as a killing field that goes backcenturies, and Buck has seen for himself the kind of predator they attract.

While struggling with civil unrest, departmentalincompetence, and unintentional interference from state investigators, Buck comesupon a set of twenty-year-old crimes that suggest a pattern.  Has the same killer returned to Mercynow?  And has he done so many, many timesin the past?  

Buck Lawson racesagainst time to catch a killer and protect the town he has come to call homefrom the shadows that lurk beneath its surface.  As the hunter becomes thehunted, the line between predator and prey blurs, leading to a desperate confrontationin which only the most determined will survive.
Audible edition coming soon! 

Dead Man's Trail Preorder

Pre-order here for Kindle

On the Trail Again…

Deep in the heart of the Smoky Mountain wilderness there area thousand things that will kill you. One of them is human.

Wilderness expert and dog trainer Raine Stockton agrees to helplead a survival skills training camp for her fiancé’s executive team.  She is unaware that she and her tracking dog,Cisco, are walking into a hotbed of corporate intrigue involving espionage andstolen technology. Everyone at the retreat is a suspect, and no one can betrusted. And none of them is aware that, while their small drama plays out, amuch bigger threat is stalking them.

On a routine survival exercise, the group becomes strandedin the wilderness with an ice storm moving in.  With all communications disabled, they are completelycut off from the modern world and being hunted by a man to whom killing is away of life.   One by one their members are picked off andthe survivors must rely on Raine and Cisco to lead them to safety.  But as the killer draws ever closer, evenRaine is no longer sure where safety lies.

Don’t miss this thrilling first installment in The HunterSaga, Raine and Cisco’s most harrowing adventure yet!

Coming in PRINT May 30, and on Audible this summer. 

 

Now available from Amazon hereAlso available for NookIt's...

Now available from Amazon hereAlso available for Nook

It's been two years since FLASH IN THE DARK and many readers had given up on ever finding out what happened to Aggie, Grady, Flash and friends.  But good news: they're back! FLASH OF FIRE takes place in the late summer following the events of FLASH IN THE DARK and before the events of THE GOOD SHEPHERD.  It may sound confusing, but don't worry-- it's all self-explanatory once you start reading.
Many people have asked why I chose to release THE GOOD SHEPHERD before FLASH OF FIRE. The answer is fairly simple.  With three ongoing mystery series, I knew it would be a long time between books for readers of the Dogleg Island Mysteries.  I didn't want readers to think I'd abandoned them, so I released a Christmas anthology of short stories from each series to tide readers over until the next full-length novel.  It seems to have worked well, and I may do it again from time to time.
In fact, once you finish FLASH OF FIRE, you may want to get in the holiday mood again with THE GOOD SHEPHERD.  It's available for Kindle for $2.99, or you can read the entire anthology, DECK THE HALLS: A HOLIDAY MYSTERY ANTHOLOGY in paperback or  e-book.

Pre-Order Flash of Fire

Pre Order for your Kindle  HERE

Flash is back!

FLASH OF FIRE picks up in the late summer after the events of FLASH IN THE DARK, with new challenges and a new mystery to solve for Aggie, Flash, Grady and friends.

The peaceful Gulf Coast community of Dogleg Island hasalmost returned to normal after the terrifying battle with a drug cartel sixmonths ago.  However, there have been alot of changes on Dogleg Island, and not all of them benign. 

Police Chief Aggie Malone and her canine assistant Flash areglad to be back to the ordinary business of small-town policing again, buttheir move into their new office is not entirely without its challenges. Oldghosts haunt the hallways of their new headquarters as they struggle toovercome the memories of its tragic past.   While Aggie and her husband Grady excitedly awaitthe birth of their first child, Grady is faced with an unexpected careerchange. Old friends are leaving, while others are coming home. Flash, whoseself-appointed job it is to make sense of the ways of the world, finds all thechanges exciting.  Aggie is not so sure.

In the midst of all this, the beaches of Dogleg Island havebeen targeted by a group of environmental activists who insist upon exercisingtheir right to peaceful protest in the most disruptive ways possible.   When a series of apparently harmlessbreak-ins result in the theft of explosives, Aggie begins to suspect theenvironmentalists are not as peaceful as they appear.  And when a man is murdered, Aggie and Flashknow that it’s only a matter of time before the troubles on Dogleg escalateinto a crisis. And they are right.

Somewhere on the island a violent terrorist lurks, and it’sup to Aggie, Flash and Grady to find him before he makes his next move.  The problem is that only one person knows hisidentity, and that person may be even more dangerous than the terrorist.  As the clock ticks down toward disaster,Aggie and Flash find themselves caught up in a desperate guessing game… one inwhich one wrong move could prove deadly.

Flash of Fire is available to pre-order for your Kindle now. Paperback and Nook versions will be released November 29, with the Audible version following soon after.

 

The second installment in The Blood River Series is comin...

The second installment in The Blood River Series is coming June 22!

 In this exciting follow-up to UNFIXABLE, Buck Lawson is doing his best to settle in to his new job as police chief in the little town of Mercy, Georgia.  He is once again called to face an unexpected challenge when skeletal remains are discovered on the property of a prominent citizen. The subsequent investigation uncovers a self-sustaining empire of crime that has been virtually unstoppable for almost 200 years.  It's up to Buck and his small band of  loyal officers to find  a way to dismantle the operation before anyone else dies.

I hope you enjoy UNSTOPPABLE on a beach with a cool drink!  Pre-order for Kindle HERE . Paperback, hardcover, and Nook editions will be released June 22.  Audible version coming later this summer.

 

Deck the Halls

Available in Print and for Kindle ORDER HERE
Happy Holidays everyone!

I wanted to do something special for my readers this year, so I decided that, instead of featuring just one of my fictional sleuths in a holiday book, that the only fair thing to do was to feature all three!  Here, together in one volume, are holiday mysteries from the Raine Stockton Dog Mystery series,  Dogleg Island mystery series, and the Blood River mystery series.  And, to be honest, I can't decide which story I like best!  Here is a description:

Three holiday parties, three holiday mysteries featuring your favorite sleuths:

Raine Stockton and Cisco in Angels in the Snow

While preparing for the annual Dog Daze Christmas party, Raine leaves on a secret Christmas errand and becomes trapped in a blizzard. Injured and alone, with a desperate criminal on the loose, a surprising canine hero comes to her rescue. But is it all a product of her imagination, or a genuine Christmas miracle?

 

Flash and Aggie in The Good Shepherd

A missing infant, a holiday pageant, and a priest determined to do the right thing no matter what the cost all come together to present Dogleg Island police chief Aggie Malone and her canine assistant Flash with one of their most unusual cases yet. When a routine call escalates into a kidnapping on the eve of the annual Dogleg Island Police Department holiday open house, Flash and Aggie are held hostage by a desperate man whose only chance for redemption may be the grace of the holiday season.

 

Buck Lawson in Welcome to Bethlehem

Police chief Buck Lawson wants his first Christmas in his new hometown of Mercy, Georgia, to be a memorable one, both for his family and the police officers under his command. But while preparing to host the traditional police department Christmas party, Buck’s home is burglarized by a Middle Eastern man who may be connected to far more violent crimes. As the investigation unfolds and unsettling connections to the past come to light, Buck fears this Christmas will be memorable for all the wrong reasons.     

UNFIXABLE

 

Order for Kindle here Order in Print hereOrder for Nook here 
I'm so excited to announce that UNFIXABLE: A BUCK LAWSON MYSTERY is now available at your favorite retailer.    Unfixable, a spin-off from the popular Raine Stockton Dog Mystery Series, is the first in the new Blood River series in which Raine's ex, Buck Lawson, sets out to clean up the town of Mercy, Georgia, and gets more than he bargained more.
You can read more about Unfixable here , or download a free sample from Amazon here. I think you'll like it!

COMING SEPTEMBER 16With UNFIXABLE: A Buck Lawson Mystery,...

COMING SEPTEMBER 16

With UNFIXABLE: A Buck Lawson Mystery, I launch my first new series in 6 years.  I couldn't be more excited!  
In this spin-off from the popular Raine Stockton Dog Mystery Series, Former Hanover County Sheriff Buck Lawson leaves the mountains of North Carolina to take a job as the police chief of the small south Georgia town of Mercy, and soon finds himself in over his head.  For one thing, his predecessor has been murdered…

Leaving behind two failed marriages and a job that almost cost him his life, Buck is seeking a fresh start for himself and his new family.  But Mercy is a town with a past as dark as the Blood River that runs through it, and the crime that resulted in the death of the beloved former chief of police may have its roots in an evil that goes back generations.
 
Buck has inherited an unsolved homicide, a house that may well be haunted and a police department that is almost certainly corrupt.    It falls to Buck to free an innocent man and bring the former police chief’s killer to justice while he wades through the quagmire of incompetence and dishonesty that permeates his office.  His efforts are both hampered and assisted by a benevolent despot of a mayor who runs the town like her own fiefdom and is known to bend the law to suit her convenience.  His only true ally, Buck  comes to understand, is the dead man himself.
 When a young college student goes missing, Buck has reason to suspect foul play that may involve one of his police officers. He must rely on his gut to point him to those he can trust.  But as the evidence leads him closer to an unthinkable truth, he realizes he is retracing the footsteps of the former police chief.  Will the path lead him, as it did his predecessor, to his grave?  
You can read the first chapter for free  here
If you'd like to read an interview about how the series came to be, go here.
And enjoy the first installment in the Blood River Series September 16!

FLASH IN THE DARK, Dogleg Island Mystery # 5, Now Available

Order Here
All your questions will be answered!

Dogleg Island Police Chief Aggie Malone has spent years searching for the identity of her birth father.  Now, thanks to a home DNA test, she has a lead… but it’s taking her in a direction she never could have imagined, and desperately does not want to go.  Because the evidence suggests that Aggie could be the daughter of the infamous Angelo, head of the deadly Ghost Syndicate crime empire. 

Matters become more complicated when Aggie’s canine partner, Flash, discovers an abandoned child on the beach. The little girl can tell them nothing about how she got there, but she is clutching a Santa Muerte statuette—a symbol of protection in Hispanic culture, but also the notorious insignia for a drug cartel.   Aggie’s husband, Deputy Sheriff Ryan Grady, becomes involved when the case intersects with his own investigation into the Ghost Syndicate, leading them all down a dark path fill with treachery and deceit in which no one is above suspicion.

Grady unearths a secret organization with sinister connections to the past that may provide the key to bringing down the Ghost Syndicate.  Aggie comes closer to discovering Angelo’s true identity and, perhaps, the truth about her own parentage.   But even as the final pieces of the puzzle fall into place, a plan for revenge that has been decades in the making is unfolding around them.  Unless Aggie, Grady and Flash can stop it they risk losing everything they love… even Dogleg Island itself.

Don’t miss this shocking conclusion to the “Angel Trilogy”!