Showing results by author "Donna Ball" in All Categories

When Bridget, Cici and Lindsay left behind their safe suburban lives for a stately old mansion in the Shenandoah Valley, they redefined the concept of family. The friends, like the house, have faced many challenges and undergone major changes over the years. But the one thing they never imagined was that one day they would be expanding their house of women to make room for a husband.

Raine Stockton and her high-spirited, big-hearted golden retriever, Cisco, are accustomed to being heroes wherever they go. But there's a new dog in town, and Raine and Cisco find themselves upstaged by a flashy K-9 addition to the sheriff's department. Nike and her handler, Jolene, are part of a new government-funded program. Though Raine admires Nike's talent almost as much as she resents Jolene's arrogance, she wonders why the Department of Homeland Security would send such an expensive gift to their sleepy Smoky Mountain community.

Raine Stockton knows dogs, not kids. Nonetheless, she is supremely confident in her ability to take care her fiancé’s 10-year-old daughter Melanie for a week while he is out of town. After all, how hard could it be? But things get complicated when Raine and her golden retriever Cisco rescue a dog who is locked in a hot car in a remote Smoky Mountain park and subsequently discover the owner of that car drowned in the creek only a few dozen yards away. Was it an accident, or was it murder?

For dog trainer and search-and-rescue volunteer Raine Stockton, the last few months have been marked by murder, danger, and betrayal. A luxury vacation to the Caribbean resort island of St. Bart's sounds like the perfect antidote for stress, particularly since it includes three of her favorite traveling companions: her boyfriend, Miles; his daughter, Melanie; and Raine's happy-go-lucky golden retriever, Cisco. But even in paradise, trouble finds them.

A deadly explosion at an archaeological dig on Dogleg Island plunges police chief Aggie Malone and her canine partner Flash into a dark mystery from the past. On the other side of the bridge, Deputy Sheriff Ryan Grady, still reeling from the brutal assassination of his ex-partner, stumbles onto the site of a mass murder. In the midst of a state-wide manhunt for a desperate fugitive, Aggie deals with a new island administrator who threatens the future of police department, while a mysterious stranger with an agenda of his own stalks Grady.

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

Still recovering from the traumatic events of the past year, newlyweds Aggie Malone, police chief of Dogleg Island, and Deputy Sheriff Ryan Grady are looking forward to a casual day trip to Wild Horse Island, a nearby nature preserve, with their precocious - and uncannily perceptive - border collie, Flash. But when Flash discovers a body in a shallow grave on the island, and Aggie and Ryan learn of an attack on the park ranger, a tangled knot of conspiracy, murder and deception begins to unfold.

Aggie Malone is a dedicated young cop who has spent her entire life just looking for a place to call home. She never thought she'd find it in a quaint Florida village called Dogleg Island, where almost nothing ever happens. Deputy Ryan Grady is an easygoing playboy who carries a surf board in the trunk of his patrol car and lives in the same rambling beach cottage his grandfather built 70 years ago. He grew up on Dogleg Island and can't imagine ever living anywhere else. It's always been the most peaceful place he has ever known.

Raine's old boyfriend Andy Fontana is back in town...and at the top of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List. With a fortune in diamonds hidden somewhere in the wilderness, several recent acts of eco-terrorism and an unsolved murder laid at Andy's door, the feds turn to Raine Stockton, with her unsurpassed knowledge of the mountains and her reputation as a wilderness tracker, to help bring Andy to justice. The only problem is that Raine still believes Andy is innocent...

A notorious serial killer, come home to die. A young woman found hanging from a tree. A missing billionaire. In the quiet coastal community of Dogleg Island, nothing is as it should be. And for Police Chief Aggie Malone and her extraordinarily perceptive canine assistant Flash, time is running out. When Acting Sheriff Ryan Grady apprehends a suspect attempting to rob his father’s bait shop, he has no idea that the man he has taken into custody will eventually confess to over one hundred murders…

For Raine Stockton, owner and proprietor of Dog Daze Boarding and Training, August is the busiest time of year. She has all she can handle with a kennel full of dogs, a very strange new employee, and a personal life that seems to be falling apart at the seams. The last thing she needs is another complication. But when she takes in a gorgeous white golden retriever that was found covered in blood and wandering alone in a national park, the complications have only begun.

As a native of the small town of Hansonville, North Carolina,and a wilderness rescue worker, Raine Stockton knows the Smoky Mountains as well as anyone could, but she gave up her Search and Rescue work after a tragic loss. Now she reluctantly returns to active duty to help find a young child who has been kidnapped and taken deep into the forest.

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.

A weekend competition turns deadly in this seventh Raine Stockton Dog Mystery. While Raine and Cisco stalk a killer, back home a 20-year-old mystery is unfolding--one that will have devastating consequences for Raine and those she loves. And every hour that passes brings a deadly threat closer.

A gripping tale of suspense, mystery, and the unyielding pursuit of justice. The Saga of the Hunter ContinuesThe quiet little south Georgia town of Mercy is rocked by the brutal murder of one of its most unassuming citizens. Within hours of the discovery of the crime, the remains of another victim are found in the Blood River. And then another. Things like this simply don’t happen in Mercy. Until they do. Police Chief Buck Lawson is still finding his way around his new hometown and his new job, but he is no stranger to the savagery that appears to be stalking the residents of Mercy once again.

No one knows the mountains of North Carolina like Raine Stockton and her search and rescue dog, Cisco. When they are called in to search for an elderly man who has wandered away from home, it seems like a routine mission until Raine looks through her binoculars and sees something she wasn't supposed to see. A dead man is very much alive, a felon is walking around free, and Raine is the only person who can testify to the fact. The problem is that no one takes her claims seriously...except the person who wants her dead.

The annual Hansonville, North Carolina Founder’s Day Festival it’s a perfect opportunity to raise money for the local animal shelter for Raine Stockton...but when a stranger wanders into her fund-raising booth, the peaceful country afternoon is turned into chaos.... When the unthinkable happens and an innocent life is placed in jeopardy, Raine is forced to make a terrible choice: one that will shake her to her very core and cause her to question not only herself, but everything she has ever believed.

Dog trainer Raine Stockton has lived all her life in the quiet community of Hansonville, North Carolina. She is the daughter of a judge, the niece of a sheriff, and the ex-wife of a deputy. She does not lead the kind of life, generally speaking, in which people get buried in her backyard. But when Cisco, Raine's mischievous golden retriever, digs up human bones beneath the site of what will soon be her new training kennel, mayhem ensues.

Though still adjusting to a new job, a new town, and a new family, Buck is acutely aware that the probationary period specified by his contract with the City of Mercy is almost up. His relationship with the mayor has never been ideal, and he knows he could be fired at any time. It therefore seems imprudent to refuse when the mayor asks him to do a favor for an old friend and political ally, Jarrod Whitley.

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...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 wading through the quagmire of incompetence and dishonesty that permeates his office.