BooksChatter: ☀ The Sound of Running Horses : Dogleg Island Mysteries [2]

Thank you for joining us on the Virtual Book Tour for The Sound of Running Horses , a Mystery by Donna Ball (15 July 2016, Blue Merle Publishing, 260 pages).

This is the second book in the Dogleg Island Mysteries series.

Don't miss our interview with author Donna Ball.

PREVIEW: Check out the book's synopsis and excerpt below. Read the first four chapters with Amazon Look Inside.

Author Donna Ball will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner via Rafflecopter during the tour. Please do take part: comment on our post and follow the tour where you will be able to read other excerpts (☀), and reviews (✍).

Synopsis | Teaser | The Series | Author Q&A | About the Author | Giveaway & Tour Stops

Synopsis

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.

Fifteen hundred miles away, an ex-con and a fifteen year old girl embark upon a crime spree that will earn them the nicknames “Bonnie and Clyde”. As they make their way inexorably south, Aggie, Grady and Flash are thrust into the middle of a murder investigation that leads to the arrest of one of their neighbors and the attempted suicide of another. When a search of the dead girl’s belongings reveals a priceless emerald bracelet and two of the island's most popular residents go missing, the puzzle becomes even more complicated. Grady and Aggie struggle to put all the pieces into place while Flash, ever obsessed with understanding the human condition, wrestles with a more painful dilemma: how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys when they are so often the same person?

Teaser: Excerpt

     Aggie dropped the phone into her pocket and shouted, “Flash!”
     While she was on the phone Jack had cast off and started the engine, but he hadn’t yet moved away from the dock. Aggie dived for the rope just as Flash reached the rail. She stripped the rope off the cleat and tossed it to Flash, who made one circuit around the rail support before leaping onto the dock with the end of the rope in his mouth. The boat began to edge away from the dock, taking up the slack in the rope, as Aggie snatched the rope from Flash and started to wind it around the cleat. She was tying the knot when she heard the gear lock in and felt a strong tug that almost pulled her off balance and into the water. Panic leapt to her throat. She finished tying the knot, praying it would hold, and shouted, “Jack Saunders, cut your engines! Cut your engines and disembark! That’s an order!”
     The line stretched taut but the knot held. The boat rocked in the water. Saunders called back,
     “You can’t give orders to a captain on his own boat!”
     Aggie pulled her gun and got down on one knee in a shooter’s stance. “Cut your engines this minute or I swear I’ll fill this boat with so many holes she’ll never float again! Do it now!”
     The boat railing began to creak as it strained against the pull of the engines and the opposing pull of the rope. Aggie held her breath, but she also held her aim. In a moment the engines throttled down. “Return to dock!” she shouted. “Disembark with your hands above your head!”
      Flash jumped on board as soon as the boat was close enough, and kept Saunders in the pine-scented wheelhouse until Aggie had securely tied off again. He had done take-downs before, but never on water and never, he had to admit, one that was this much fun. Captain Jack snarled at him but Flash had bigger teeth, and after he demonstrated as much the captain gave him no more trouble. Saunders climbed sullenly onto the dock and raised his hands in the air. Flash kept a wary eye on him. After all, people, as he well knew, were unpredictable.
     Aggie holstered her gun and snatched Jack’s hands behind his back. She was breathing so hard she was practically wheezing, and she was soaked in sweat. “You are under arrest,” she said, with difficulty, “for evading a police officer, interfering with an investigation, withholding evidence, and disobeying an order from an officer of the law. Damn it,” she said angrily as she snapped the cuffs closed, “I told you not to make me do this the hard way.”

The Sound of Running Horses
Available NOW!

The Series: Dogleg Island Mysteries

Click on the book cover to Look Inside the book on Amazon and read an excerpt.

Flash [1]

Almost two years ago the sleepy little community of Dogleg Island was the scene of one of the most brutal crimes in Florida history. The only eye witnesses were a border collie puppy and a police officer. Since that time Flash has grown from a puppy into a vital part of the Dogleg Island Police Department, and has lived happily with the two people who rescued him on that horrible night: Deputy Sheriff Ryan Grady and Police Chief Aggie Malone.

Now the trial of the century is about to begin. The defendant, accused of slaughtering his parents in their beach home, maintains his innocence. Aggie and Ryan, the top witnesses for the prosecution, know he is lying. But only Flash knows the truth.

And with another murder to solve, a tangle of conflicting evidence to sort out, and a brutal storm on the way, the truth may come too late... for all of them.

[Published 1 May 2015, 359 pages]

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About the Author

Donna Ball is the author of over a hundred novels under several different pseudonyms in a variety of genres that include romance, mystery, suspense, paranormal, western adventure, historical and women’s fiction.

Recent popular series include the Ladybug Farm series by Berkley Books and the Raine Stockton Dog Mystery series.

Donna is an avid dog lover and her dogs have won numerous titles for agility, obedience and canine musical freestyle.

She divides her time between the Blue Ridge mountains and the east coast of Florida, and lives with a variety of four-footed companions.

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