Dead Tease

A hot August afternoon and Midwest Clinic CEO John McNeil has been working late. Working on his latest conquest, that is. Jen Williams is twenty-six, in charge of graphics for the hospital's PR division--and quite attractive in a healthy, athletic kind of way. She is quick to laugh and a little too quick to fall for guys. She is no virgin. And she is one of three women--including his wife--intimately familiar with McNeil.

When Jen's youthful body is found with a single stab wound through the heart, suspicion falls on both McNeil's wife, who insists she is being stalked, and the striking hospital physician with whom he had just ended an affair. Pressure to find the killer falls on Loon Lake Police Chief Lewellyn "Lew" Ferris and Dr. Paul "Doc" Osborne, the retired dentist and forensic dental expert whom she has deputized to help with the investigation--when they are not taking a break for fishing and other personal pursuits. When the mayor demands Lew take early retirement--and Doc has to babysit his teenage granddaughter who won't stop texting--the frustrations mount.

Desperate for a few hours off--and persuaded by Ray Pradt (a fishing guide who wears a stuffed trout on his head, so they should have known better)--to try fly fishing from kayaks, Doc and Lew find themselves in life-and-death straits on the river. This leads to an unexpected and macabre discovery that just may break the case.

In her teens and twenties, mystery author Victoria Houston was the classic hometown girl who couldn't wait to leave her small Wisconsin town. She has not only returned to her hometown, Rhinelander, but she has based her popular Loon Lake mystery series in the region's fishing culture. She has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and on National Public Radio.