Brannan, Sandra
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Sandra Brannan
For twenty-five years, Sam Brannan has run a division in the mining company that was founded by her grandfather, father, and uncle in 1944. She lives with her family in Rapid City, South Dakota. In the Belly of Jonah is her first novel.
The puzzle of “a window cut in to a girl’s body” leads to a serial killer with an artistic bent in this thrilling mystery set in a Colorodo mining community.
In the Belly of Jonah is a fast-paced mystery with a likable protagonist and an intricately woven narrative brimming with bizarre yet believable twists. The first in a series, the book expertly lays the groundwork for Liv Bergen, amateur sleuth, and her love interest, FBI Agent Streeter Pierce.
Liv becomes involved in the investigation of the murder of Jill Brannigan, a summer intern at the limestone mine Liv manages near Fort Collins, Colorado (a breathtaking setting that unwittingly becomes an accessory to crime). In doing so, she inadvertently puts her friends, her family, and herself at risk of being swallowed in the belly of a madman bloated with perverse appetites for women, surrealistic art, and renown.
Perhaps a bit too daring (and at times irreverent) for her own good, “Boots”—as Liv’s eight siblings call her—soon realizes she has a knack for outsmarting and tracking down the Venus de Milo murderer—and she enjoys it! As the gripping plot of In the Belly of Jonah unfolds, Liv Bergen takes her place alongside the best female crime-solvers as a woman with smarts, self-confidence, and intuitive savvy.
The Annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is no place for buttoned-down citizens—unless, of course, they’re trying to hide a murder or two.
In this second book in the eponymous series, Liv Bergen is back with a vengeance—a righteous one. The gutsy, sharp-witted amateur sleuth pulls out all the stops as she solves the murder of her brother Jens’s fiancée, Michelle, and clears his name. As it turns out, more than one person in Liv’s sleepy hometown wanted Michelle dead. A trail of clues leads Liv through the Black Hills, where she encounters half a mil- lion hardcore bikers and sideline gawkers—many clad in nothing but black leather thongs and bikinis—who have turned the place into a sodomitical playground saturated in booze.
Further complicating matters, Liv is an eyewitness to a second homicide, which calls down upon her the uninvited attentions of the men- acing leader of a biker gang called Lucifer’s Lot. The cat-and-mouse game that ensues puts Liv in the path of her admirer Streeter Pierce, who’s gone undercover with a fellow FBI agent to find both Michelle’s murderer and a perp the agency calls the Crooked Man. Liv taps every ounce of brains and brawn she has to avoid becoming the killer’s next victim, which wins her the further respect of Streeter.
By the end of Lot’s Return to Sodom, Streeter has shown his admiration for Liv by giving her Beulah, an FBI bloodhound who is certain to help them track down the still-at-large Crooked Man in book three.
In this second book in the eponymous series, Liv Bergen is back with a vengeance—a righteous one. The gutsy, sharp-witted amateur sleuth pulls out all the stops as she solves the murder of her brother Jens’s fiancée, Michelle, and clears his name. As it turns out, more than one person in Liv’s sleepy hometown wanted Michelle dead. A trail of clues leads Liv through the Black Hills, where she encounters half a mil- lion hardcore bikers and sideline gawkers—many clad in nothing but black leather thongs and bikinis—who have turned the place into a sodomitical playground saturated in booze.
Further complicating matters, Liv is an eyewitness to a second homicide, which calls down upon her the uninvited attentions of the men- acing leader of a biker gang called Lucifer’s Lot. The cat-and-mouse game that ensues puts Liv in the path of her admirer Streeter Pierce, who’s gone undercover with a fellow FBI agent to find both Michelle’s murderer and a perp the agency calls the Crooked Man. Liv taps every ounce of brains and brawn she has to avoid becoming the killer’s next victim, which wins her the further respect of Streeter.
By the end of Lot’s Return to Sodom, Streeter has shown his admiration for Liv by giving her Beulah, an FBI bloodhound who is certain to help them track down the still-at-large Crooked Man in book three.