A teenage girl has been missing from her Montgomery, Alabama, home for six weeks. She may be a runaway, a crime victim, or both. What's amazing is other people's lack of concern. Just one person cares that she's gone: a spunky amateur sleuth on the sunset end of sixty. Armed with razor-sharp insight, a salty wit, and tenacious faith, MacLaren Yarbrough follows a trail of clues -- a wisp of a hint, a shadow of a lie -- in search of answers to questions that come hot and fast and that grow increasingly alarming. How did a fifteen-year-old girl come across a large sum of money? Why did she hide it instead of taking it with her? Where is she now? And who is willing to kill to keep MacLaren from probing too far? Masked by Dixie charm and the scent of honeysuckle, a deadly secret lies coiled . . . one that holds the ultimate answer to the question, When Did We Lose Harriet? When Did We Lose Harriet? is the first of the MacLaren Yarbrough Mysteries, featuring plucky, sixty-some heroine MacLaren Yarbrough. Look for further books in this series in the near future.


But Why Shoot the Magistrate?

by Patricia Sprinkle

Published 13 September 1998
When a popular youth pastor is accused of a grisly crime, MacLaren Yarbrough won't rest until she finds the truth. Her gut instinct tells her Luke Blessed is innocent. Still, how could the dream he had on the night a young woman was murdered depict the crime with such chilling accuracy? As MacLaren tracks down clues from all corners of Hopewell, GA, four like suspects emerge. But the police aren't buying her theories. Even her husband, local magistrate Joe Riddley, resists her amateur sleuthing. This case, he feels, is too dangerous. Just how dangerous, both of them are about to discover. The assailant strikes again, leaving Joe comatose from a gunshot wound to the head. And suddenly, a new question stares MacLaren in the face. It's the most perplexing question of all -- and the most personal: Why shoot the magistrate?