Lilly Long Mystery Series
"Death lies on her like an untimely frost."
                                              ~William Shakespeare
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Coming June 27, 2021 - Hasten to Their End

Hasten to Their End - June 27, 2021 - Level Best Books
"Is It Worth the Risk?"

A close brush with death in Texas has left Pinkerton agent Lilly Long wondering if the demands of the job she wanted so badly are more than she can mentally and physically endure without becoming cold and uncaring. Instead of allowing her time to reflect on her future, William Pinkerton sends her to hone her skills with  renown self-defense master, Colonel Thomas Hoyer Monstery, and when she and her partner, Cadence McShane, are summoned for a new assignment, she goes, despite her reservations.

Their mission is close to home—just across the city—and it seems simple enough on the surface: determine if pedestrian promoter and manager J.D. Ames’s death was the suicide the police claimed, or if it was murder by one of those connected with the sport, as his wife, Dora, suspects. To learn the truth, Lilly and Cade must become part of the community of endurance walkers who undertake to walk a specified number of miles in a specified time.
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Lilly, straight from her training with Monstery, will infiltrate the close community as Irish competitor, Lil McShane, and Cade will be her brother and trainer, Andrew. It doesn’t take long to recognize the antagonism, aggression and rivalry among both the established walkers and the new ones, hoping to make a name for themselves.  How can they possibly solve a murder when there is so much conflict both on and off the track? Can Lilly learn anything useful while immersing herself into a role that seems designed to physically reduce the competitors to shadows of themselves while crushing their spirits and stealing their dreams?   

Though This Be Madness
​"Lilly's second assignment takes her into a New Orleans insane asylum, and a Voodoo ceremony."

Shakespearean actress turned Pinkerton detective Lilly Long and her reluctant partner, Cade McShane, travel to New Orleans to save a young widow from a fate worse than death…

1881, Chicago. Assigned to her second case as a Pinkerton, Lilly still needs to prove herself—both as a novice detective and as a woman in a man’s world. Ordered to once again work with Lilly, Cade needs to redeem himself for conduct unbecoming to a Pinkerton—a grief-driven drunken brawl. As if their forced partnership wasn’t bad enough, the agents must pose as husband and wife servants in the troubled household of a wealthy New Orleans family. An acting challenge if ever there was one…

The elderly matriarch of the Fortenot family is convinced her grandson’s former widow has been unjustly committed to an insane asylum by her second husband. She believes the man is attempting to wrest the family fortune away from his new wife. Soon, behind the beautiful façade of the Fortenot mansion, the detectives uncover secrets, betrayal, voodoo curses—and murder. Even as Lilly and Cade chafe against their roles, they must work together to expose the true villain of this tragedy before the hapless widow faces her final curtain call.

An Untimely Frost - August 2016

In 1881 Chicago, the idea of a female detective is virtually unheard of. But when famed crime buster Allan Pinkerton opens his agency's doors to a handful of women, one intrepid actress with her own troubled past is driven to defy convention and take on a new and dangerous role. . .

Since the age of eleven, when her mother was murdered, the life of the theater is all Lilly Long has known. Now twenty-two, she has blossomed into an accomplished Shakespearean actress. But after her innocence--and her savings--are taken from her by a seductive scoundrel, Lilly vows to leave the stage, enter the real world, and save others from a similar fate. Following in the footsteps of the country's first female detective, Lilly persuades Allan Pinkerton to take her on. 

Lilly's acting skills are a perfect fit for her real-life role as a Pinkerton operative. But her first case is a baptism by fire as she is sent to the small town of Vandalia to solve the mystery of a pastor who disappeared with his family--and the church's funds. When Lilly arrives, she finds the mere mention of the reverend's name provokes enmity or suspicious silence. Shadowed by an unknown man with an agenda of his own, Lilly begins to uncover Vandalia's sordid secrets. But she'll have to deliver the performance of a lifetime to survive the final act of this drama.