Murder is a dangerous legacy. Dr. Rachel Goddard knows all too well what it's like to want freedom from the past. So hiring sky local girl Holly Turner to work at her new Appalacian veterinary clinic is a chance for both of them to make a fresh start. Until the skeleton of Holly's wealthy, vanished Aunt Pauline is found along with an unidentified woman's body. Until Holly's abusive, no-good family tries any vicious means to get her to return home. and as even more suspects surface who desperately wanted Pauline dead. Rachel is certain Holly knows more than she can remember about her aunt's brutal murder. But confronting several decades' worth of secrets, lies and long-standing hatred means putting both their lives on the line. and one ruthless killer won't hesitate to render their futures as cold and dark as a mountain grave...

Disturbing the Dead: A Rachel Goddard Mystery

Sandra Parshall

Worldwide

[This is the MP3CD audiobook format.] In this fourth novel in the Agatha Award winning series featuring veterinarian Rachel Goddard, Rachel finds that sometimes the bite is worse than the bark. Something terrifying is happening to the dogs in the mountain community of Mason County, Virginia. Pets are vanishing mysteriously and ''missing dog'' posters cover the waiting room walls at Dr. Rachel Goddard's veterinary clinic. A pack of feral canines roams at night, attacking livestock in a desperate search for food. Now a prominent physician, Gordon Hall, has been found dead in his yard, his throat torn open. Sheriff's Department investigator Tom Bridger believes the killing was premeditated murder, with a trained attack dog as the weapon. Are these seemingly unconnected events somehow related? Tom thinks they are, and he suspects they're connected to the resurgence of an old problem: illegal dogfighting. Dr. Hall's son insists that the feral dogs killed his father, and he organizes a group of men to find and shoot the animals. Rachel and her friend Holly Turner make enemies by trying to rescue the dogs and move them to the sanctuary that Holly has created. Tom, in love with Rachel and worried about her safety, must divide his time between the feral dog problem, the search for the dogfighting operation, and the hunt for Gordon Hall's killer. Could it be that one of Hall's five children--three adopted, all emotionally starved by their parents--holds the key to his murder? Why is the youngest Hall child so frightened that she begs Rachel, a stranger, for help? Tom and Rachel face two killers, one human and one canine, and discover a more complex web of lies and brutality than they ever imagined.

Under the Dog Star (Rachel Goddard Mystery, Book 4)

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Blackstone Audiobooks

[Audiobook CD Library Edition in vinyl case.] When veterinarian Rachel Goddard and Deputy Sheriff Tom Bridger take teenagers on an outing to clean up roadside trash in rural Mason County, Virginia, they make a grisly discovery: the plastic-wrapped body of a young woman. One teen peers at the face through the plastic and screams. The dead girl is her sister, Shelley, a law student who has been missing for a month. As Tom launches a murder investigation, Rachel copes with a visit from her own sister, Michelle, who is terrified that a man is stalking her. Michelle insists that she is receiving threatening calls and that someone has invaded her office in the Washington, DC, area. Her own husband doubts her. Although Michelle is a psychologist, she has always been emotionally fragile, and she reverts to her childhood dependence on Rachel, stirring up memories Rachel would rather forget. Soon it becomes clear that the mysterious stalker is real and dangerous and has followed Michelle to Mason County. Now he's turning his attention to Rachel, too. Tom pursues the stalker at the same time he investigates Shelley's murder. Was it random, or was she killed because she was working to prove that a Mason County man was wrongly convicted of murder? Relatives of his supposed victim were enraged by Shelley's efforts to free a man they believe to be guilty. Did they kill her to stop her? But what if she was right? If an innocent man was convicted, one person would have the strongest motive to silence Shelley -- the real murderer. As Tom closes in on Shelley's killer, the stalker makes his move against Rachel.

Bleeding Through (Rachel Goddard Mysteries, Book 5) (Rachel Goddard Mysteries (Audio))

Literature & Fiction

United States

Blackstone Audio,Inc.

When veterinarian Rachel Goddard and Deputy Sheriff Tom Bridger take teenagers on an outing to clean up roadside trash in rural Mason County, Virginia, they make a grisly discovery: the plastic-wrapped body of a young woman. One teen peers at the face through the plastic and screams. The dead girl is her sister, Shelley, a law student who has been missing for a month. As Tom launches a murder investigation, Rachel copes with a visit from her own sister, Michelle, who is terrified that a man is stalking her. Michelle insists that she is receiving threatening calls and that someone has invaded her office in the Washington, DC, area. Her own husband doubts her. Although Michelle is a psychologist, she has always been emotionally fragile, and she reverts to her childhood dependence on Rachel, stirring up memories Rachel would rather forget. Soon it becomes clear that the mysterious stalker is real and dangerous and has followed Michelle to Mason County. Now he's turning his attention to Rachel, too. Tom pursues the stalker at the same time he investigates Shelley's murder. Was it random, or was she killed because she was working to prove that a Mason County man was wrongly convicted of murder? Relatives of his supposed victim were enraged by Shelley's efforts to free a man they believe to be guilty. Did they kill her to stop her? But what if she was right? If an innocent man was convicted, one person would have the strongest motive to silence Shelley -- the real murderer. As Tom closes in on Shelley's killer, the stalker makes his move against Rachel.

[Read by Tavia Gilbert][*This is the first book in the 'Rachel Goddard' Mystery series by Sandra Parshall and it won the 2006 Agatha Award for Best First Novel] Young veterinarian Rachel Goddard's world begins to crumble when a client rushes into the animal hospital with a dog struck by a car during a thunderstorm. The woman's terrified child, drenched with rain, loses sight of her mother in the flurry of activity and screams, ''Mommy! I want Mommy!'' Instantly Rachel is hurled back in time to a day in her own childhood when her baby sister, Michelle, uttered the same cry while thunder crashed and rain poured down on them. The unearthed memory feels like a fragment of a nightmare, and Rachel doesn't understand its meaning or the anguish it stirs up in her. When she seeks answers, she learns nothing from Michelle or from Judith, their loving but manipulative mother. Judith is a psychologist who is only too happy to have her adult daughters still living in her elegant Tudor house outside Washington, DC. But their apparently serene home is a house of secrets where Judith's unspoken rules forbid questions about the family history or the daughters' long-dead father. As more baffling memories surface, Rachel begins to suspect that nothing about her family is what it seems. Fighting her mother's attempts to control her, Rachel embarks on a quest that takes her not only deep into her own memory but also halfway across the country. The truth she uncovers will shatter her world and force her to make an unthinkable choice.

The Heat of the Moon (Rachel Goddard Mysteries, Book 1) (Rachel Goddard Mysteries (Audio))

[Read by Tavia Gilbert]Will a decadeold murder be Tom's and Rachel's undoing, or will it free them to look into the future? Tom Bridger, who is half Melungeon, thought he had escaped his mountain community's lingering prejudice against the mixedrace group when he left to work for the Richmond, Virginia, Police Department. Tom was moving up the detective ranks when a family tragedy brought him back home and moved him into his father's job as a county sheriff's deputy. Now the bones of a Melungeon woman who disappeared ten years ago have surfaced on a remote mountaintop, and all evidence points to murder. Violence escalates as the victim's poor family and the wealthy white family she married into scramble to protect their secrets from Tom's probing. But as he looks into his father's investigation of the case, he finds his father was not the man he idolized. The woman Tom is falling in love with, veterinarian Rachel Goddard, is struggling to start over in a place that holds no memories for her. Rachel puts herself in danger when she befriends Holly, niece of the dead Melungeon woman. As a child, the girl witnessed something that could implicate her aunt's killer, but she is too terrified to tell anyone what she knows. While Rachel is determined to keep Holly safe and help her piece together past events, the guilty are equally determined to silence the girl and Rachel too, if necessary.

Disturbing the Dead (Rachel Goddard Mysteries, Book 2) (Rachel Goddard Mysteries (Audio))

Blackstone Audio

[Read by Tavia Gilbert] There's a poisonous secret behind these bucolic scenes . . .  When a powerful development company sets its sights on Mason County, Virginia, as the location for a sprawling resort for the rich, the locals begin taking sides. Many residents see the resort as economic salvation for the small Blue Ridge Mountains community, while others fear the county will become financially dependent on a predatory company. Few oppose the development more vocally than veterinarian Rachel Goddard. She sides with locals reluctant to sell their land and, in the process, complicates the life of her new husband, Sheriff Tom Bridger. When a beloved couple is gunned down on the very farm they refused to sell, it seems supporters will stop at nothing to ensure the success of the resort. Now, disagreement in the community has exploded into civil war, with both sides lashing out. As the violence escalates, Rachel discovers the attacks are more sinister than they appear. Can she bring the truth to light before her community tears itself apart?

Poisoned Ground (Rachel Goddard Mysteries, Book 6) (The Rachel Goddard Mysteries)

The Heat of the Moon (Rachel Goddard Mysteries Book 1)

Poisoned Pen Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sandra Parshall. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Sandra Parshall

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Sandra Parshall. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Disturbing the Dead: A Rachel Goddard Mystery

Under the Dog Star (Rachel Goddard Mystery, Book 4)

Bleeding Through (Rachel Goddard Mysteries, Book 5) (Rachel Goddard Mysteries (Audio))

Bleeding Through (Rachel Goddard Mysteries, Book 5) (Rachel Goddard Mysteries (Audio))

The Heat of the Moon (Rachel Goddard Mysteries, Book 1) (Rachel Goddard Mysteries (Audio))

Disturbing the Dead (Rachel Goddard Mysteries, Book 2) (Rachel Goddard Mysteries (Audio))

Poisoned Ground (Rachel Goddard Mysteries, Book 6) (The Rachel Goddard Mysteries)

The Heat of the Moon (Rachel Goddard Mysteries Book 1)