Showing results by author "Nick Russell" in All Categories

Tongues are wagging all over town about Big Lake's newest business, the Black Stocking Brewpub, where the scantily clad waitresses are drawing crowds of men and the ire of local churchgoers. And that's before the arrogant womanizer who owns the brewpub is found murdered! Sheriff Jim Weber and his deputies have plenty of suspects to choose from as they begin to navigate the treacherous currents left in the wake of the murder, because the dead man, a person who seemingly knew no limits, possessed no humanity, and cared for nothing apart from his own greed and twisted desires, has left behind ...

When someone dressed in a ninja costume was first seen lurking around homes in Big Lake, everyone assumed it was some kind of teenage mischief. Things escalated when the ninja was spotted peeking in people’s windows. Sheriff Weber and his deputies are on the lookout for the mysterious prankster, and more sightings seem to come in every day. Things take a deadly turn when the ninja singles out a respected local businessman and attacks him with a sword. More attacks follow and soon the whole town is on edge, locking their doors and loading their guns. Who would want to hurt the nicest man ...

As America pulls itself out of the Great Depression, war clouds are hanging low over Europe, and Adolph Hitler’s Nazis seem unstoppable in their brutal march across the continent. Meanwhile, the growing threat from Japan is ignored by many in Washington. That all changes with the deadly attack on Pearl Harbor. Suddenly the country is thrust into a war that many believed would never happen and others feared was inevitable. Now the McNally family of Tinder Street finds themselves in a world turned upside down, with their young men donning uniforms and going off to face the enemy. Among them...

Sheriff Jim Weber always said it was just a matter of time before somebody shot Bureau of Indian Affairs Agent Gordon Hahn. The man was a loud, crude, misogynist drunk who treated women with disrespect, and was a racist who rode roughshod over the people of the White Mountain Apache Reservation. So Weber wasn't surprised when somebody finally did put an end to all of it with a bullet. He just didn't appreciate Hahn getting himself killed in the middle of Big Lake's annual Pioneers Days fireworks display. With more people who wanted the victim dead than alive, Weber and his deputies have ...

With only two weeks to go before their wedding, Big Lake Sheriff Jim Weber and his fiancée, Deputy Robyn Fuchette are busy managing all of the last-minute details before the big day while dealing with Robyn’s often-difficult mother, whose demands have already lost them the florist and the limousine. But when compromising photographs of the bride to be begin surfacing, they become the talk of the town. Suddenly Robyn has gone from being a well-respected deputy and member of the community to a pariah, shunned by people she thought were her friends and whispered about over back fences and ...

When summoned to George Duncan's farm in response to a tragic accident, Sheriff Jim Weber and his deputies had no idea just how bad it was going to be. Everybody in Big Lake knew and respected Duncan. The easy-going hog farmer was a successful businessman who had made a fortune supplying restaurants from Show Low to Springerville, and all the way to Gallup, New Mexico with pork chops, hams, and sausage. Duncan always carried a big wad of bills wrapped in a rubber band in the pocket of his bib overalls, and never hesitated to help out someone in trouble. There wasn't a church social, a Boy ...

When the richest man in Big Lake is murdered on the night he announces his bid for state senator, the list of suspects stretches all the way from the small mountain town to the governor's office. Sheriff Jim Weber's investigation reveals a web of secrets, illicit sex, and shattered lives that teaches him that nothing is what it appears to be and that sometimes the people we think we know are not at all what we believe them to be.

Big Lake High School’s star quarterback seems to have it all. Handsome, popular with the girls, adored by the fans, and with a talent that his coach is convinced will take him to the big time in professional football. So when Gary Gunkel goes missing a week before the homecoming game, some people in town believe he's just a typical young man sowing his wild oats. But when the missing boy's mother shows Sheriff Weber a series of gruesome threatening letters he has received the sheriff agrees that there might be something more sinister happening. Even more startling, his investigation soon ...

The Roaring Twenties. A prosperous era of flappers, bootleggers, speakeasies, bathtub gin, and women pushing the conventions of society. These are the things the newspapers are talking about. But that is only a small part of what is happening. Not everyone is celebrating the good times. For most people, life goes on as it always has, though maybe with a few new conveniences. With the Great War behind him, Lucas Morgan is content to return to Tinder Street and start raising a family with his wife. Still haunted by nightmares of things that happened on the bloody battlefields of France, Lucas...

The busy summer season is drawing to a close in the little mountain town of Big Lake, Arizona, and the locals are looking forward to a relaxing interlude before the first snowfall brings carloads of skiers to the high country. That all changes when a nearly nude woman rushes into a convenience store in the middle of the night begging for help. She tells Sheriff Jim Weber that her new husband has been murdered and she was taken captive by the mysterious killer, who seems to have disappeared into the thick forests of the White Mountains.

When a young woman is brutally assaulted at the Cat Mountain Ski Resort, two of the three suspects Sheriff Jim Weber arrests come from wealthy families whose roots go deep into Arizona's history, and the third has a past shrouded in mystery. The sheriff soon finds himself involved in a sordid case that stretches from the White Mountains all the way to the governor's office and beyond. Pressured by local and state officials as well as representatives of the FBI and U.S. Marshal's Service, all with their own agenda, Weber must stand firm to see justice done and send a message that in Big Lake...

Everyone in Big Lake was surprised when hard-drinking good old boy Levi Bischoff left town and went to a rehab clinic to dry out. No one thought it would be long before he fell back into his old ways, but Levi proved them wrong, moving to the college town of Flagstaff, meeting a nice girl, enrolling in classes at Northern Arizona University, and following the straight and narrow path. But how long could that last? Apparently not long, because late one night Levi hit a young woman with his truck, and when deputies responded to the fatal accident scene, it was obvious that he was intoxicated....

The 1930s are the darkest days of the Great Depression. Factories are closing their doors, millions of people are out of work, men are riding the rails searching for elusive jobs that seldom exist, and a thriving way of life that has been cherished is disappearing. Desperate people are doing desperate things just to survive, while labor strikes and veterans’ protests are turning violent. Roving gangs of outlaws have become celebrities to many people, who asked themselves why a man robbing a bank with a gun is any worse than a banker in a suit stealing someone’s life savings, home, or ...

The Roaring 20s are in full swing and people are living the good life, making money, and having fun. Henry Ford just introduced the forty-hour work week and there is plenty to celebrate. Nobody seems to have a care in the world, except for Elizabeth McNally, who can’t shake the feeling that there are things to fear just over the horizon, even though she can’t explain why. The McNally family is prospering; Thomas, the oldest McNally son, is still being a thorn in the side of Toledo's gangster element with his fearless newspaper coverage of their crimes, while his brother Peter’s garage...

Life is good in Elmhurst, Ohio. The war is over, the economy is booming, and the future looks bright. But just across the deep ravine known as Dog's Run is a different life, one where times are always hard and dreams seldom come true. When Wanda Jean Reider, a beautiful young woman from the wrong side of town, is found dead in Dog's Run secrets begin to come out. Secrets that will expose hidden sins and a dark side of life carried on behind the manicured lawns and inside the back rooms of the stores along Main Street.

We all know a person like Raymond Winters. He is Everyman. You see him daily on your commute to work. He sits in the cubicle next to yours. He's the guy plodding through life, just going through the motions. He's not happy. His work is not fulfilling. But he never expected anything more. At 41, he's stuck in a rut, without the energy to climb out. Sure, he dreams of a different life. He dreams about it a lot. But Raymond knows the difference between dreams and reality. Then Raymond's life takes an unexpected sharp turn after a chance encounter with a strange woman. Overnight he finds ...

Just as people all over America in the second-half of the 1930s, the people of Tinder Street are struggling to survive. They have their triumphs and their challenges, their joys and their heartbreaks, but the McNallys and their extended family never give up and continue to help their neighbors and even strangers in need. Hardworking family men who once brought home steady paychecks stand in long lines trying to find any kind of day labor that might earn them enough to put food on the table. Even those who find steady work earn pennies on the dollar compared to what they had before the Great...

In the summer of 1951, Elmhurst, Ohio was shocked when the small town's war hero police chief, Lester Smeal, was killed putting an end to the bloody rampage of a rogue cop. It was the last violent act in a chain of events that began with the discovery of the body of Wanda Jean Reider, a beautiful young woman from the wrong side of the tracks. Fifteen years later the chief's son and daughter, and the sister of the murdered woman, are young adults, each living with the legacy of the past as they try to make their own way in a world torn by war and social change. Nick Russell, New York Times ...

Big Lake's first annual Snowdaze celebration to kick off the winter season was off to a good start. Mother Nature cooperated with the event planners with a cold front that brought a heavy snowfall to the White Mountains of Arizona, dumping over a foot of the white stuff at the higher elevations just two days before Snowdaze weekend began in early December. The little mountain town looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, with Christmas decorations strung from the light poles on Main Street, kids building snowmen in their yards, and smoke rising from chimneys all over Big ...

"A fine book for self-publishers set to take advantage of today's best entry to self- publishing." Aaron Shepard, author of Aiming at Amazon. This book cuts through all the hype that surrounds the publishing industry. Learn how to register your own publishing imprint and reap the benefits of passive income that successful writing provides. This book shows you, step-by-step, how to set up your own publishing company and self-publish your own nonfiction book WITHOUT the expense of inventory or pricey "writing services" that bogus vanity publishers sell to authors. Using CreateSpace, an Amazon...