On the edge of town Joe Gunther encounters the lifeless body of Michelle Fisher. Her corpse offers him no clues about who she was or how she died. Snapshots and postcards show a woman who laughed hard and lived harder, while diaries reveal a rootless life marred by depression and drink. Suicide seems a reasonable conclusion, but Gunther suspects foul play.

When an old gravesite exposes a coffin filled with rocks instead of the expected remains, and a retired state politician turns up dead, Joe Gunther and his team follow the evidence to an escaped mental patient who holds the key to solving both cases.

Vermont detective Joe Gunther vows to stop the flow of drugs into his beloved state when in the course of a week a young heroin addict is gunned down while trying to rob a convenience store, a narcotics dealer is found hanging from a bridge, and the granddaughter of political bigwigs dies of an overdose.

VBI (Vermont Bureau of Investigation) head Joe Gunther and his team are called in to investigate a series of violent deaths that appear unrelated until telltale clues reveal a linkage between them and that all of the deaths are, in fact, murders. However, apart from a single drop of unexplained blood left at each crime scene, there are no obvious connections between the victims or the cases. In the search for the elusive truth, the VBI must plumb

...

"An unidentified man is found face down in an abandoned quarry, strangled with a piano wire. The labels have been cut from his clothes, his facial features are Slavic in appearance, and his toes are tattooed with Russian letters. When no one reports any missing persons, and no police agency responds to a fingerprint check, it looks like a dead end for Joe Gunther and his team. But then why are the FBI and the CIA showing such an interest?"--Back cover....

"In Archer Mayor's intriguing new Vermont-based mystery, The Orphan's Guilt, a straightforward traffic stop snowballs into a homicide investigation after Joe Gunther and his fellow investigators peel back layer upon layer of history and personal heartbreak to learn a decades-old hidden truth. John Rust is arrested for drunk driving by a Vermont state trooper. Looking to find mitigating circumstances, John's lawyer hires private eye Sally Kravitz to...

An overworked sheriff and a string of condo burglaries at a luxurious ski resort have Lt. Joe Gunther and the newly-minted Vermont Bureau of Investigation digging deep for clues. But it doesnt take long for Joe to find the most likely thief missingand his girlfriend dead. As the complications mount, from drug dealing to environmental terrorism to attempted murder, Joe and his team go undercover to infiltrate the closed society of a one-company town,...

"A forty-year-old skeleton is found encased in a concrete slab at a recently decommissioned nuclear energy site. It becomes a case for the Vermont Bureau of Investigation (VBI) and its leader, Joe Gunther, since they have the resources and the ability to investigate an old, very cold, missing persons case that has now been reclassified as murder. The victim was Hank Mitchell, and Gunther must chase down old rumors and speculations who benefited from...

Joe Gunther and his team at the Vermont Bureau of Investigation are alerted to a string of unrelated burglaries across Vermont. Meanwhile, in Boston, an elderly woman surprises thieves in her Beacon Hill home and is viciously murdered. The police find that the loot is similar to what's been stolen in Vermont, and it may have the same destination. Word is that someone powerful is purchasing the items in the "Paradise City" of Northampton, Mass. Now...

"When a wintertime car accident leaves his mother and brother seriously injured, Joe Gunther takes a leave of absence to attend to them and investigate the cause of the crash"--Provided by publisher.