J. S. Borthwick Books

New England English teacher Sarah Deane, with husband Alex and feisty Aunt Julia in tow, is getting ready to board the Queen Victoria for a luxurious transatlantic cruise. But before they even set sail, two passengers are killed-- both members of the British-American trade commission. Now Sarah must wade through a sea of peculiar passengers and quirky crew members to find a killer aboard Vicky -- and drop anchor on the seafaring scoundrel...

Freshly minted Ph.D. Sarah Deane is hired to teach English at Miss Merritt's, only to land in the epicenter of legendary French professor Grace (Mme Guillotine") Carpentier's reign of terror. Mme's peckish passion for excellence has inspired universal fear and loathing.A student discovers Mme's hanging effigy. Then Sarah finds a bludgeoned body wearing Mme's trademark cape. But the victim is not Mme. Is it a case of mistaken identity? It's up to Sarah, raided by her husband Alex, to find the killer before he strikes again--while the prime suspects, three fractious students, and three furtive professors, follow her every move...

Sarah Deane dirties her hands in a transatlantic murder investigation, as a European garden tour turns deadly...Much to her dismay, Sarah has been roped into accompanying her abrasive Aunt Julia on a tour of Europe's most famous gardens. The trip takes a bad turn when the tour's leader, garden expert Ellen Trevino, fails to meet the group for their departure. That and the strange behavior of her fellow tour members plant seeds of suspicion in Sarah's mind. but her bi-continental investigating-with the help of husband Alex at home in Maine-could have Sarah herself pushing up the daisies...

Crotchety, seventy-something Julia Clancy of High Hope Farm feels a little wobbly one August morning. With stables to clean and riding lessons to give, the stoic New Englander ignores her symptoms-and ends up in the ER with a heart attack. Even then, she's insisting it's indigestion; even then, her sharp eyes don't miss a thing. And a glimpse of something highly unusual will entangle Julia Clancy in the baffling murder of a hospital VIP. The police soon have suspects galore and no hard evidence. But Julia tells her niece Sarah Deane what she saw...and what she fears: that the killer will get her next. Now amateur sleuth Sarah needs to make her own diagnosis of Julia's revelation and sew up the case before the star witness gets a fatal visit from Dr. Death....

When Dolly Beaugard's body washes ashore at the same spot as the Gattling brothers the day before and police rule it a homicide, Sarah and Alex become involved in solving the crime and attempt to discover who might be the next victim in this string of murders. Reprint.

After weeks of relentless rain and fog, summer graces the Maine coast. Sarah Deane wants only to help her in-laws adjust to living in Ocean Tide, an "architect-designed home-town community," and enjoy the warm weather before she returns to teaching in the fall. She absolutely does not want to become embroiled in another murder investigation. Even when police find the body of an 18 year-old on Ocean Tide's golf course, Sarah vows not to let it sidetrack her from an agenda of rest and relaxation. But after a frightened boy causes her to discover a second murder victim, her curiosity-and protective impulses toward a child who may have seen too much-overpower her better judgment. Tiptoeing into territory better left to the authorities, Sarah unearths disturbing family ties and a lethal secret hidden just beneath Ocean Tide's veneer of squeaky clean community values...

Planning their wedding at High Hope horse farm is trouble enough for teaching fellow Sarah Deane and her fiance Dr. Alex McKenzie. But now Sarah's widowed Aunt Julia, the farm's crusty, independent owner, is receiving threatening nursery rhymes with her morning paper; a stableman's been mysteriously injured; and someone's taking pot shots at the barn.Could the disturbing events have to do with a mining company that's out to lasso local land? Or with Tilly, a loopy neighbor who thinks it's in her stars to swap farms with Julia? Or even Julia's persistent suitor, Colonel Dodge, who's all too eager to saddle up and charge to her rescue?Though the wedding goes off without a hitch, Sarah and Alex are reined in from their honeymoon when the stable turns up a gruesome corpse...and it doesn't take more than horse sense to recognize foul play.

English teacher Sarah Deane and her boyfriend, Dr. Alex McKenzie, leave snowy Maine to join Sarah's feisty Aunt Julia for Christmas at the exclusive Rancho del Gato Blanco resort in Arizona. But they soon realize there's no place like home for the holidays when ranch guests become the prey of a prankster whose destructive acts are tallying up like a Yuletide carol:Garden hose a-spraying... Lounge chair collapsing...Mud in the coffee...Golf carts a-stalling...Rubber snake in bathtub...Wagon wheel a-flying... The pranks take a murderous turn Christmas morning when one of the guests turns up dead among the gifts in Santa's sack. Sarah and Alex are certain the killer lurks among them. Could it be quirky clerk Cookie Logan? Aging film star Maria Cornish? Her hot-tempered beau Blue Feather Romero? Head wrangler Peter Doubler? Or someone in the entourage of U.S. Senator Leo J. Hopgood? The police even have eccentric Aunt Julia on their list of suspects--but if Sarah and Alex don't find the killer fast, they could all end up on the list of victims.

Sarah Dean, self-described "accident crime-prone English teacher," and her boyfriend, Dr. Alex McKenzie, are longing for a vacation. No classes, students or conferences for her-no patients, beepers or night calls for Alex. The two-week cruise aboard the "Pilgrim, "a luxury yacht owned by millionaire evangelist David Mallory, seems the perfect gateway...until one of the passengers turns up murdered...and those left on board are now both suspects and potential victims. Could the killer be the eccentric Mallory? His stern secretary Gracie (also sister of the victim)? The voluptuous chef, Andrea Elder? Ezra, the deckhand? Or even Sarah's younger brother Tony, the other member of the crew? Sarah and Alex must find out quickly, or they could become the next victims...