J R Lindermuth: 12 books

Retired police chief Daniel 'Sticks' Hetrick, still serving as unofficial consultant to his less experienced successor, has another murder to deal with in rural Swatara Creek, Pennsylvania. It soon develops the death of a local waitress is not the only trouble in the township. An elderly man has been...

A rash of animal mutilations and a vicious poison pen campaign directed against an ambitious young lawyer lead to murder in a rural Pennsylvania community. Dan 'Sticks' Hetrick, retired police chief, and Flora Vastine, a novice officer, team up and encounter false leads, a series of dangerous episodes...

When a lonely widow finds the severed head of an unknown young woman on her front porch in rural Swatara Creek, Pennsylvania, Police Chief Aaron Brubaker is baffled. Anxious to conceal his ineptitude from municipal officials, Brubaker (whose experience has been largely limited to policing weekend...

Domestic disturbance calls to the residence of Booth and Stacey Keiser aren't uncommon. Keiser, a State Police trooper, is known for his volatile temper, and his wife has often been the target for his rage. So officers of the Swatara Creek Police Department aren't surprised when the couple are found...

The past is always with us. The past comes back to haunt former police chief Daniel "Sticks" Hetrick and his protégé, Officer Flora Vastine as an outbreak of arson shakes residents of rural Swatara Creek, Pennsylvania. At first, the minor nature of the fires inclines authorities to see them as pranks,...

Rookie Officer Flora Vastine of the Swatara Creek Police Department is called to Creekside Rest, a nursing facility, where a female guest has been murdered. Ray Fertig, another guest who claims to have been the victims lover, is found in the room with the body. Fertig shocks Flora with tales of senior...

Jan Kepler and Swatara Creek Police Office Flora Vastine were neighbors and schoolmates, but never close. When Jan, a school teacher, avid birder and niece of a fellow officer, goes missing and is found dead in a nearby tract of woods, Flora finds herself thrust into the middle of an examination...

Trouble follows Sticks Hetrick when he and Anita Bailey, the new woman in his life, go on a Caribbean cruise. Though he has no jurisdiction, Hetrick assists a Jamaican police inspector investigate two murders which have roots back home in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, Officer Flora Vastine, Hetrick's protégé...

Gavin Cutter, an artist living in an isolated village on the New England coast, witnesses the crash of a sailing ship onto a reef. The first aboard the wreck, he rescues a dog, the only living creature on the vessel. Ron Myers, wealthy owner of a growing computer firm, and the ship's crew have disappeared...

Some believe violence foreign to our nature. Dan 'Sticks' Hetrick, retired chief and now consultant to the Swatara Creek police department, knows better. We put a lid on our natural tendency to violence when we started living in groups, devising moral codes to hold it in check and allow us to live...

Lydia, daughter of Swatara Creek Police Chief Aaron Brubaker, is accused of murdering her boyfriend, Jason Russell, handsome but feckless stepson of Clay Stoneroad, a famous writer who recently moved to a farm outside town. Daniel 'Sticks' Hetrick, now a county detective, is determined to prove...

In the 1870s in Pennsylvania's anthracite coal region, mine owners and their employees, particularly the Irish immigrants, are in conflict over working conditions.Private police forces commissioned by the state but paid by the coal companies are sworn to protect property of the mine owners. The miners...