Every morning, I go for a run along Seneca Lake on Lakeshore Avenue. This morning was no different. It’s how I deal with my stress and my demons. Being a private investigator, I have a lot of both. I wasn’t cracking any big cases unless you include shady business practices and cheating spouses in that category, but I had my fair share of work problems. Even small-time crime induced stress for the detective on the case, and as half of the moderately successful detective agency in Herrington, New York, Two Girls Detective Agency, I was always on the case in order to pay the rent. Samantha Porter was the other half of the agency. She was like a big sister to me. We had always gotten along but not lately. Something was up. She’s been acting strangely these last few months and has even talked about selling the agency. I had to take every case to convince her that selling was a terrible idea.

Herrington was a small town along the banks of Seneca Lake in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. I have lived here my whole life. My mother was the head librarian of the Herrington Public Library, and she ruled her post with efficiency and smiles. She was a kind woman, and I was lucky to have her as my mother. She saved her only criticism for me, and it typically was her complaining that I worked too much and didn’t spend enough time with family or looking for a boyfriend. She didn’t understand that my job was twenty-four seven. . . literally. My apartment was over the detective agency. It wasn’t uncommon for potential client to call or bang on my door in the middle of the night because she needed a PI to get her out of a jam.

I increased my pace as I ran passed Mrs. Berger’s house. She was a nice older lady, but every time, she spotted me running along the Lakeshore Avenue, she called me over to her yard to get Romy, her ornery Maine coon cat, out of his favorite climbing tree. I had the scratches to prove it.

After Mrs. Berger’s house, the road started to climb up a foothill. The incline was steep, and this was the part of the run where it became mind over matter. I was exhausted from an all-night stakeout of a cheating husband, and I had to remind myself that I had run up this steep hill a hundred times before just as tired and would run it up it a hundred times again even more tired.

At the top of the hill, I stopped at the curve and overlooked Seneca Lake and two more of the smaller Finger Lakes in the distance. I didn’t stay long, just long enough for a peek at the lakes and back down the hill I went. It was dangerous place for a runner to pause. Cars flew around the curve while out sightseeing the lakes. Many times, I had been almost hit by drivers more interested in the scenery than watching the road.

Little did I know then, the ridge where I stopped and looked out over Seneca Lake would become a place a loss for me. Not too far in the future, I would never run by it again without thinking of Samantha. She was my friend, my mentor, and my business partner. And then she was gone.

Dead-End Detective is the first book in the NEW “Piper and Porter” private investigator mystery series, coming August 25, 2020.

They were the Two Girls Detective Agency. Now, one of them is dead, and the other is suspected of murder.

Darby Piper is in shock. Samantha Porter―her mentor and business partner at Two Girls Detective Agency―has died in a car crash, and it doesn’t look like an accident. In fact, evidence is pointing toward Darby.

Darby had expected to inherit Samantha’s half of the agency, but Samantha had recently changed the will to leave it to Tate Porter, her nephew, who returns to town.

Tate is no P.I. He’s a veteran, a world traveler, and something of a mystery himself. But as he helps Darby delve into secret histories and real estate development plans, he does seem to have a knack for the job. Will the agency have a future. . .even if Darby can prove her innocence in time?

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About the author
Amanda Flower, a USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning author of over thirty cozy mystery novels, started her writing career in elementary school when she read a story she wrote to her sixth grade class and had the class in stitches with her description of being stuck on the top of a Ferris wheel. She knew at that moment she’d found her calling of making people laugh with her words. In addition to being an author, Amanda is a former librarian with fifteen years’ experience in Northeast Ohio. Dead-End Detective is her first novel for Hallmark Publishing. Connect with Amanda on Facebook and Instagram.

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