Well, hello there! Ace said you wanted to meet me. My name is Tom Burns and I’m a deputy coroner for Fayette County. (Ouch, she just poked me. I guess I’m not supposed to be so formal – or such a smarty-pants, take your pick).

By the way, Ace is my nickname for Trooper Aislyn McAllister, because I mispronounced her name (Ace-lyn, not Ash-lyn) and, well, as I tell her, Ace is a better nickname than Ash.

But I’m getting off topic.

You want to know what a typical day is like for me. That, my friend, is not an easy question to answer. One of the reasons I like this job is because no day is ever exactly like another, kind of like my friend Jim Duncan. Do you know him? Good. I don’t have to explain.

On any given day, I may be called to the scene of a death. This can be anything from an elderly person dying alone in an apartment, to a car accident with fatalities, to a drug overdose, to a homicide. It sounds macabre, but that last is kinda my favorite. See, I went to medical school and had every intention of becoming an ER doc until some personal events made me change my mind. I figured getting into death investigation would give me the chance to, you know, investigate and maybe get justice for the dead person.

Not only that, dead people don’t complain. (Ouch, Ace poked me again. She’s telling me to behave myself. Where’s the fun in that?)

Take, for example, my latest call. A man in an extreme state of decomp and shot three times in the chest. Not very exciting, right? Au contraire. Said dead man had a very sad-looking, abused greyhound dog in his garage. Now what’s up with that?

Never fear. I have every confidence that Jim Duncan will figure everything out. With help from yours truly, of course. He wouldn’t be able to do his job without me.

Uh-oh, I’m getting a dirty look. Guess it’s time to wrap this up. Which is okay, because my cell just rang and I gotta go out to the scene of a suspected drug overdose. Ah, the exciting life of a deputy coroner!

Lie Down with Dogs, A Laurel Highlands Mystery #5
Genre: Traditional
Release: August 2022
Purchase Link

Trooper Jim Duncan’s first day with the Criminal Investigation Division starts off with a bang when he is called to a murder scene with a badly decomposed body. After he finds an abused greyhound in the victim’s garage, the simple homicide becomes more complicated. Why would anyone want an unreliable racetrack employee dead, especially when greyhound racing is illegal in Pennsylvania?

Assistant public defender Sally Castle is facing her own career change. When she accepts a position with an old law school friend, her first case seems to be one that is exactly what she wants to do. Then she learns the greyhound adoption group her client may have embezzled from has ties to the shooting victim. What else is her client hiding?

Jim and Sally work their respective investigations, which may or may not be related. Along the way, they learn important lessons about themselves, those they work with, and the people they protect. But can they complete their tasks without falling prey to a killer?

About the author
Liz Milliron is the author of The Laurel Highlands Mysteries series, set in the scenic Laurel Highlands of Southwestern Pennsylvania, and The Homefront Mysteries, set in Buffalo, NY during the early years of World War II. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Pennwriters, and International Thriller Writers. A recent empty-nester, Liz lives outside Pittsburgh with her husband and a retired-racer greyhound.

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