I’m Lauren Walker, the thirty-year-old personal assistant to Cameron Clewe, an ultra-wealthy businessman in his mid-thirties who owns the Aircroft estate outside of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. I’ve worked for Cam for around six years, starting when I was fresh out of school with a degree in Business Administration. My friends think I’m foolish for settling for this position rather than trying to break into the “real” business world, but what they don’t understand is that I’m already an integral part of that world. Cam, who runs multiple companies set up by his late step-father, Albert Clewe, claims he couldn’t manage his business empire without my help, and I tend to agree with him.

It’s hard to talk about an average day in my life because they’re all so different. I never know when I’ll be helping Cam juggle a financial decision, a company crisis, or the arrangements for a major charity event. I also oversee much of what goes on at Aircroft. So, as I’ve told everyone again and again, I’m not a glorified secretary, even if I do manage Cam’s schedule and help with his correspondence. Cam depends on my business acumen to assist him with a wide variety of matters, as well as with his new obsession— engaging in amateur detective work.

Fortunately, he has another partner to aid him with sleuthing—Jane Hunter, a semi-retired librarian who’s in her sixties but has more stamina than most people half her age. Cam hired Jane to catalog his private library, but luckily, she’s also a talented amateur sleuth, just like him. I’m grateful she’s around to help with that aspect of his life, especially since she seems to be the only person, besides me, who has the ability to deal with his anxiety, OCD, and slight case of agoraphobia.

The reality is that Cam struggles with some issues that require a specific kind of care and attention. That’s a major aspect of my job that not just anyone can handle. He’s a brilliant man, and basically kind-hearted, but his anxiety and OCD are like invisible weights always pressing down on his shoulders. Some days, he barely holds it together, and it’s part of my job to help him keep everything in balance without making his distress obvious. I know there are other people who could probably handle the business-related portions of my job as well as I can, but I’m also aware that not just anyone can handle Cam. Which makes me feel a responsibility toward my job that goes beyond my duties or earning my rather sizable paycheck. It’s also the reason I can never confess how I really feel about my boss. My romantic feelings, which have grown over the years of our close working relationship, must stay buried. If I told Cam the truth, he’d probably think it best to let me go, rather than possibly deal with any messy emotional fallout.

Which, in my opinion, would not be best for anyone, especially not for him.

A DEADLY CLUE
Series Name: A Hunter and Clewe Mystery, Book 3
Genre: Traditional Mystery
Release: January 2026
Format: Print, Digital, Audio
Purchase Link

Hunter and Clewe are back in the third Hunter and Clewe mystery, from acclaimed author Victoria Gilbert, when a closed case is reopened after another member of a prominent family is murdered.

Cameron Clewe and Jane Hunter, lovers of all things bookish, are slowly cataloging Cam’s private collection of first edition books acquired from the deceased patriarch of the wealthy Stewart family. When Jane finds a note from Kimberly Stewart Ward, one of the daughters of the Stewart patriarch—who supposedly committed suicide—she discovers someone was actually targeting her with the intention of killing her.

Jane and Cam decide to look into the supposedly closed case, but their investigation becomes urgent when another member of the Stewart family is found dead from a drug overdose. The victim’s friends claim he’d been clean and sober for years and refuse to accept the cause of death.

Believing both cases to be connected, Jane and Cam are determined to solve them before any other direct heirs of the family are targeted.

About the author
Raised in a historic small town at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains in northern Virginia, Victoria Gilbert turned her early obsession with books into a dual career as a librarian and author. Retired from her position as a library director, she now works full-time as an author, writing the Blue Ridge Library Mystery series, the Booklover’s B&B Mystery series, the Hunter and Clewe traditional mystery series, and the Campus Sleuth mystery series. A member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and International Thriller Writers, Victoria lives outside of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Victoria’s website is victoriagilbertauthor.com.