Best Selling Books by Mary Logue

The seventh book in the Claire Watkins mystery series. Deputy Sheriff Claire Watkins is faced with a difficult case when a friend of the family is suspected of killing his wife. Her investigation puts a great stress on her relationship with her husband. Things are further strained when the suspect attempts suicide, solidifying his guilt in Claire’s mind. But what if she’s wrong?

This first in a series launch introduces Claire Watkins, a deputy sheriff for the Pepin County Police Department. Claire, a former Minneapolis police detective, and her 10-year-old daughter Meg fled the Twin Cities after her husband, Steve, also a cop, was killed. When Landers Anderson--an elderly neighbor who befriended Claire and Meg--dies of a heart attack after being sideswiped with a shovel, Claire determines to find the culprit. This involves delving into Landers''s family history and investigating the machinations of a right-wing group, Homeowners of America, that is buying up property to build an environmentally unsound development. At the same time, Meg fearfully admits to Claire that she saw the man who killed Steve. Claire contacts her former partner, Det. Bruce Jacobs, and prods him into accelerating the investigation into Steve''s death.

" Mary Logue''s third collection of poetry continues the lyrical examinations of human relationships--with family, with place, with lovers and friends--that distinguished her first two collections. Discriminating Evidence, Settling, and now Meticulous Attachment demonstrate what comes from living fully in the moment. Logue shows us how it''s done: with full-voiced maturity and a generous, sympathetic humanity."--Publisher''s website.

Claire Watkins, deputy sheriff of Pepin County, Wisconsin, makes a strong second showing that ought to gain her new fans. In spite of recurrent panic attacks associated with the death of her husband, Claire is starting to find the peace and security she''s been seeking for herself and her 10-year-old daughter, Meg, since leaving her promising career with the St. Paul-Minneapolis police department for the small bluff town of St. Antoine. One summer evening, while her sister Bridget takes care of Meg, Claire and Rich Haggard, a local pheasant farmer she''s been dating for three months, attend a street dance in nearby Little Rock. Just as the fun gets under way, screams for help stop the music and put romance on hold. Someone has stabbed well-liked farmer Jed Spitzler in the chest. Members of the close-knit St. Antoine community join Jed''s children in searching for Jed''s killer. Long-hidden town secrets are revealed as Claire seeks the truth and continues to struggle with her own demons.

Wisconsin winter weather plays as important a role as any individual in this nicely paced tale of domestic abuse and murder. Claire Watkins is still adjusting to life in little Fort St. Antoine when she notices the bruises and stiff gait of a local woman named Stephanie Klaus. Small town or big city, Claire knows the signs of abuse when she sees them. Stephanie, however, won''t talk, even when her new boyfriend, Buck, is tied into his car, driven out on the treacherous ice of Lake Pepin and left there to sink and drown. When Stephanie, accompanied by Buck''s delightful dog, Snooper, tries to leave town, she is once again beaten; this time, she barely survives . . .

Describes the physical characteristics, habits and habitats of a variety of invertebrates called sea jellies.

Women Writing the West WILLA Award Finalist From “the reigning royalty of Minnesota murder mysteries” (The Rake) comes a striking new heroine: a young Irish immigrant caught up in a deadly plot in nineteenth-century Deadwood When I was fifteen and my brother Seamus sixteen, we attended our own wake. Our family was in mourning, forced to send us off to America. The year is 1880, and of all the places Brigid Reardon and her brother might have dreamed of when escaping Ireland’s potato famine by moving to America, Deadwood, South Dakota, was not one of them. But Deadwood, in the grip of gold fever, is where Seamus lands and where Brigid joins him after eluding the unwanted attentions of the son of her rich employer in St. Paul—or so she hopes. But the morning after her arrival, a grisly tragedy occurs; Seamus, suspected of the crime, flees, and Brigid is left to clear his name and to manage his mining claim, which suddenly looks more valuable and complicated than he and his partners supposed. Mary Logue, author of the popular Claire Watkins mysteries, brings her signature brio and nerve to this story of a young Irish woman turned reluctant sleuth as she tries to make her way in a strange and often dangerous new world. From the famine-stricken city of Galway to the bustling New York harbor, to the mansions of Summit Avenue in St. Paul, and finally to the raucous hustle of boomtown Deadwood, Logue’s new thriller conjures the romance and the perils, and the tricky everyday realities, of a young immigrant surviving by her wits and grace in nineteenth-century America.

"Logue writes beautifully about rural Minnesota life while telling a good mystery. For fans of J.A. Jance and Margaret Maron." --Library Journal Deputy Sheriff Claire Watkins has had an easy summer in Fort St. Antoine, Wisconsin; the only problem is that her daughter Meg is leaving for college soon. When Claire walks down to the park to watch the Burning Boat--a large replica of a Norwegian longboat set on the shores of Lake Pepin, burned at the autumnal equinox--she has no idea that more than just a wooden structure is going up in flames. The next day, the bones of a young woman are found in the ashes. When Claire learns that the new deputy she has hired, a vet returning from Afghanistan, was the young woman''s former boyfriend, and that he is now dating her daughter Meg, she is desperate to find out who is responsible for the death. In order to get to the heart of this mystery, Claire must understand what happened in an attack in the mountains of Afghanistan, which left one man wounded, one man killed, and one man disturbed. Could one of those two remaining men be the killer?

Deputy Sheriff Claire Watkins is back, in this tragic, personal follow up to Poison Heart. Claire’s daughter Meg is struggling with depression - after an all-night high school Halloween party, Meg’s best friend was found dead of an apparent suicide at the foot of Maiden Rock. Krista and Meg had fought at the party, over a boy, and Krista had run off. Meg feels responsible, but what shocks the deputy is that Krista was found with meth in her system. Now Claire is faced with a growing trend in her rural town - meth labs, doped-up teenagers, and young girls just looking for a way to escape their small-town lives.

A series of malicious pranks prompts Fort St. Antoine deputy sheriff Claire Watkins to collaborate with forensic experts to solve a mystery with links to the brutal murders of a farming family fifty years earlier. By the author of Glare Ice and Dark Coulee. Reprint.

2013 Randolph Caldecott Honor Award In this magical bedtime story, the lyrical narrative echoes a Runaway Bunny - like cadence: "Does everything in the world go to sleep?" the little girl asks. In sincere and imaginative dialogue between a not-at-all sleepy child and understanding parents, the little girl decides "in a cocoon of sheets, a nest of blankets," she is ready to sleep, warm and strong, just like a tiger. The Caldecott Honor artist Pamela Zagarenski''s rich, luminous mixed-media paintings effervesce with odd, charming details that nonsleepy children could examine for hours. A rare gem.

A grisly death near her new homestead draws Brigid Reardon into a complicated mystery soon after her arrival in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1881 After the harrowing events that entangled her in Deadwood, Brigid Reardon just wants to move west and get on with her new life in America. But shortly after traveling to Cheyenne to join her brother Seamus, she finds herself caught up in another deadly mystery—beginning with her discovery of a neighbor’s body on the plains near their homes. Was Ella murdered? Are either of the two men in Ella’s life responsible? With Seamus away on a cattle drive, her friend Padraic possibly succumbing to a local’s charms, and the sheriff seemingly satisfied with Ella’s fate, it falls to Brigid to investigate what really happened, which puts her in the crosshairs of one of Cheyenne’s cattle barons, called “big sugars” in these parts. All she really wants is something better than a crumbling, soddy homestead on the desolate plains of Wyoming—and maybe, just maybe, she wants Padraic—but life, it seems, has other plans: this young immigrant from Ireland is going to be a detective on the western frontier of 1880s America, even if it kills her. Loosely based on the true story of Ellen Watson in Cheyenne in 1889, The Big Sugar continues the adventure begun in Mary Logue’s celebrated mystery The Streel, which introduced a “gritty, charming, clever protagonist” (Kirkus Reviews). With a faultless sense of history, a keen eye for suspense, and a poet’s way with prose, Mary Logue all but guarantees that readers, like Brigid, will find the mystery at the heart of The Big Sugar downright irresistible.

Fall comes to Pepin County with a vengeance as Deputy Sheriff Claire Watkins confronts a new evil festering beneath the placid surface of the Wisconsin farm community. A refugee from the Twin Cities, Claire has slowly adapted to small-town life–especially now that she loves and lives with Rich Haggard. But in this rural area, other folks are dangerously restless. One is Daniel Reiner, a wealthy part-time resident who’s been buying up too much land–at least as far as the locals are concerned. Another is gambling addict and aging gold digger Patty Jo Tilde, who recently married a widower twenty years her senior. Patty is itching to inherit her husband’s property, sell it to Reiner, and leave the countryside behind. The only stumbling block–her husband must die. Add to the mix a suspicious goat-herding daughter-in-law and a wounded elk, and things quickly reach a boiling point. As Claire Watkins delves deeper into the mystery, she believes she’s uncovered a deadly history of lies, deceit, arson, and poison. Her problem is to prove it–and then she learns what happened to Patty Jo’s last husband. . . . Evoking the strong community values and the natural beauty of the Mississippi River Valley, this new Claire Watkins novel is Logue’s most exciting yet. Poison Heart is a riveting tale of those who live off the land–and those who end up six feet under it.

While on a class field trip, Roni Delicata and Brian Bain find a local archaeologist unconscious in a cave. Professor Andrew Dart is trying to find evidence of an Indian burial ground to stop the Bloodwater family from developing the site. But it is Dr. Dart who has been stopped first, in this exciting follow-up to "Snatched."

Introduction to the different kinds of sea stars, better known as starfishes.

Car mogul Daniel Walker is celebrating New Year’s Eve alone. Or at least he thinks he is. At midnight, he runs outside naked for a quick roll in the snow. But when he tries to get back in the house, he can’t. He’s been locked out.

Brian and Roni are looking for another case to crack when Roni finds an age-progressed picture of a boy who looks alarmingly like Brian on a missing children website. Brian is sure it is only a coincidence?after all, he?s lived happily with his adoptive parents for as long as he can remember. But then again, his parents have never really told him about his adoption . . . Could there be more to his family history than he knows? As Roni and Brian piece together the clues, other people emerge from the shadows of the past and suddenly Brian isn?t just a detective on the case?he?s the key to a mystery that everyone is after. Can he and Roni uncover the truth before it?s too late? Featuring the strong plotting and offbeat humor that won the Bloodwater Mysteries a prestigious Edgar nomination, Doppelganger is full of twists and turns that will keep readers guessing until the very end.

In a lyrical bedtime book with echoes of Run Away Bunny cadence, the fresh look of two-time Caldecott Honoree Pamela Zagarenski''s luminous illustrations paired with Mary Logue''s poetic language frame the very simple-sounding question: does everything in the world go to sleep? This Caldecott Honor book is certain to give you peaceful dreams Now in lap board book. Does everything in the world go to sleep? In a sincere, poetic, and imaginative dialogue between a not-so-sleepy child and understanding parents, the little girl decides "in a cocoon of sheets, a nest of blankets," she is ready to sleep, warm and strong, just like a tiger. Two-time Caldecott Honor medalist Pamela Zagarenski''s rich, luminous mixed-media paintings effervesce with charming details that nonsleepy children could examine for hours. Winner of the Caldecott Honor, this rare gem is now in lap board book format.

This showcase of Minnesota''s county courthouses spotlights the superb photography by Doug Ohman and imaginative prose by mystery writer Mary Logue.

Thirteen tales of mystery by Minnesota''s premier crime writers.

Setting out to find her sister''s killer, a young woman stumbles into the murky underground world of drugs, kinky games and violent men in this terrifying novel of psychological suspense. Optioned for a television movie by Telecom.

The Missing Statue of Minnehaha is a reinforced, library bound book in The Child''s World series Authors'' Signature Collection.

When Tonia meets Branko, an alien who was sent to earth to bring a female back to his planet, her life is forever changed as their unusual relationship develops over one magical summer. Reprint.

Photographs and text depict the many different kinds of sponges, their similarities and differences, habitats, and behavior.

Mary Logue writes mysteries and memoir as well as poetry, always searching for the lessons in loss. And she offers to her readers-in a direct and eloquent style-what she has learned. A gifted storyteller, her attention is often focused on the beauty abiding within ambiguity. In her second collection of poems, Logue investigates the world close to home-the relationships between sister and sister, parent and child, lover and beloved, woman and nature, heart and mind. Logue''s first collection, Discriminating Evidence, won the 1990 Mid-List Press First Series Award for Poetry. Book jacket.

In Heart Wood poet Mary Logue gives the reader a close examination of the wonderful ordinariness of life in clear and simple language. She asks one to "stand on the earth" and listen, to witness the miracle of a lamb being born, and shows the magic of floating on water. In these poems, she encourages us to live in the heart of this world, realistically to "know how bad it can be and how good." Having homes on both sides of the Mississippi river in Minnesota and Wisconsin, Logue is deeply aware of the natural environment. The landscape of this collection is filled with trees, snow, rivers, flowers, and "wars and weddings." We are presented with the many ways people move through the world as we watch people quilt, stare at a lunar eclipse, or doze with a small dog on their lap. With a warm fire burning while drinking verbena tea the books ends, giving us a deep awareness of all the has happened, at the close of another day. She reminds us it is our duty to "wring every drop of joy" out of this life we have been given, whatever form it takes.

Mae McNally Kirwin was born in 1894 in Chokio, a small prairie community in western Minnesota. In 1926, the sudden death of her husband left Mae to support herself and her five children. She took a job as postmaster of Chokio, where she lived until her death in 1961. These straightforward facts are not enough for Logue. Who was Mae Kirwin? What was it like to live in her world?

The Haunting of Hunter House is a reinforced, library bound book in The Child''s World series Authors'' Signature Collection.

Traces the life of the gentle English poet, with an emphasis on the value of love in her experiences.

Too curious for her own good, Roni, crime reporter for her high school newspaper, teams up with Brian, freshman science geek, to investigate the beating and kidnapping of a classmate.

The Science Around Us series makes science curriculum appealing even to reluctant readers! Beginning with key subjects in biology and physics, these books introduce students to the ''why and how'' of science through an engaging design that includes examples and references young readers can understand. These books answer many science questions and highlight the amazing diversity and endless wonders of the world.

Each poem is paired with a charcoal drawing. "Mary and Dodie Logue are sisters. They grew up near Lake Elmo, Minnesota, in the country. Recently they realized they were both making work about trees; this book is the outcome of their pooled energies."--Page 4 of cover.