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Frederick Ramsay

With a Foreword by Frederick Ramsay

"Ramsay nicely mixes town and gown, sophisticates and rustics, thugs and masterminds. Ike Schwartz seems destined for a bright future." —Publishers Weekly

Ike Schwartz is the new sheriff of Picketsville, Virginia. He's also trying to shake the demons of his past, the memories of a day that went horribly wrong in Switzerland.

Aside from its Civil War history, Picketsville's one claim to fame is Callend College—a private women's school on the edge of town. The college is most notable for housing half of the billion dollar Dillon art collection, a treasure secured in an underground bunker originally built in the 1950s as a super bomb shelter. Its alarm system is state of the art.

But is it? Could a determined and ruthless group get away with stealing the paintings and statuary and then ransom it back for millions? The fanatics have a plan that will spell bad news for the new college president, for Sheriff Schwartz, and for a pair of college students caught in the local Lover's Lane at just the wrong moment.

Poisoned Pen Press

Ike Schwartz Series

Artscape

Two seedy murders interrupt the wedding festivities of an ex-CIA agent turned smalltown Virginia sheriff in this mystery by the author of Scone Island.

 Ethyl Smut, everyone agreed, deserved to die. But even a life wasted deserves justice. When a second body is unearthed in Ethyl’s shallow grave and the nightmarish George LeBrun finds his way to Ike’s desk, things get messy fast. 

 Then there is Ethyl’s missing daughter, Darla, who could testify against some important people if she were found. And as if Ike hadn’t enough on his plate, former CIA co-workers Karl Hedrick and Sam arrive to investigate the source of the second body. It’s like old home week in Picketsville. 

 Finally, there is the ongoing saga of Ike and Ruth’s engagement that must be settled one way or another. Can Ike solve these cases before his altar date? 

Praise for Drowning Barbie

“Highly entertaining.” —Kirkus Reviews

 “Ramsay skillfully blends wry humor, witty dialogue, and engaging characters with a dark plot that tackles some of society's most unsolvable and tragic faults.” —Kings River Life Magazine

Drowning Barbie

"A thought-provoking examination of serious pastoral issues and a thoroughly entertaining mystery that succeeds on all levels without recourse to bombast or carnage." —Publishers Weekly

The Reverend Blake Fisher was ambitious and naïve, a combination that led to his exile to Picketsville, Virginia, where his bishop has named him the new vicar. He's off to a poor start what with a corpse in the sanctuary, his gun stolen, his congregation in open rebellion, and the local law breathing down his neck. Then the Vicar's secretary, Millicent Bass, an incorrigible gossip and snoop, follows Waldo to an early grave.

For Sheriff Ike Schwartz, two murders and the unexplained presence of the FBI in his town wreak havoc with keeping the peace. They don't do his romance with the president of Callend College for Women any good either. Ruth Harris is threatened by the murders on the one hand, and on the other by her faculty, who dismiss Ike as just another country cop. If only they knew how overqualified Ike actually is....

Secrets

"Ramsay demonstrates once again that he is a superb storyteller, adroitly mixing the spy and small-town mystery genres and shocking us with one walloping big surprise midway through the book." —Booklist

It's midwinter and the Shenandoah Valley is poised on the brink of an unusually icy and snowy season. Alexei Kamarov's body is discovered in a forest within the Picketsville town limits. His driver's license identifies him as Randall Harris. The last Sheriff Ike Schwartz heard of Kamarov, he was reported missing—presumed dead in Russia—the victim of intelligence game-playing.

Ike is not happy this piece of his past has resurfaced. Especially when Ike's former CIA colleague and friend Charlie Garland asks Ike to keep a lid on the investigation.

Slowly, interagency rivalries emerge as local petty criminals vie with international assassins and plotters for attention. All the while, Buffalo Mountain looms in the background....

Buffalo Mountain

The past has always felt near in the historic house of Jonathon Lydell III, who proudly advertises his family connection to the Virginia Lees. But now, history is repeating itself in a truly bizarre and spooky way. One hundred and fifty years ago, a guest staying in the Lydell family house was murdered in the “stranger room,” a guest room that is unconnected to the main house. The windowless room’s single door was closed and locked from the inside. The murder, never solved, fell into the background of the Civil War. But the town is shocked and mystified when, a century and a half later, another guest is murdered in the same stranger room, with the door again locked from the inside. Sheriff Ike Schwartz and FBI agent Karl Hedrick are dispatched to resolve the mystery of the strangely identical murders, but they meet with obstacles and resistance at every turn.

Lloyd James

Blackstone Publishing

Stranger Room

Sometimes clues just fall out of the sky.

Nick Reynolds, his pilot’s rating barely a month old, drops off the radar at night over the Chesapeake Bay. Investigating agencies call it another tragic pilot-error accident. No trace of the plane is found in the Bay’s murky waters. Ike Schwartz, erstwhile sheriff of Picketsville, on vacation, is approached by Charlie Garland, an old CIA friend, to look into the disappearance. Ike’s wide-eyed entry into a simple missing person’s case catapults him into an international thriller with intimations of terrorism that might threaten the nation and its leaders.

Choker

"Sure-footed plotting and easy banter make Ramsay's sixth Sheriff Ike mystery a brisk, entertaining read." —Kirkus Reviews

On the same evening a body is left in Picketsville's urgent care clinic, a mysterious break-in occurs at the house of one of Callend University's faculty. Sheriff Ike Schwartz thinks both events might be connected to The Virgin of Tenderness, an icon in the faculty member's possession.

Then, what appears to be a microdot is found on the icon. In an era of sophisticated cyber-encrypted information transfer, the presence of this bit of CIA nostalgia brings in Ike's friend Charlie Garland and the forces from Langley.

Ike has no wish to engage with them or their problems. He has killers to apprehend—in spite of the meddling by government agencies. But there is more to these murders than meets the eye. A dead CIA agent and a rogue handler could trigger an international incident....

The Eye of the Virgin

"Ike Schwartz outing combines high-tech detection with routine sleuthing" —Booklist

Ruth Harris, Sherriff Ike Schwartz's fiancée, is involved in a near fatal automobile accident. But Ike is convinced the crash was rigged. Even though he is embroiled in a close election, has no jurisdiction over the investigation, and can find no support in the usual law enforcement community, he places himself on leave and goes rogue to investigate and seek the person or persons responsible for putting Ruth in a coma.

Help arrives from unexpected and irregular sources. Old friends in the covert community step up and his loyal staff in Picketsville provide undercover assistance. The journey leads Ike to state's rights organizations, then to several zealots and dissident academics before it finally ends at home in Picketsville.

Rogue

"All the fast-paced action and danger readers have come to expect." —Kirkus Reviews

Ike Schwartz, Sheriff of Picketsville, Virginia, and his fiancée Ruth Dennis, the President of a local university, seek asylum from a trying year of academic and local politics on Scone Island, four miles off the coast of Maine. Its lack of electricity, reliable water supply, and phone service guarantee their seclusion and peace. The suspicious accident that resulted in the death of the mysterious Harmon Staley should not concern them at all. And it doesn't...until Ike's past as a CIA agent rolls in on him like the area's famous twelve-foot tides. Two more murders involving former colleagues send Ike's old CIA friend Charlie Garland searching for a connection. Stonewalling by the CIA and conspiracies—real and imagined—leave Ike and Ruth facing an unknown number of determined assassins alone on the island. Then Ruth's mother decides to drop in on them just as the excitement begins....

Ike Schwartz Series - Bokserien

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