A Dark and Cozy Night

Nobody surprises-or unsettles-readers quite like DeAnna Knippling, veteran author of over 80 books.

Sharp-eyed mystery writer Liz Hicks seethes in the wreckage of her Colorado mountain home-books and knickknacks scattered everywhere, thunder shaking the tarped-up windows, the house heavy with the smell of spilled cleaning supplies and the lingering ghost of a leather motorcycle jacket nobody wears anymore.

The burglars only took one thing from the chaos: her dead husband's carved longhorn s...