Needled to Death

by Annelise Ryan

Overview

As a colleague of deputy coroner Mattie Winston, social worker Clothilde “Hildy” Schneider is no stranger to unsolved murders at Sorenson General Hospital. Except this time, it’s up to her to crack the case . . .
 
Motivated by her own difficult past, Hildy has an unparalleled commitment to supporting troubled clients through grief and addiction in Sorenson, Wisconsin. But when a distraught group therapy member reveals disturbing details about her late son’s potential murder, Hildy goes from dedicated mental health professional to in-over-her-head amateur sleuth . . .
 
Alongside her loyal therapy Golden Retriever, Hildy stumbles through incriminating clues—and an unlikely partnership with Detective Bob Richmond, the irresistibly headstrong cop who shares her passion for helping others. With signs of foul play surfacing all over town, can Hildy and Detective Richmond pinpoint the deadly traits of a sharp-witted killer before another seat gets filled at grief therapy?
 
Praise for Annelise Ryan and her Mattie Winston series

“The funniest deputy coroner to cut up a corpse since, well, ever!”
—Laura Levine, author of Killer Cruise

“The forensic details will interest Patricia Cornwell readers . . . while the often slapstick humor and the blossoming romance between Mattie and Hurley will draw Evanovich fans.”
—Booklist

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496719454
Publisher:	Kensington
Publication date:	07/30/2019
Series:	A Helping Hands Mystery , #1
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	344
Sales rank:	123,555
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Annelise Ryan is the pseudonym for the author of the Mattie Winston Mysteries and the Mac's Bar Mysteries (written as Allyson K. Abbott). She has written more than 200 published articles, worked as a book reviewer for Barnes & Noble, and is an active member of Mystery Writers of America and International Thriller Writers. Annelise currently works as a registered nurse in an ER. She can be reached at www.mattiewinston.com. Her books have garnered numerous accolades, most recently she has been honored by the Wisconsin Library Association.

Editorial Reviews

2019-05-13
A distraught mother needs help to prove that her son was murdered in this exciting spinoff from the Mattie Winston series (Dead of Winter, 2019, etc.).

Sharon Cochran shows up at social worker Hildy Schneider's bereavement group with a strange request that changes the group's dynamic and Hildy's life. Sharon's son, Toby, has recently died after dropping out of college. The police have written his death off as an overdose. But Sharon speaks urgently and eloquently about why they can't possibly be right. Hildy, who grew up in foster homes after her own mother was murdered, can readily identify with Sharon's story. So she agrees to help, using her connections with the police and the coroner to get some answers. She even makes a copy of Toby's fingerprints that's good enough to open his computer and uses what she finds there to convince Detective Bob Richmond and coroner Mattie Winston to take another look at his death. Toby, who'd shown no sign of previous drug use, dumped his gorgeous girlfriend and sent his fraternity brothers emails warning them that he couldn't go along with some secret plan they had. When Hildy persuades Bob to let her ride along with him, her insights prove to be very helpful. Neither the fraternity house mother nor the fraternity brothers offer much help, but Hildy realizes that the secret they're hiding must be dangerous and most likely illegal. Her determination leads both to the answers she seeks and to an exciting new professional pathway that ends up including even her beloved dog.

A provocative page-turner.

Kirkus Reviews