Love #Mystery and #Suspense? The Wind Series by Judy Bruce is Addictive and a Must-Read! #books #boo
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  • N. N. Light
    • Mar 8, 2018
    • 10 min read

Love #Mystery and #Suspense? The Wind Series by Judy Bruce is Addictive and a Must-Read! #books #boo


Title: Voices in the Wind (Book 1 Wind Series)

Author: Judy Bruce

Genre: Mystery-suspense

Publisher: Merriam Press

Book Blurb:

The story is set in western Nebraska in the American Midwest. A young attorney accepts a job at her imperious father’s law firm, which forces her to confront tragedies old and new, and leads her into a harrowing fight for survival and the transformation that brings forgiveness and a new perspective. Along the way, the heroine, Megan, must deal with a crooked attorney, a tornado, lots of root beer, a blond stud, voices in the wind, heartbreak, a lunatic with a shotgun, delicious pastries, isolation, and lies.

Book Excerpt:

I wasn’t ready to go home. I needed more time to think about the decision that would set the course of my life. Yet I was forced to go now, for the funeral was tomorrow. So I let my Camry take me onto Interstate 80, out of the trees and green, rolling hills of Omaha, westward into the flat dullness of the Great Plains. Cornfields rolled by. Should I take a position at my father’s law firm? Wheat. He’d been prepping me for years—maybe my whole life. Grain silos. Or should I accept the job offer in Omaha I’d received only yesterday? Soybeans. A job in my dinky hometown of Dexter, in the middle of nowhere, meant leaving David behind. Center pivot irrigation. But Uncle Bill and that big ole house I loved were west—just about as far west as you could go in Nebraska. Black Angus. I received the Omaha offer because of all that I already knew, all that my father had taught me. Scrub brush. Did I owe him? Did I belong there? Buffalo grass. Was I brave enough to deal with all that haunted me—the voices in the wind?

When the Rocky Mountains punched through the land in the west eons ago, it thrust the land to the east upward, creating the High Plains. My anxiety rose with the elevation. The commerce of the region changed from grain-reaping to hoof-bearing—I was getting close to home. What should I do? Dealing with my father was a must. And I needed to find out why my recent search yielded no official record of my mother’s death. My stomach cart wheeled.

I looped off the interstate southward onto Highway 51, proceeding past the ditches of green weeds and crunchy brown grass interspersed with purple prairie clover, white aster, and pink smartweed. Bluffs, the big chunks of land left after a bazillion years of wind and water, rose out of the ground on both sides of the roadway. Harney Street, located a half mile north of town, came much too quickly. And my father, Frank Docket, was much too eager to see me. He must have timed my trip, including my stop for a sandwich at a truck stop in Grand Island, then left work early.

I stopped my car in the double driveway of my home, a stately red-brick two-story with white trim, black shutters, and three attic dormers, and gazed at my father and my uncle who had joined him on the front steps. Juxtaposed, they created an amusing impression—Uncle Bill, age fifty-four, was the robust rancher, weather-hardened and built solid, with a Husker cap covering a thick head of brown-gray hair; next to him stood the equally tall but thin man of fifty-seven years, with the paunch of an office worker and receding brown hair, grayed at the temples, in a white shirt with his navy tie still tight against his neck, bearing a disruption of the face that was meant to be taken as a smile. Uncle Bill greeted me with a bear hug and a big grin. My father thanked me for coming home on short notice then patted my shoulder once as I ascended the front steps into the house. Uncle Bill followed me up the main staircase and plopped my suitcase and garment bag down on my denim comforter.

A strange, fleeting thought struck me—how different would my personality, my life be if Uncle Bill was my father?

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Author Biography:

Judy Bruce is a resident of Omaha, Nebraska, USA, where she lives with her husband and two children. She has a law degree from Creighton University. Judy is the author of the Wind Series: Voices in the Wind, Alone in the Wind, Cries in the Wind, Fire in the Wind and future stories in the series, as well as Death Steppe: A World War II Novel. She maintains a website at judybruce.com and a blog at heyjoood.com.

Title: Alone in the Wind (Book 2 Wind Series)

Author: Judy Bruce

Genre: Mystery-suspense-crime

Publisher: Merriam Press

Book Blurb:

A young attorney strives to protect those around her amid tragedy and the threat of drug dealing and abuse that begins to attack her small town. Ultimately, her rage causes her to take action over the death of a young autistic friend by corrupt cops. The consequences blacken her soul and plunge her into a struggle for peace and redemption.

Book Excerpt:

My guts churned as I exited the back door, forcing me to halt in the middle of our brick patio. I’d felt this queasy sense of danger before, so I knew to heed it. I returned to the house, and then emerged a few minutes later with my Glock 42 subcompact shoved into the waistband of my jeans. I checked the battery level of my smart phone as I walked across the plush lawn then stepped onto the curly gray-green buffalo grass that covered the crunchy-dry soil.

At my Uncle Bill’s barn a block away, all seemed peaceful. I led my husband Brian’s tall palomino, Rohan, to the adjacent pasture and let him loose. My hardy, black quarter horse bobbed his head in anticipation as I drew near to saddle him. Out in the wild country, nobody owned weak-ankled, skittish horses. Before we exited the barn, I took his head in my hands and stared at him until he became still.

“Danger, Gondor. Danger.”

I stared at him for a few more moments then I swung myself up onto the saddle, hoping he sensed this was an unusual, possibly perilous outing.

“Danger, Megan,” I murmured.

Riding across the jagged ground of western Nebraska, we skirted south of the bluff Big Leo toward the house of the man who tried to kill me.

Yet, the Eldritch house had been vacated last year. The last member of the family, Lew, sold all his family’s land, including the house and his small herd of heifers, to my uncle and me. We were pleased to help our friend start a new life as a carpenter. Bill’s cowhands cleared out all the furniture in readiness for the demolition of the decrepit homestead next week. Compelled to check for any squatters on the property, I let Gondor pick his way through the harsh, rocky ground as I guided him northeast.

To the south, Rohan charged through the smooth pasture in contented oblivion, his gold coat shimmering in the sunlight. Once we cleared the rugged, uneven soil, I spurred Gondor to a gallop. Soon, the gray house, long weather-stripped of its white paint, came into view. When we were fifty yards away, I slowed Gondor to a halt. His muscles rippled in anticipation of a longer ride. I stroked his neck until he became still.

“Danger,” I said as I walked him forward, my queasiness increasing by the moment.

I checked to make sure my denim jacket covered my gun, which dug into my spine. The dilapidated wood frame house, complete with a rotted and partially collapsed front porch, looked shrunken with tragedy. As I approached the south side of the house, Gondor remained quiet, though the pounding of my heart reverberated through my chest.

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Title: Cries in the Wind (Book 3 Wind Series)

Author: Judy Bruce

Genre: Mystery-suspense

Publisher: Merriam Press

Book Blurb:

The third story in the Wind Series finds Megan stirred by the mystery of two strangers and the unsolved murders of two local women from decades past. Pregnant yet haunted, Megan summons the help of close family and friends then plunges into an investigation which uncovers deceit, revenge, and betrayal. As Megan nears the truth, she and her crew become endangered by the killer. When Megan persists, she faces disastrous consequences.

Book Excerpt:

I killed the chief of police, but I didn’t plan to tell anyone. I also shot that scumbag DEA agent. They committed crimes that rocked our small, rural community—they even killed a young autistic man. No, I didn’t see it all happen, I just knew. I’m strange in some ways—I feel, I hear, I know things. And going to prison for killing two murderers wasn’t going to help anybody, especially me.

Five months later, I was still trying to put it behind me. I humbly believed God gave me permission to move on with life, so that’s what I tried to do. Nightmares, both bizarre and realistic, still shook me, but now only once or twice a month. I’d stopped trying to ease the horror with bourbon; after all, I was four months pregnant.

Scanning the rugged terrain to the west of the highway, I drove southward to my law office on an early summer day. This was the harsh, semi-arid high plains with scraggily buffalo grass, crusty ridges, massive bluffs, rocky buttes, and dry gullies interspersed amid the fertile pastures of the cattle ranches. Despite the brutal winters and the devastating droughts, I belonged here. I considered my land beautiful, yet haunting—the furious wind howled, taunting me with mysteries I was forced to solve.

Today, I was simply going in to my office for an unusually early appointment. People didn’t usually want to meet this early, but I didn’t mind. If it wasn’t for the strange uneasiness that nagged at me, I would have thought this would be a Tuesday like any other. After I parked in the lot behind my law firm on Benson Street, I called my husband Brian, urging him to come as soon as he could.

My client, Frank Morgan, arrived promptly at seven. I knew nothing about him, for he booked the appointment with Glenda, my receptionist and former second grade teacher. I unlocked the front door to a stocky man of sixty or so with a gray-brown mix of thinning, curly hair. I pegged him as an office worker, for he lacked the robust, weather-hardened look of the ranchers in the area; also, he wore a fine-quality suit most men in the area either couldn’t afford or didn’t bother owning. As I led him across the lobby to my office, my brain told me this was merely a businessman from the suburbs, but my guts roiled, arguing to the contrary. I left the office door open during an appointment, a rarity.

After some small talk, he came to the point. His request stunned me.

“Why would anyone want to buy the old Hexam wasteland?” I asked.

“I think it can be improved,” he said as he folded his arms across his chest, revealing thick wrist hair and a slim, black-faced silver watch.

“Excuse me, but I don’t understand your interest. You just told me you’re an insurance executive in Kansas City.”

It was ridiculous—that was obvious—I didn’t need my rising blood pressure to tell me what my mind understood. The back door opened and closed. As I studied the man’s face, my hubby Brian walked into the lobby and looked into the office. I waved at him. He nodded and left to go to his office across the lobby. He was an accountant and taxation specialist who had intended to go to his Sidney office this morning—but he knew me well enough to heed my sense of alarm. I would feel foolish when I told him it simply pertained to an absurd request by a stranger.

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Title: Fire in the Wind (Book 4 Wind Series)

Author: Judy Bruce

Genre: Mystery-suspense

Publisher: Merriam Press

Book Blurb:

Outraged by a cross burning on her land, Megan forms the Night Posse then strikes back. Meanwhile, she is saddened by the tragic illness of her dear friend, James. After her new boyfriend is killed, she is jailed for his murder. Later she fights to the death in the darkness against an avenger. An undercover cop pursues her. When a dying James attempts to end his life, Megan is forced to act.

Book Excerpt:

I died once, but only for a minute or so. Still, it should rank with distinction in the category of unusual circumstances. I’ve also killed four men in the last four years, which must be a record for Nebraska attorneys under the age of thirty. But I planned to stay out of trouble—I failed in the past and it cost me dearly. Yet calamity came even faster than I expected.

Starting at dawn on Sunday, a disturbance tormented me—the sense of foreboding in my guts persisted throughout the day and into the evening. After a delicious supper I barely tasted, portent began to pulse through my arteries. So I set out for my “backyard,” as I called it. Five miles of rugged land north of my house stretched before me, pocked with peculiar land forms. I passed over a grassy mound named Rufus located half a football field from the house then weaved through the five small buttes dubbed the Seven Dwarfs, located southwest of a bluff called Big Leo. The second year of the drought kept the soil beneath the gray-green buffalo grass crusty hard. What was bothering me?

A prairie dog popped his head out of his hole, barked at me, and then disappeared. I turned to face the early August wind, waiting for answers, but none came. I didn’t even hear Beverly Wilson, my neighbor whom I had loved like a mother in the absence of my own. Why didn’t I hear her soothing voice? I jogged over to Big Leo and climbed the east slope. Once atop the bluff, I stood by the Fort, the small hut of wood framing and glass windows that my Uncle Bill and others built for me last December.

Then it struck me—the door was unlocked. The inside was void of much besides benches for me and my guests to use in the winter to keep out of the sting of the gusting north wind. I examined the lock, which did show scratches around the keyhole; it was probably an easy lock to pick. This unsecured door could be meaningless, but my roiling guts argued back. So I spent a half hour searching for answers. Using the binoculars I stored under one of the seats, I first scanned the Beast, a larger bluff to the north; Pooper’s Canyon, a dry ditch near the Wilson property to the west; Raccoon Creek, a shallow stream marked by cottonwoods that cut through dry earth to the west; and finally Miss Gulch, a deep, dry gully to the northwest. I loved this scraggily wasteland, replete with cherished memories of my childhood with Derek and Vonny Wilson. Yet it was also a place that haunted me from my earliest days here as a toddler, with eerie voices in the wind that tortured me with longing. It worried me that a new, disturbing event might scar my land.

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Title: Lies in the Wind (Book 5 Wind Series)

Author: Judy Bruce

Genre: Mystery-suspense

Publisher: Merriam Press

Book Blurb:

In the fifth story, two Dexter residents die in an apparent murder-suicide. Sensing great evil, Megan seeks the truth. When another murder occurs, Megan and the police understand the mortal danger to others, including a young autistic.

Meanwhile, Megan’s love life falls apart. Again. With the help of Edgar Allan Poe, she uncovers fraud, betrayal, and lies, thereby exposing the killer, and forcing a fight for survival. Again.

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(Available in paperback but e-copy coming soon)

Barnes and Noble (coming soon)

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