Secure the Ranch a Josephine Stuart Mystery

Josephine Stuart, a fifty-year-old widow, is blessed and cursed with an overactive curiosity, a strong sense of right and wrong and a willingness to put herself on the line for her friends. Josephine has been hired to paint murals in the secluded Munger Mansion, located at the top of a wooded mountain. Certain local reprobates have their reasons for wanting the Mungers to leave their new home. Accidents, fires and the death of a forest ranger have everyone on edge. Josephine's curiosity drives her down the mountain, into the world of illegal activities and nefarious characters. Her situation become dire--no way to escape. One captor has a knife, the other has a rifle. Can she save herself and her friends?
Secure the Ranch is the first in a seven-book series. The cozy mystery stories take place on the California Central Coast. They are short on murder and blood and long on sleuthing, adventure and fun.