Margins
Stiff Penalty book cover
Stiff Penalty
2015
First Published
4.12
Average Rating
368
Number of Pages

Part of Series

Danger multiplies for a pregnant coroner investigating a math teacher’s murder in this hard-boiled mystery by a USA Today –bestselling author. Deputy coroner Mattie Winston knows a thing or two about dead bodies. That’s why she’s on the case of Derrick Ames, a high school math teacher stabbed to death with a barbecue fork straight to the heart. Sure, she’s turned up some motives and a few suspects, but nothing adds up. Especially when the evidence points to Ames’s teenage son. Newly pregnant Mattie can’t believe it, even as her own long-estranged father may be following her. But one thing’s certain, she’d better start figuring things out fast, or a deadly perpetrator could be subtracting two more victims from the population of Sorenson, Wisconsin . . . Praise for Annelise Ryan and her Mattie Winston series “Ryan shows growing skill at mixing humor with CSI-style crime.”— Publishers Weekly “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
Avg Rating
4.12
Number of Ratings
1,451
5 STARS
36%
4 STARS
43%
3 STARS
18%
2 STARS
3%
1 STARS
0%
goodreads

Author

Annelise Ryan
Annelise Ryan
Author · 18 books

Annelise Ryan is the USA Today bestselling author of the Monster Hunter Mysteries featuring cryptozoologist and bookstore owner, Morgan Carter, and the Mattie Winston mystery series, featuring a wryly cynical nurse-turned-coroner. She has always believed laughter really is the best medicine, and with the Mattie Winston series she hoped to "medicate" the masses. She also believes in a good scare every once in a while, hence the Monster Hunter mysteries, the first of which, A Death in Door County, came out in September of 2022. The second in that series, Death in the Dark Woods, comes out in December 2023. Annelise Ryan is a pseudonym for author Beth Amos. There were several reasons why she decided to use a pseudonym, not the least of which was that her ER patients might not have been comfortable knowing she spent her spare time thinking up clever ways to kill people. She is also the author of the Mack's Bar Mystery series written as Allyson K. Abbott. Ryan is a retired emergency room RN living in Wisconsin.

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