FIDDLEHEAD MANGO, THE NEW MACKENZIE & MACKENZIE NOVEL
...AVAILABLE NOW!
Marilinne Cooper, Author
Books by Marilinne Cooper
Available at amazon.com in your choice of paperback or e-book.
Night Heron
Investigative journalist, Tyler Mackenzie, heads to rural northern Vermont in 1986 to write an article about a renowned stained glass artist who died in 1955; his world is rocked when he meets her daughter who has been working anonymously as a bartender in the local inn. Together they uncover the sordid details surrounding her parents’ dysfunctional marriage, her philandering father’s gambling problems and her talented mother’s mysterious death. The plot weaves suspense, passion, and revealing flashbacks into an evocative tale, richly populated with colorful New England village characters.
Butterfly Tattoo
Tyler Mackenzie returns to rural Vermont in a quest to find Woody Foster’s long lost sweetheart who disappeared from a small Mexican village twenty-five years earlier. At the same time that Woody is diagnosed with cancer, a mysterious package is mailed to him from another Vermont town, which begins the ensuing search for Suzanne, who has suddenly vanished again. With the help of his girlfriend Sarah Scupper, who also happens to be the bartender at Woody’s West Jordan Inn, Tyler is soon hot on the trail of Suzanne’s very unconventional past, via Chicago, Mexico, and finally the tiny Caribbean island of Nevis, where, caught in the eye of Hurricane Hugo, the mystery unravels itself at last.
Blue Moon
A friendly stranger who walks into the West Jordan Inn one evening becomes the prime suspect in the murder of an old friend, whose body is discovered in the smoking remains of a derelict hotel. Sarah Scupper, the inn manager, calls her boyfriend, Tyler Mackenzie, an investigative journalist from New York City, to see if he can figure out who actually might be to blame. But what Tyler discovers, as he rides his mountain bike from West Jordan to Carlisle each day, is a story much bigger than a single case of arson and murder. At one time Carlisle was a bustling summer resort town full of grand hotels and eventually the setting for an alternative college. Over the past twenty years most of the turn-of-the-century buildings, now abandoned, have mysteriously burned down. Tyler manages to enlist the help of the town fire chief's wife and her winsome and seductive daughter in what becomes a dangerous adventure with unexpected twists and turns through history involving a cast of colorful rural Vermont characters.
Double Phoenix
Two men and a baby show up at the West Jordan Inn; when one of the men mysteriously disappears, business as usual quickly becomes less than status quo. Tyler Mackenzie, a former investigative journalist, leaves his longtime girlfriend, innkeeper Sarah Scupper, as well as his job as inn chef, and takes up acting at a local theater company to solve the disappearance of the missing man, a mystery that becomes more tightly raveled the deeper he probes. Tyler is soon in over his head, snarled in a twisted tale involving a Svengali–like director, his captivating wife, and a cast of quirky acting students. Meanwhile, left to cope with the inn in high season, Sarah develops an unexpected relationship with the remaining young drifter and his infant charge. As Tyler uncovers evidence of murder, depravity, and decades–long deception, the situation becomes increasingly dangerous for him and for Sarah, culminating in a page–turning conclusion that rocks their world.
Dead Reckoning
Tyler Mackenzie, former investigative journalist, is now just another unshaven, alcoholic, nightmare-addled beach-bum on the Caribbean island of Grenada. Until he is shaken out of his rum-soaked stupor by a call – old friend, Lucy Brookstone is dead in a car crash just a few islands away and her six year old son is missing. Recruiting local beach-ambassador Calvin and Swedish nymphomaniac, Ingrid, as his partners, Tyler sleuths his way through the beaches, bars and bedrooms of Bequia in search of a child and a memory. Can he survive a rendezvous with old enemies as violent as the punk music that made them millionaires? And can he protect Calvin's twin, the gentle and exotically remote Justine? Written with a pitch perfect ear for dialog, an insider’s eye for detail, and plenty of gratuitous sex, “Dead Reckoning” is escapist reading for the thinking person at its best.
Snake Island
A seemingly uneventful father/son beach-camping vacation on the Puerto Rican island of Culebra spins alarmingly out of control when Tyler Mackenzie’s sixteen-year-old son, Tucker, goes missing after being last seen with Chloe, a winsome young woman, at a weekly conga drum performance in a local bar. Supported by a group of colorful campground cohorts, Tyler teams up with the girl’s unconventional mother, Elle, in a search for their teenage children. Soon he is not only seduced by her steamy sexuality but is sucked into an adventure much more complex than he ever envisioned, involving two dead men, a lot of Caribbean island hopping, a host of suspicious characters and several serpentine plot twists. An evocative page-turner right up to the action-packed climax, Snake Island is a delicious tropical cocktail that blends a generous jigger of passion with a double shot of suspense, garnished with a slice of island life and a dash of classic bad parenting.
Windfall
A band, a bar and a baby. Or two… Myles Scupper-Adams is a sweet-faced musician in love with a girl he can’t have. He returns from a European backpacking trip to find he’s lost the opportunity to go to college because his well-meaning parents have spent his tuition money on adoption costs for two Chinese orphans. Instead he takes a caretaking position in Windfall, New Hampshire where his moral compass begins to point in the wrong direction as he develops an unhealthy resentment for the “haves” of his new hometown. When a woman is found dead and Myles, the chief suspect in her murder, goes missing, his mother, Sarah Scupper, seeks her old friend Tyler Mackenzie’s assistance in tracking him down. Tyler’s newfound fascination with online dating and an obsession for tango dancing have led him to the same small village of Windfall. But Tyler’s own life changes abruptly when Chloe, apparently now his daughter-in-law, arrives in a snowstorm, alone and very pregnant. Chloe’s evasive behavior regarding her present circumstances is just the beginning of a complex mystery and a series of twisted relationships that cross the river into New Hampshire and back again to West Jordan, Vermont, and include a psychopathic librarian, an alluring dance instructor and a lawless logger with a past.
Catnip Jazz
A Cajun fortuneteller. A sassy sex show performer. A pair of Voodoo Buddhists in the Bywater…
When Myles rescues Kit, a mysterious woman wandering in the desert landscape of the Baja Peninsula, he has no idea how his good deed will irrevocably change the future. He soon finds himself on the run with murder charges hanging over his head. Fleeing north with Kit, under an assumed identity, he leaves an idyllic beach existence on the Sea of Cortez for a new life as a musician in colorful New Orleans. But eventually the past catches up with Myles in a series of cataclysmic events from which there is no turning back. Meanwhile, in a Vermont village, Tyler Mackenzie’s domain has been forever changed by the presence of Chloe, the whirlwind young mother of his twin granddaughters. Chloe has taken over his household and his job, leaving Tyler in a semi-permanent state of depression, a couch potato unable to locate his irresponsible son, Tucker, or his wayward best friend, Myles. But the winter doldrums end abruptly when first Diva, Myles’s cat, and then Angel, the charismatic tourist, arrive. Soon Chloe is derailed by dark desires for drugs and sex and is plunged into a hypnotic nightmare of deception, and Tyler finds himself once again searching for the lost adult children of West Jordan. With an improbable cast of spicy personalities, Catnip Jazz works its way from Mexico to New Orleans and to the seediest sections of Montreal, weaving compelling narratives together in a dark and twisty adventure that keeps the pages turning and burning.
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Second Wind
First there was Irma. Then came Maria. In the disastrous aftermath of these two colossal hurricanes, Tucker Mackenzie finds himself stranded on the Puerto Rican island of Culebra with an escaped inmate and a sailboat with a secret stash. When Tucker’s ex-con companion is literally discovered dead in the water, Tucker is suddenly on the run from a newfound enemy. With the help of his girlfriend, Fiona, and her extreme survival skills, Tucker disappears into the backdrop of a Caribbean community that is rebuilding itself from a devastating Category 5 storm. Moving from beach to bungalow to bunker to boat, he makes plans to escape the tropical trap into which he has unwittingly stumbled. Tyler Mackenzie, who hasn’t heard from Tucker in almost two years, follows his missing son’s trail to Tortola and on to Culebra. Enlisting the help of colorful local personalities along the way, Tyler soon learns that Tucker’s mother, Lucy Brookstone, has simultaneously launched her own search for the boy, However, Lucy’s endeavors have been seriously undermined by an unchecked spate of bingeing behavior, which includes a thirst for gin and tonics, a never-ending appetite, and an attraction for seriously bad men. While Lucy’s shortcomings continue to derail her efforts, Tyler’s investigation into Tucker’s disappearance leads him unwittingly into one of the deadliest encounters of his life. Contrasting Tucker’s escapades with his parents’ misadventures in paradise, Second Wind’s suspenseful narrative moves back and forth through time, weaving these three compelling storylines together to a thrilling climax with an unexpected twist.
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Higher Ground
When Tyler Mackenzie agrees to accompany Sarah’s son, Dylan, on his genealogical quest to find an aunt who disappeared 80 years earlier, the adventure is greater than either of them imagined, leading to the lightest and darkest of places. Although Tyler’s interest in the Scupper family history dates back decades, what he discovers this time is more twisted and secretive than he ever envisioned. Both prequel and sequel, Higher Ground tells the story of Great Aunt Birdie, who left home in 1940 to work at a mission in Malaysia and ended up as a fugitive from justice. Her journey leads her from a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp in the Philippines to the casinos of Havana to the jungle islands of Bocas del Toro. As courtesan, musician, gambler and grifter, she rescues, defends and even helps fund a revolution, while mothering a flock of children and an alcoholic husband along the way, until she and her family vanish into the high mountains of Panama looking for peace and safety. As Tyler and Dylan travel through Panama hoping to find this centenarian ancestor, the suspenseful story moves from past to present and back again, racing headlong with passion and complexity to bring the two narratives together in a thrilling climax. While longtime readers will learn the answers to one of the series’ most burning questions, the riveting conclusion will leave them wondering about the other unsolved skeletons in the closet of Tyler Mackenzie’s extended and dysfunctional family.
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Endangered Species
When an annoying neighbor turns up dead, Tyler Mackenzie is arrested for murder and awaits his trial in the county jail. Newly arrived in West Jordan, Vermont, Tyler’s niece, Mercedes, finds herself unexpectedly responsible for all of his affairs, including his other current house guest, Sparkle, a sex show chanteuse from New Orleans. Mercedes vainly attempts to discover who actually killed the luckless victim so that Tyler can be exonerated from the crime. An out-of-work urbanite looking for a new life plan, Mercedes Mackenzie is as easily distracted by sexual attraction to the opposite sex as her aging uncle. When Tyler is taken away in handcuffs, Mercedes enlists the assistance of his friends and family, particularly Dylan, a nerdy nineteen-year-old genius, who soon becomes more than just her investigative partner. But her world slips irretrievably out of control after she encounters a hypnotic hoarder who inhabits a nearby crumbling mansion and who is locally renown for his unique landscaping abilities, especially his cultivation of endangered species. Although Mercedes’ mission is only to prove her uncle’s innocence, she is soon guilty of digging up much more than just a garden of rare psychotropic plants. Seduced by the irresistible gardener and his herbal concoctions, she is ultimately lured into in a dangerous series of events with irreversible and deadly consequences.
Introducing the first-person voice of Mercedes Mackenzie, Endangered Species is a page-turner that takes the Tyler Mackenzie series to new horizons and to a surprise conclusion that definitely leaves the door open for more tales to come.
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The newest Tyler
Mackenzie novel!
Fiddlehead Mango
When Mercedes Mackenzie decides to exchange her drafty Vermont house for a Caribbean cottage, she sets off for a much-needed vacation with her boss, Sarah Scupper, never anticipating the chain of unfortunate events which will ensue. Not only does the island residence not even exist, but the woman who initiated the trade is found frozen to death back in Mercedes’ yard in West Jordan. As it turns out, the victim is connected to Tyler Mackenzie’s family in multiple ways, implicating Tyler and possibly Chloe, his daughter-in-law, as the prime suspects in her murder.
Then there’s Myles, who’s hit rock bottom in his life as a New Orleans musician, when an old mysterious acquaintance drops unexpectedly back into his life offering him a ride to Vermont. But his carefree situation soon becomes fraught with responsibility as good-natured Myles is pressed into service and stretched to his breaking point as he takes over jobs, childcare and housesitting gigs for all his extended family members who are having mud season meltdowns. At least he’s got Randy, his very capable and enigmatic new paramour, willing to enthusiastically accept any challenge, but hiding some dark secrets.
A suspenseful, fast-paced tale with a strong sense of place and unforgettable characters, FIDDLEHEAD MANGO travels back and forth from Vermont to the Caribbean, capturing the best of both worlds, as Tyler attempts to unravel the mystery of the murder at home, Myles tries to hold the dysfunctional clan together while dealing with his own demons, and Mercedes gets deeply entangled in a deadly web of deception against the backdrop of a beautiful island paradise.
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Jamaican Draw
Set against the lively, pulsing backdrop of 1980s Jamaica, this evocative thriller captures the dark mystery and steamy passion of the most iconic of Caribbean islands. In an exciting chain of events set in motion by a murder in Negril, Jamaican Draw follows the dual story lines of Carson, a young American artist, and his former girlfriend, Molly, in their parallel adventures across the island and their entanglements with a host of colorful characters. The tempestuous tale travels headlong from one side of the country to the other, melding the tropical temperament of traditional Jamaican values and villages with the country-changing revolution brought on by the roots and reggae movement.