Only Death Will Do

Spruce Run #4

by Mark Mueller

Quirky and unconventional, the Bard of Spruce Run returns in Only Death Will Do, a new whodunit of betrayal and murder.
Newspaper editor Louis “Mac” McMurphy has scored the human-interest story of his career when he agrees to interview Austin Cogard, a prominent, yet reclusive author and gambler who owns a secluded, monumassive estate on Point Mountain in Fox Hollow.
But when Mac arrives at Cogard’s estate with his wife, WMNH Radio investigative reporter Maddy McMurphy, the pair finds Cogard near death, having been critically wounded from a gunshot in the hours following a high-stakes poker game that he had hosted night before.
In the ensuing days, Mac and Maddy meet with several poker party guests and delve into Cogard’s gambling past, discovering that he has had a history of ruining people’s lives, and that some of his guests at that game were related to his past victims.
When Cogard perishes from the gunshot wound, there are plenty of motivated suspects to go around. As Mac and Maddy balance their family life with the demands of investigating this major news story, they meet the challenge with witty quips and flirtatious banter as they unravel the mystery of who murdered Austin Cogard.

266 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 19, 2016

About the author

Mark Mueller was born in Pittsburgh, PA and grew up in Basking Ridge, NJ. A graduate of Kean University with a BA in Communications, he is a freelance writer. Some of the things he likes to do in his spare time include spending time with his family, listening to music, watching movies, enjoying the outdoors, and tilting at windmills when no one's looking. Currently, Mark lives in Clinton, NJ with his family, where he is at work writing his next quixotic adventure.