The Long Gray Hook E-Book

Robin Brande

• Herausgeber: Ryer Publishing
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A Winnie Parsons Mystery Single.

Why are the students in the university’s dance program suddenly falling ill? Are they being poisoned? Is there some environmental or medical cause? The head of the dance department hires Dr. Winifred Parsons to find out.

As a former psychology professor, Winnie Parsons has special knowledge of the human mind. But as a clairvoyant and medical intuitive, she can see deeper into the human body than any normal investigator can.

Once Winnie delves into the dynamics of the dance department, she discovers an unexpected source of the students’ ailments.
Along the way, she realizes she has more than one medical mystery to solve.

Don’t miss the newest full-length Winnie Parsons Mystery Novels, THE SECRET JUROR and THE TRUTH CHAMBER.

Leseprobe

THE LONG GRAY HOOK

A WINNIE PARSONS MYSTERY

ROBIN BRANDE

RYER PUBLISHING

THE LONG GRAY HOOK

A Winnie Parsons Mystery

By Robin Brande

Published by Ryer Publishing

www.ryerpublishing.com

Copyright 2025 by Robin Brande

www.robinbrande.com

Cover art by Mersahdesigns/Canva

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-952383-59-5

Print ISBN: 978-1-952383-60-1

* * *

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

More from Robin Brande

Secret Code for Winnie Parsons Readers

A Mind for Mysteries

The Secret Juror

The Truth Chamber

The Miraculous Unknown

About the Author

Also by Robin Brande

1

The February morning air was cold, but the winter sun felt golden and warm on Winnie’s face. This was the best time of year in Tucson: chilly days, but always a blue sky. It lifted the spirit the way a cloudy, gloomy day never could. There was a reason people chose to live in the desert, despite the broiling heat of summer.

Winnie dug her gloved hands into the pockets of her purple fleece vest and watched her yellow Labrador cavort on the long stretch of university grass. She had named the dog Clover because of a childhood book Winnie read so many times the edges of the cardboard cover were worn away as if mice had gnawed them.

Winnie’s mother had never allowed any pets. She kept a clean house, and a dog or cat would make everything feel hairy and dirty.

Winnie’s brother, Steven, got away with a gerbil temporarily, until his mother heard scratching inside Steven’s dresser and found the little nest he had made for the animal there.

A shriek, some tears, and the gerbil was gone to a neighborhood friend’s house within the hour.

Winnie had pled her case as many times as she dared, but her mother never budged.

Winnie had promised herself she would have as many cats and dogs as she wanted once she moved out and lived on her own. But then her life became hectic. College, grad school, pursuing her PhD, then becoming a professor, a wife…

And finally one day, her husband told Winnie to close her eyes, and she could hear the front door open and close.

Before Joe was two steps out the door, Winnie saw it inside her mind. A flash of a yellow ball of fur. The open, panting mouth, the pink tongue between white puppy teeth.

There was no point in pretending. Joe knew all about Winnie’s gifts. She sprang to her feet and hurried out after him and held her arms open wide to gather in her very own dog. Finally. Clover.

That was a little over seven years ago. Clover had been Winnie’s birthday present.

And now today, February third, was Joe’s birthday. He would have been seventy-two years old if he were still alive.

Winnie had toasted him this morning with her first mug of coffee. She still loved him. She always would.

And it added an extra layer of affection for the yellow Lab currently playing on the University of Arizona lawn. Winnie watched Clover roll in the crisp grass, melting the thin layer of sparkling frost with her thick and tawny winter coat.

Winnie smiled to think of the man who had brought a puppy home thinking he might actually surprise his clairvoyant wife for once.

Winnie saw movement in the distance. A woman jogging toward them, her right arm raised in a wave.

Dr. Amanda Birkauer was in her early fifties, but she moved like any of the young college students Winnie saw out on this same campus jogging in the early mornings.

Amanda wore her long brown hair in a ponytail, threaded through a navy blue University of Arizona ball cap, and wore her usual uniform of dark blue athletic pants and matching jacket, both branded with the U of A logo. She looked like a coach, rather than a professor. She was Winnie’s former colleague in the Psychology department, and one of her best friends.

Amanda was also Assistant Director of the university’s mind lab—better knows as the parapsychology lab. Winnie had been one of the lab’s test subjects for years.

“Just the person,” Amanda said as she jogged the remaining few yards. Her cheeks looked flushed from exercising in the winter cold.

Clover ran to meet her and stood wagging her tail, waiting for Amanda’s customary greeting. Amanda knelt in front of the dog and fluffed up her fur at the shoulders, kissed Clover on the forehead, and hugged her around her neck.

The dog wagged so hard she could have achieved liftoff.

Amanda gave Winnie a quick hug, too. Then she stood with her hands on her hips and got down to business.

“I have a medical mystery for you.”

Winnie scoffed. “You know that isn’t my strength.” She had some skill with medical intuition, but not reliably, and not on command.