Elle Harrison Thriller

Elle finds the body of her soon-to-be-ex husband, Charlie on her sofa, stabbed to death with her kitchen knife. Elle's close friends stand by her through the difficult funeral, but Elle alone must face the loss of the man she'd loved. Except that the loss is not total--Charlie is still around. Elle feels his presence, smells his after shave. Hears him accuse her of killing him. And even though she doesn't believe in ghosts, she argues with him, asserting her innocence. Oddly, Elle has a gap in her memory; she can't account for her activity during the time of his murder. As she tries to clear herself by finding out how Charlie died, she discovers that she had plenty of reason to kill him. Charlie had secrets. Infidelity. Unsavory business associates. Involvement with an international organization of sex abusers. The more she learns, the more danger she faces. As unscrupulous people begin to fear she'll expose them, Elle races against time to avoid arrest, fight off attackers, solve the murder, and make peace with Charlie's spirit.

Elle Harrison is back! She and her pals Jen, Becky, and Susan travel to Mexico where Jen has arranged cosmetic surgery, after which she will recover in a plush hotel suite. But more is going on at the hotel than tummy tucks. Soon after they arrive, Elle sees the woman in the suite next door fall from her sixth floor balcony. When the room is later occupied by another patient, Elle finds her brutally mutilated body on that same balcony. Police question Elle as the last person to see these women alive. Their doctor also takes an interest in Elle; a woman staying at the hotel asks Elle to help her fend off a creepy stalker; a veiled woman sneaks into Elle's suite at night, and her late husband, Charlie, reappears (or Elle imagines that he does) when Elle gets pushed under water in the ocean and nearly drowns. As dangers swirl and intensify, Elle is forced to face her unresolved issues with Charlie, even as she races to find the connections between killings before more patients-including Jen-can be murdered. And before she herself becomes prey.

A tortured child returns to the school that failed him Since her husband's murder two years earlier, life hasn't been easy for Elle Harrison. Now, at the start of a new school year, the second grade teacher is determined to move on. She's selling her house and delving into new experiences, like learning trapeze. Just before the first day of school, Elle learns that a former student, Ty Evans, has been released from juvenile detention, where he served time for killing his abusive father. Within days of his release, Elle's school principal-who'd tormented Ty as a child-is brutally murdered. So is a teacher at the school. And Ty's former girlfriend. All the victims have links to Ty. Ty's younger brother, Seth, is in Elle's class. When Seth shows up at school beaten and bruised, Elle reports the abuse, and authorities remove Seth and his older sister, Katie, from their home. Is Ty the abuser? Ty seeks Elle out, confiding that she's the only adult he's ever trusted. She tries to be open-minded, even wonders if he's been wrongly condemned. But when she's assaulted in the night, she suspects that Ty is her attacker. Is he a serial killer? Is she his next intended victim? Before Elle discovers the truth, she's caught in a deadly trap that challenges her deepest convictions about guilt and innocence, childhood and family. Pushed to her limits, she's forced to face her fears and apply new skills in a deadly fight to survive.

This three-book collection delivers laugh-out-loud moments, but at its core is deadly darkness Elle Harrison, a fourth-grade teacher, has had a life without adversity until her husband's infidelity-and other much worse catastrophes-disrupts her world. In The Trouble with Charlie, Elle's soon-to-be ex-husband has been stabbed to death; she wonders whether she could have done it in one of those 'foggy' moments her friends call 'pulling an Elle.' When she goes off with her girlfriends to a cosmetic surgery retreat in Elective Procedures, she seems to be a magnet for unexplained deaths. And in Child's Play, on the first day of school, Elle finds the principle in her school murdered, and a second teacher dead not long after. Constant among these three separate, seemingly unrelated, yet intricately tied stories, is Elle's charm, her indomitable spirit, and the huge support she gets from her friends. As they all grapple with their problems, they come to believe that Elle has a dissociative disorder that obscures her reality. The Elle Harrison stories open some dark doors, each one darker than the other, as the vulnerable Elle challenges her deepest convictions about guilt and innocence, childhood and family. Pushed to her limits, she's forced to face her fears and apply all her skills in a deadly fight to save her sanity-and her life.