Augusta Hawke

Sometimes it''s safer not to know your neighbors'' secrets.

Where are Niko and Zora Norman? Crime writer Augusta Hawke puts her sleuthing skills to the test to solve the mystery of her disappearing neighbors in the first entry in a new series.

While Augusta Hawke is a successful author of eighteen crime novels, since her husband''s death she''s been living vicariously through her Jules Maigret-like detective Claude and his assistant Caroline. Then a handsome police detective appears investigating a real-life mystery.

Where are her neighbors, the Normans? No one has a clue what''s happened - except Augusta. Although she isn''t nosy, spending all day staring out the windows for inspiration means she does notice things. Like the Normans arguing. And that they''ve been missing a week.

Once the Normans'' car is found abandoned, Augusta senses material for a bestseller and calls on the investigatory skills she''s developed as a crime writer. But she soon uncovers long-hidden secrets and finds herself facing real-life dangers her characters never faced . . . ones she can''t write her way out of.