Calling all parrot-heads! This anthology features 16 short crime stories from 16 different authors, each based on a song from a different Jimmy Buffett album. Isabella's contribution, “Smart Woman (in a Real Short Skirt),” is based on a song of that title from the 1988 album, Hot Water, from MCA Records.

The lyrics of Buffett’s song describe a man searching for his ideal woman—one with beauty and brains. Isabella's take on the lyrics involves a character named Donovan Snell, an international arms smuggler based in Miami who is up to his eyeballs in crime, corruption, and treachery. When you’re deep in hot water, it's hard to tell who to trust.

An explosion at a storage unit in Phoenix nearly kills Detective Veranda Cruz and her team. Evidence at the scene points to the Villalobos crime family’s most feared enforcer, Salazar. But he’s not the only one who wants Veranda dead.

Daria Villalobos is determined to inherit her father’s criminal empire. She’ll crush anyone who gets in her way, including members of her own family. To prove she’s ready to take the reins, Daria intends to scorch the earth under Veranda’s feet. Nothing is off limits as Daria sets out to destroy everything and everyone Veranda holds dear.

With two killers after her, Veranda will have to be every bit as cunning and ruthless as they are. Is the enemy of her enemy her friend or have Salazar and Daria combined forces to lure her into a deadly trap?

One of Book Riot's Best 25 Suspense Books of 2018

Detective Veranda Cruz is still reeling from her last battle with the Villalobos crime family when one of their enforcers carries out a brazen attack in the heart of Phoenix. The terrified public demands action, and Veranda is named lead detective of a new task force. Their mission: stop the violence before it engulfs the city.

Adolfo Villalobos is next in line to rule the criminal dynasty. Cunning, ambitious, and tech-savvy, he devises a brilliant strategy to sabotage the task force and humiliate Veranda before killing her. He begins by manipulating a police operation to eliminate his competition, then leaks devastating information that costs Veranda her gun and badge.

Framed as a traitor and left to her own devices, Veranda has only one chance at redemption: stay out of Adolfo’s crosshairs long enough to stop him before he also takes away her family, her freedom—and her life.

Winner of the Mariposa Award for Best First Novel

Years of painstaking investigation are about to pay off. Detective Veranda Cruz is ready to put handcuffs on Bartolo Villalobos, heir apparent to a powerful criminal dynasty, when the operation goes horribly wrong. Veranda’s informant is murdered. Her task force is dissolved, sending her career into free fall.

Reassigned to the Homicide Unit, Veranda is desperate for justice—and vindication. She finds an ally in her new partner, senior detective Sam Stark. As they build a case against Bartolo, they discover the extent of his ruthlessness. And his unsettling fixation with Veranda.

No one suspects the truth behind Veranda’s vendetta against the Villalobos family empire, but she’s not the only one keeping secrets. Her investigation takes one shocking turn after another, sending her reeling. With adversaries on both sides of the law, she must follow the trail of blood wherever it leads.

Six female undergrads at an elite university vanish. The media descends. The families demand action. And as Special Agent Nina Guerrera follows clue by chilling clue, she realizes she’s tracking the most cunning predator of her career.

The case takes a turn for the worse, and the bizarre, when several victims are found perfectly preserved. No signs of violence, no hint of how they died. Just more evidence that the killer is cruel, calculating, and a master of mind control.

With her mission compromised, Nina must face her greatest failure—and greatest fear—to stop a deadly hunter before he claims another prize.

FBI Special Agent Nina Guerrera escaped a serial killer’s trap at sixteen. Years later, when she’s jumped in a Virginia park, a video of the attack goes viral. Legions of new fans are not the only ones impressed with her fighting skills. The man who abducted her eleven years ago is watching. Determined to reclaim his lost prize, he commits a grisly murder designed to pull her into the investigation…but his games are just beginning. And he’s using the internet to invite the public to play along.

His coded riddles may have made him a depraved social media superstar—an enigmatic cyber-ghost dubbed “the Cipher”—but to Nina he’s a monster who preys on the vulnerable. Partnered with the FBI’s preeminent mind hunter, Dr. Jeffrey Wade, who is haunted by his own past, Nina tracks the predator across the country. Clue by clue, victim by victim, Nina races to stop a deadly killer while the world watches.