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Jean Rabe
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The Dead of Summer: A Piper Blackwell Mystery Kindle Edition

by Jean Rabe (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 110 ratings
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Shouts of delight turn to screams of terror when a carnival ride goes berserk at the Spencer County Fair. Sheriff Piper Blackwell must contain the chaos and investigate the possible sabotage, even as she tries to solve a local businessman’s horrific murder.

But managing two investigations with at least one killer on the loose pushes the young officer and her tiny staff to their limits. Can Piper catch the murderer, or will the summer’s body count continue to rise?
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  1. Book 3 of 6
    Piper Blackwell Mystery
  2. Print length
    278 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  5. Publication date
    August 5, 2019
  6. File size
    3341 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Sheriff Piper Blackwell's third outing has her getting on thewrong side of some very bad dudes in a murder investigation. The best thingabout Rabe's series is not only her ability to spin a good yarn, but to writesuch believable and interesting characters that her books are like visiting oldfriends. They're all back in this newest one, and it'll keep you turning thepages far past your bedtime. Don't miss it.
-- Michael A. Black, author of Blood Trails, Legendsof the West, and Dying Art and Stealth Assassins in theExecutioner series (as Don Pendleton)

About the Author

USA Today Bestselling author Jean Rabe has written forty mystery, fantasy, and sf novels, and more than one hundred short stories. The Dead of Summer is her third foray into Spencer County, Indiana.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07TZQL5WZ
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Boone Street Press (August 5, 2019)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 5, 2019
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3341 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 278 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 110 ratings

About the author

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Jean Rabe

Jean Rabe

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My home is filled with dogs and books. Lots of dogs and books. I am surrounded by both as I type this.

I wear twenty-some-year-old sandals or fraying tennis shoes to work everyday, and my wardrobe is often convention t-shirts or Green Bay Packer sweats.

I'm a mystery writer living in a tiny Midwestern town that has a gas station, a Dollar General, and a marvelous pizza place with exceedingly slow service.

Always working on a new project or three.

I have more than fifty books published in the fantasy, science fiction, urban fantasy and mystery genres, and more than one hundred short stories. I've lost count of the number of anthologies and magazine issues I've edited. Yeah, I've been around a while.

I'm concentrating on writing mysteries now and have a series set in Spencer County, Indiana. Piper Blackwell.

In my spare time I dabble in roleplaying games and boardgames, toss tennis balls for my cadre of dogs, and attempt to put a dent in my to-be-read stack of novels.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
110 global ratings
Action-Packed Mystery with Characters You'll Want to Come Back To
5 Stars
Action-Packed Mystery with Characters You'll Want to Come Back To
Jean Rabe's third Piper Blackwell novel starts with a heart-stopping--and heart-wrenching--disaster at a county fair and ends with a satisfying twist. The small-town setting is perfectly drawn, and the characters are rich and real. I especially loved the collectible comics angle. This is a smart, well-plotted, well-written novel that lets readers know from page one that we're in good hands.
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Top reviews from the United States

Dwayne Jacobs
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent mix of old and new
Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2024
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Well crafted story and characters with believable details. The gaming culture accurately depicted without stepping on any toes. As always, looking forward to the next.
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Sara T.
5.0 out of 5 stars Piper Mystery #3 Rocks!
Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2019
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This third volume is quite possibly the best of Jean Rabe’s new rural Indiana Sheriff Piper Blackwell murder mysteries/police procedures. It is not very long for a novel, and quite fast-paced, and a very engrossing and thus quick read. The characters are naturally more developed, and that’s fun for those who’ve read the first two books, but it will stand on its own. I found Jean’s writing more fluid and so in to excellent use of colors, in this summer fair/carnival-set story! Here is my favorite sentence: “Hair so blonde it looked like spun sugar” - said of a child at the fair. I highly recommend this book!
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Katinka
5.0 out of 5 stars Mom Kat Reads
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2019
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While attending the county fair with her boyfriend, Piper finds herself thrust into the middle of a major crisis. One of the rides malfunctions and breaks apart, causing a number of injuries & some deaths before it completely falls to pieces. So much for a relaxing evening at the fair. Piper & all of the other department staff are immediately on duty, helping to rescue injured fairgoers and investigating what happened and who, if anyone, was at fault. But this is only the beginning of the problems Piper faces in this story.

The next day, one of the other members of the Sheriff’s department discovers that the owner of the local comic book store, Sam Silver, has been gruesomely murdered in his own home and several other of Sam’s regular customers have gone missing. There seems to be no motive behind this murder, and the more they look into it, the stranger the case seems to become. Between these two problems, Piper and everyone else involved with the Sheriff’s office are kept quite busy.

This third book in the Piper Blackwell series is every bit as addictive as the first two books in the series were. The story told kept me reading far longer into the evenings than I should have been and was full of enough twists and turns to keep me guessing as to what was really happening. Every time I thought I had a reasonable guess, something more fell into place to start making me look at it in another way.

Who was Sam Silver, and why would anyone have wanted to torture and kill the local comic store owner? Ms. Rabe has once again written a fantastic tale that will likely keep others as just as engrossed in the story as I was. If you like mysteries, I strongly recommend giving this one a try. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
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Margaret Cutter
5.0 out of 5 stars Heart-stopping action!
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2019
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Jean Rabe has done it again! Her third Piper Blackwell mystery, The Dead of Summer, is a real page-turner, and a worthy addition to the series!
The heart-stopping action erupts in the first sentence of the book and never slows down, keeping the reader breathless and on the edge of their seat as novice sheriff Piper Blackwell and her small department are thrown into two major cases with tendrils reaching out far from their rural Indiana locale.
Whether you’re a fan of police procedurals, cozy mysteries, well-written and believable characters, or just darn good writing, you’ll become a fan of Jean Rabe and Sheriff Piper Blackwell. I can’t wait for the next one in this series!
5 people found this helpful
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Stephen D. Sullivan
5.0 out of 5 stars Summer Fun, Mystery & Suspense in a Great Series
Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2019
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I love the Piper Blackwell series. I love it so much I wish Jean Rabe would write nothing else -- and I've read (and enjoyed) many of her books. Like all the novels in the series, the Dead of Summer features crime-mystery with a strong dose of suspense. This book, though, features two "major crimes" which stress Piper, the young sheriff, and her department to their limits. I don't want to give any more away. Let's just say that I usually read to relax before I fall asleep, but this book kept me up nights. I didn't want to _stop_ reading! I love the plots and subplots in this, but most of all, I think I love the vivid, lifelike characters. Piper is a modern hero for today's audience. The next Piper Blackwell book can't come soon enough!
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Gregg Homerding
5.0 out of 5 stars Piper Blackwell mysteries keep getting better!
Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2020
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This Piper Blackwell murder mystery starts with a bang and doesn't let up. As in the previous volumes, the people and places are authentic and described in rich detail that pulls the reader into the heart of the investigation. The writing feels easy while the story is unpredictable. Seeing the recurring characters evolve is a joy. This is a thoroughly enjoyable third entry in a series I look forward to reading for years to come.
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d a hinkelman
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent!
Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2023
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Loved this from the very beginning. Kept my interest throughout. Can’t wait to read another in the series! (Not sure why I started in the middle. I’ll go back and start with the first Piper book!)
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Sean Mittelstaedt
5.0 out of 5 stars Book 3 of an amazing series
Reviewed in the United States on October 20, 2020
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From the very beginning to the end this is one book that you do not want to put down. You want to follow Piper to see where the story leads you. This is book 3 of a very amazing series, I can't wait to see what is in store for the sheriff and her fellow officers in book 4. Jean Rabe is an amazing author that makes you want to come back for more.
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Top reviews from other countries

Peter Gallant
4.0 out of 5 stars A whodunit police crime fiction.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 30, 2020
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A fairground kicks off the novel. Later joined by murder in a small county of Indiana. Follow a young sheriff as she faces a tough case of identity and murder. A good read.
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