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About A Flash of Shadow

A Flash of Shadow (Dogleg Island Mystery)
Cozy Animal Mystery/Police Procedural
7th in Series
Setting – Dogleg Island, Florida
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Blue Merle Publishing
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 25, 2025
Digital ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0FNKTGBJ3

The Hunter Comes to Dogleg Island

A notorious serial killer, come home to die. A young woman found hanging from a tree. A missing billionaire. In the quiet coastal community of Dogleg Island, nothing is as it should be. And for Police Chief Aggie Malone and her extraordinarily perceptive canine assistant Flash, time is running out.

When Acting Sheriff Ryan Grady apprehends a suspect attempting to rob his father’s bait shop, he has no idea that the man he has taken into custody will eventually confess to over one hundred murders… nor is he particularly interested in the notoriety a high-profile criminal like Patrick Henry Jessup brings to his home town. Absorbed in the anticipation of his impending fatherhood and forced to take on a job he did not seek, Grady wants nothing more than to be rid of Jessup and all he represents.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement Investigator Jim Clark is anxious to take over the case, hoping to gain clarity into the shadows of his own past. But as the interviews with Jessup unfold both Grady and Clark find themselves reluctantly drawn into the world of the hunter, and are shaken to find they have more in common with him than they ever would have believed.

On Dogleg Island, Police Chief Aggie Malone Grady, struggling to navigate the challenges of fast-approaching motherhood while training a new police officer, discovers a chilling connection between two apparently unrelated crimes. As Aggie, Flash and new recruit Saunders weave together the strands of a mystery that will lead them to a killer, they also find themselves navigating the shadows of the human soul… a terrain that proves more treacherous than they ever could have imagined.

A Flash of Shadow is a gripping tale of survival, loyalty, and redemption. Donna Ball masterfully weaves a story that will keep readers on the edge of their seats, turning pages late into the night.

About Donna Ball

Donna Ball published her first book in 1982. Since that time she has written over eighty works of commercial fiction under pseudonyms that include Rebecca Flanders, Donna Carlisle, Leigh Bristol, Taylor Brady, and Donna Boyd. She is known for her work in women’s fiction and suspense, as well as supernatural fantasy and adventure. Her novels have been translated into well over a dozen languages and have been published in virtually every country in the world. She has appeared on Entertainment Tonight and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and has been featured in such publications as the Detroit Free Press, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Ladies Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and even T.V. Guide. She is the holder of the Storytelling World award, 2001, the Georgia Author of the Year Award, 2000, Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Awards for consecutive years 1991-1996, the Georgia Romance Writers’ Maggie Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times, among others.

Author Links –

A FLASH OF SHADOW BOOK BLAST

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Welcome to Dogleg Island and the Sound of Running Horses by Donna Ball.

I hope you enjoy your visit and be sure to enter the giveaway below.

The Sound of Running Horses by Donna Ball

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GENRE: Mystery

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BLURB

Still recovering from the traumatic events of the past year, newlyweds Aggie Malone, police chief of Dogleg Island, and Deputy Sheriff Ryan Grady are looking forward to a carefree day of picnics, pirates and buried treasure with their precocious—and uncannily perceptive– border collie, Flash. But when Flash discovers a body in a shallow grave on the deserted Wild Horse Island Nature Preserve, a tangled knot of conspiracy, murder and deception begins to unfold, revealing that the things that are buried are often the most dangerous and the only pirates you have to fear are the ones that live next door.

Fifteen hundred miles away, an ex-con and a fifteen year old girl embark upon a crime spree that will earn them the nicknames “Bonnie and Clyde”. As they make their way inexorably south, Aggie, Grady and Flash are thrust into the middle of a murder investigation that leads to the arrest of one of their neighbors and the attempted suicide of another. When a search of the dead girl’s belongings reveals a priceless emerald bracelet and two of the islands most popular residents go missing, the puzzle becomes even more complicated. Grady and Aggie struggle to put all the pieces into place while Flash, ever obsessed with understanding the human condition, wrestles with a more painful dilemma: how do you tell the good guys from the bad guys when they are so often the same person?

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EXCERPT

Finding things, for Flash, was not difficult. Sometimes the things he found were useful to Aggie, like car keys or missing socks or a stick with blood on it. Sometimes they were not so useful, like broken beer bottles in the sand or bad-smelling toads in the back yard. But for the most part he liked finding things—except for the things that were buried. The bad things were almost always buried. And finding them never made anyone happy.

He pawed at the wet, loose sand until he found what he knew was there, then stepped back, waiting for Aggie, feeling unhappy. When she got there she looked down, and he heard her catch her breath with a choked, wet sound. The weight of the unhappiness was so heavy then that Flash sank to the ground, his head between his paws. Aggie knelt beside him, resting a hand on his fur, her breath coming fast and shallow.

“Oh, Flash,” she whispered.

Grady demanded from the telephone, “What? Is Flash okay? What happened?”

Flash had uncovered a scrap of fabric, too dirty now to determine its original color or purpose. And attached to the fabric, also black with dirt and the beginning of deterioration, was a human hand.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links

Donna Ball is the author of over a hundred novels under several different pseudonyms in a variety of genres that include romance, mystery, suspense, paranormal, western adventure, historical and women’s fiction. Recent popular series include the Ladybug Farm series by Berkley Books and the Raine Stockton Dog Mystery series. Donna is an avid dog lover and her dogs have won numerous titles for agility, obedience and canine musical freestyle. She divides her time between the Blue Ridge mountains and the east coast of Florida, where she lives with a variety of four-footed companions. You can contact her at http://www.donnaball.net

The Sound of Running Horses, Book Two in the Dogleg Island Mystery series, is available July 15 2016 in paperback, and for Kindle and Nook. Buy it from Amazon.com here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GOLP4FE

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GIVEAWAY

Donna will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Follow the tour and comment; the more you comment, the better your chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: HERE.