So why do I read these books? Because her stories are interesting and the characters in them are “real.”

Five days after a tragic fall kills her 10-year-old son, Blair Bradshaw, an actress with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, is found dead.

Her husband, Franklin Bradshaw, an esteemed criminal defense attorney, discovers her body.

It is carefully displayed under her son’s tree house, among the flowers and other memorabilia left at the site of his death.

Franklin insists her death is a suicide brought on by the loss of their son.

But Detective Radhauser finds evidence at the scene—bloody shoe prints on one of the rocks in the nearby creek, the careful way the body is arranged, and the fact that no weapon is found near her body—that leads him to believe otherwise.

Was it grief that killed her?

Or was it murder?

Amazon Review

By Kenneth Lingenfelter

Blair Bradshaw’s 10 year old son fell from his tree house to his death. Several days later she is found dead near the tree house.

It appears to be suicide, but evidence proves it is murder. This is another great story from this author.

Detective Radhauser is in charge of investigating the murder. The next door neighbor finds out a secret about his dead wife and his son.

There are parts of the story that bring tears to your eyes.

I was hooked on the novel from the beginning.

Amazon Review

By Lora S.

This is the sixth book in the Winston Radhauser mystery series by Susan Clayton-Goldner. Another excellent mystery.

A young boy falls from his really nice treehouse to be impaled on one of the pointed stakes in the wrought-iron fence surrounding the tree.

A few days later his parents hold a memorial service for him at the treehouse to which several of his classmates including his best friend and other interested parties are invited. The next morning his mother is found dead amid the flowers of the memorial his classmates had set up.

Her husband insists she committed suicide in grief over her son’s loss. But Detective Winston Radhauser isn’t so sure. And soon the medical examiner is able to confirm his suspicions that Blair Bradshaw was most likely murdered.

There is no shortage of suspects; her marriage was in trouble, and her criminal-defense lawyer husband was having an affair with an intern from his office.

Her brother, whose existence she had only recently learned of, was about to jointly inherit the vineyard he and his father had been running on the impending death of his father, and Blair wanted him to sell it so she would have some money to leave her husband.

There were people she worked with at the local Shakespeare company where she was a leading actress.

But to find her killer, Radhauser has to go back to a much earlier era of her life.

At least as interesting in this book is a side-story involving Tommy Bradshaw’s best friend and a little boy who was kidnapped in infancy ten years earlier.

Another really interesting character is Blair Bradshaw’s mother, Sunflower Finney, an old hippie from ‘way back who is still keeping the faith even though the rest of her family has abandoned her.

Amazon Review

By jrk4251

I love mystery stories. Give me a good mystery story and I am happy.

Susan Clayton-Goldner’s Winston Radhauser books aren’t a mystery in the sense that you can solve it in advance through powers of deduction, although sometimes you can. Her books are character studies of the people who make up her story.

So we don’t get a bunch of clues to follow. Instead we get to ride along with homicide detective Winston Radhauser as he goes about trying to figure out who committed the murder. We are there when he interviews each suspect and checks each alibi and when he has eliminated each possible suspect, we watch as he goes back to the beginning and starts again.

One thing different about this story is that he not only solves a murder but he also solves a child abduction case that had been assigned to him years before. It was a cold case that he hadn’t stopped working on.

Unfortunately for him, that means he is distracted at times by one case when working on the other. The issue is that this causes the murder case to drag on longer than it should. That and the fact that he has eliminated all the suspects and has to start again.

As I mentioned before, I like mysteries. I also noted that the author’s books aren’t the type of mystery story I would normally read. There are a lot of mystery stories out there. So why do I read these books? Because her stories are interesting and the characters in them are “real.”

They have all the foibles and issues that everyday humans have. They suffer through deaths in their families, sicknesses, and financial troubles just as we do. They have to face these and work at their jobs every day, just as we do.

Sometimes we love our jobs and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes our jobs our fun and challenging; sometimes they’re not. This is true of the characters in these books as well. This makes them very special to me.

I really enjoyed the time I spent with Winston Radhauser while he solved the Bloody Creek Murder case. I look forward to having the opportunity to ride with him again on his next case.

Read this book and you too will look forward to helping with his next case!

Please click HERE to find Bloody Creek Murder on Amazon.