Ellen Hart has 22 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 9 narrators, with an average listener rating of 5★ across 1 ratings. The most-rated is The Grave Soul.
The Grave Soul
Summary
In the next riveting, insightful Jane Lawless mystery from award-winning Ellen Hart, Jane searches for the truth behind the death of Kira Adler's mother, which has haunted Kira for many years. When Guthrie Hewitt calls on restaurateur and private investigator Jane Lawless, he doesn't know where else he can turn. Guthrie has fallen for a girl - Kira Adler. In fact, he was planning to propose to her on Christmas Eve. But his trip home with Kira over Thanksgiving made him uneasy. All her life, Kira has been haunted by a dream - a nightmare, really. In the dream, she witnesses her mother being murdered. She knows it can't be true because the dream doesn't line up with the facts of her mother's death. But after visiting Kira's home for the first time and receiving a disturbing anonymous package in the mail, Guthrie starts to wonder if Kira's dream might hold more truth than she knows. When Kira's called home again for a family meeting, Guthrie knows he needs Jane's help to figure out the truth before the web of secrets Kira's family has been spinning all these years ensnares Kira, too. And Jane's investigation will carry her deep into the center of a close-knit family that is not only fraying at the edges but about to burst apart. In The Grave Soul, Ellen Hart once again brings her intimate voice to the story of a family and the secrets that can build and destroy lives.
©2015 Ellen Hart (P)2018 Recorded Books
Hunting the Witch
Summary
Jane Lawless has a knack for cooking and a talent for detection. A case gone bad has left her with a serious head injury and vulnerable enough to accept help from former lover Dr. Julia Martinsen. The TLC is welcome, if only Jane didn’t suspect the jittery Julia of hiding something. Disquieted, Jane’s check into the doctor’s past turns up chilling details. Then a shocking death and swirling danger disrupt what’s left of Jane’s recovery, and being in love with Julia doesn’t protect either of them from a killer out for more blood.
©1999 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
A Small Sacrifice
Summary
When Cordelia Thorn ventures to Summer Green, Wisconsin, for a reunion with some old college friends, she finds trouble in paradise. Twenty-plus years have definitely changed things. Soap opera star Diana has become an alcoholic. Curt and Annie's marriage is falling apart. Orson is hostile and surly. And Theo, the most passionate of them all, suddenly dies - of an apparent heart attack. Alarmed, Cordelia sends for her old friend Jane Lawless to do some quiet snooping. Together they follow their hunches - into the not-so-carefree past and back to the troubled present, where they find a single match could blow up all their lives....
©1994 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Taken by the Wind
Summary
PI and restaurateur Jane Lawless must track down two missing teenagers Although Eric and Andrew have been trying to keep up a semblance of normal life, they know their 13-year-old son, Jack, has been having a tough time of it since they separated. They've been concerned, but now they're terrified - Jack has run away from home. It happened once before, just after the separation, but then it was only a matter of hours before Eric found him. This time, Jack disappeared with his cousin, and the two of them haven't been seen for more than 24 hours. Desperate, Eric and Andrew call on private investigator Jane Lawless, a friend of Andrew's from years ago. Despite the fact that her business partner, A. J. Nolan, is now in a wheelchair and struggling with depression, Jane agrees to help out. But after examining Eric and Andrew's home, Jane's first impression of the case isn't good - in fact, she's not convinced the boys ran away at all. She thinks they may have been abducted. Or worse. Taken by the Wind, the latest riveting mystery from award-winning author Ellen Hart, is a race against the clock for Jane and the terrified parents of two missing boys.
©2013 Ellen Hart (P)2018 Recorded Books
The Mirror and the Mask
Summary
Minneapolis restaurateur Jane Lawless is at crossroads. The rough economy has put her plans for a third restaurant on hold, and her long distance romance is on the rocks and quite possibly unsalvageable. Unsure of what to do next, she takes her good friend A. J. Nolan up on his standing offer: To take her on as a private investigator. While still in training, her first job seems simple enough. All she had to do is find Annie Archer’s stepfather. Jane tracks down a likely match - a man who has made a small fortune in real estate. While she’s happy to close her first case, she finds it hard to reconcile the difference between PI work - finding what people pay you to find - and uncovering the truth, the whole truth, especially when clues in this seemingly simple case point to more threatening family secrets than just where Annie’s father has been hiding out. Ellen Hart’s The Mirror and the Mask is another engrossing mystery filled with the deceit and psychological intrigue that fans have come to expect from this Lambda and Minnesota Book Award-winning author.
©2009 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible Inc.
Twisted at the Root
Summary
The next riveting mystery featuring PI Jane Lawless. Everyone thinks Luther and Dominic are happily married, that is, until Luther is convicted of his husband's murder. Four years after Luther is sent to prison, his brother contacts Ray Lawless, the defense attorney on the case, with evidence of a wrongful conviction. As he faces reopening the case, Ray pulls in his daughter, Jane, to help attain justice for a grieving widower and find the real killer. Just as Ray and Jane get started on the case, Jane's brother, Peter, arrives on the scene and may know more about the night of the murder than he's letting on. It's up to Jane to discover the truth, but it may come at the cost of her brother's love. MWA Grandmaster Ellen Hart is back with another exciting installment of her Jane Lawless series.
©2019 Ellen Hart (P)2019 Recorded Books
Faint Praise
Summary
Everyone knows Arno Heywood. He's been a Minneapolis TV personality for years. So when he jumps to his death from a downtown high-rise, it's a shocker--especially since he dies wearing women's clothes, a suicide in drag. In chic Linden Lofts, where Arno lived, the other tenants are spooked, and smart investigator Jane Lawless soon finds out why. They, like Arno, have secrets to conceal, and the shadowy someone with a full set of keys who's scouting out their apartments may soon make that impossible. Can one of Linden Loft's upscale professionals really be an aspiring blackmailer? Before Jane and her pal Cordelia can make sure, a brutal murder ups the ante.
©1995 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Wicked Games
Summary
Jane Lawless has worked hard to make her Minneapolis restaurant a success, and she's finally reaping the financial rewards. Yet even the demands and excitement of being a popular restauranteurs and living the good life don't bring the same satisfaction they once did. Jane needs a bigger challenge. A mystery to solve. The thrill of the chase... When Jane rents her quaint third-story apartment to a new tenant, children's book author Elliot Beauman, she unwittingly opens the door to a sinister, decades-old mystery that has been waiting patiently to unfold - in her own house. Meanwhile, Jane assist a detective in tracking down clues about her new neighbor, Patricia, whose husband died mysteriously. Patricia is eager to become friends, or more...even though she knows Jane is immersed in a long-distance relationship with the attractive but secretive Dr. Julia Martinsen. little does Jane know that a strange man upstairs, an attractive neighbor, and a volatile love affair are just the beginning of her problems.
©1998 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Hallowed Murder
Summary
Jane Lawless is a woman at a crossroads - her lover has left, she has finally recovered from a vicious attack sustained last year, and the holidays are closing in. With no one to help her ring in the new year, Jane reluctantly agrees to accompany her good friend Cordelia Thorn on a peculiar holiday trip: Cordelia's estranged sister, Broadway star Octavia Thorn, has asked them to attend her wedding. Octavia getting married is no surprise - she's done it three times before - but her candidate for hubby #4 certainly is. Roland Lester is a reclusive 83-year-old retired Hollywood director, a relic from the golden age of Tinseltown with a controversial past. No one can understand how the two met, much less fell in love. When the bodies start to drop, Jane realizes it might not be love at all that brought the young diva and the aged director together, but something much deeper, and perhaps more sinister. Delving deep into film history, Jane finds unsettling connections between Roland and a murder that was never solved. Finding out what happened 40 years ago could be the key to unlock the mystery of Octavia's curious marriage, but laying bare such long-buried secrets also promises grave consequences for everyone involved.
©1989 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Stage Fright
Summary
Aging theater actor Torald Werness' last curtain call is as a corpse. Murdered after his last performance in his last theatrical production, Minneapolis restaurateur-sleuth Jane Lawless finds his body onstage, impaled on a part of the set. Before long, a series of coincidences places Jane in the role of prime suspect. Determined to clear her name, Jane turns to her best friend, Cordelia, for help. Together, their intuition leads them to the dead man's family, a glamorous - and appropriately melodramatic - Midwestern theatrical dynasty. Jane and Cordelia must separate the theatrics from reality before Jane takes the blame for someone else's crime, and their search for the true killer uncovers a tangled and dangerous web of deceit. All in all, Stage Fright is another engaging, dynamic installment in Ellen Hart's award-winning series.
©1992 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Robber's Wine
Summary
The dead of summer… The first of the dead is wealthy Belle Dumont, who vanished from her home in the Minnesota woods only hours before she was to reveal startling news to her three grown children. The kids and Belle's lover deny any knowledge of this mysterious bombshell, but amateur sleuth Jane Lawless, Belle's old friend, suspects these charming folk of being less than forthright. In fact, Jane suspects coldhearted murder.... Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Mystery
©1996 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Vital Lies
Summary
In the second charming Jane Lawless mystery, the winter solstice nears and Jane, a Minneapolis restaurateur, is invited to spend the week at Fothergill Inn, a Victorian house-turned B&B. Jane's old friend Leigh has spent years renovating the house and reopening it as an inn and restaurant. The inn has become so successful that people drive the 50 miles from Minneapolis just for dinner. But when Jane and her best friend, Cordelia, arrive for a week of relaxation, they find that the weekend's guests are anything but pleased, and that relaxing is the furthest thing from their minds. Broken glass litters the parking lot, dead animals turn up in the bedrooms, a bomb scare threatens the lives of the inn's guests - there is no doubt that someone is trying to scare the visitors. Then the pranks take a deadly turn when a customer ends up dead, and Jane must help her friend get to the bottom of these malicious and murderous events - before someone else dies.
©1991 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Sweet Poison: Jane Lawless, Book 16
Summary
Jane Lawless is at her wit’s end, keeping her Minneapolis restaurants running while volunteering on her father’s campaign for governor. With an eleven-point lead, the race is Ray Lawless’s to lose, but all that changes when his rival posts a list of violent criminals that are back on the streets early, thanks to Ray’s work during his career as a defense lawyer. Corey Hodge is one of the convicts that took Ray’s advice to plead guilty for a crime that he swears he didn’t commit. Bitter from time served, revenge lurks in the back of his mind. Then one of Ray’s young campaign volunteers is killed, and with the murder mirroring the crime Corey was convicted of, Jane has to bring the killer to justice to save her father’s political career and to keep Corey from going to prison again. The high stakes and political intrigue that fuel Sweet Poison, the latest in Lambda and Minnesota Book Award-winning author Ellen Hart’s absorbing Jane Lawless series, make for an intense mystery of ambition and obsession.
©2008 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible Inc.
A Whisper of Bones
Summary
The next riveting mystery featuring PI Jane Lawless. Britt Ickles doesn't remember much from her only visit to her mother's childhood home when she was a kid, except for playing with her cousin Timmy and the eruption of a sudden family feud. That's why, when she drops by unannounced after years of silence, she's shocked when her aunts tell her Timmy never existed, that she must be confusing him with someone else. But Britt can't shake the feeling that Timmy did exist...and that something horrible has happened to him. Something her aunts want to cover up. Britt hires Jane Lawless, hoping the private investigator can figure out what really happened to her cousin. When a fire in the family's garage leads to the discovery of buried bones and one of the aunts dies suddenly and suspiciously, Jane can't help but be pulled into the case. Do the bones belong to Timmy? Was the aunt's death an accident, suicide, or homicide? What dark secret has this family been hiding for decades? Fans of Jane Lawless new and old will be fascinated by newly minted MWA Grandmaster Ellen Hart's latest intricate puzzle.
©2018 Ellen Hart (P)2018 Recorded Books
Rest for the Wicked
Summary
DeAndre Moore came to Minneapolis from St. Louis with a purpose, but things aren't going as he planned. When it becomes clear he's in way over his head, DeAndre can think of only one person to call for help - his Uncle Nolan’s business partner, newly licensed private investigator Jane Lawless. However, by the time Jane listens to his voice mail, she’s hearing a voice from beyond the grave - DeAndre left the message only minutes before he was knifed to death outside a gentleman's club. Soon his murder isn't the only one. With Nolan in the hospital, Jane sets out to find out who killed DeAndre, how his death is connected with the others, and what he was doing in Minneapolis in the first place. Rest for the Wicked is another outstanding addition to Ellen Hart's award-winning mystery series.
©2012 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Merchant of Venus
Summary
Jane Lawless is a woman at a crossroads - her lover has left, she has finally recovered from a vicious attack sustained last year, and the holidays are closing in. With no one to help her ring in the new year, Jane reluctantly agrees to accompany her good friend Cordelia Thorn on a peculiar holiday trip: Cordelia's estranged sister, Broadway star Octavia Thorn, has asked them to attend her wedding. Octavia getting married is no surprise - she's done it three times before - but her candidate for hubby #4 certainly is. Roland Lester is a reclusive 83-year-old retired Hollywood director, a relic from the golden age of Tinseltown with a controversial past. No one can understand how the two met, much less fell in love. When the bodies start to drop, Jane realizes it might not be love at all that brought the young diva and the aged director together, but something much deeper, and perhaps more sinister. Delving deep into film history, Jane finds unsettling connections between Roland and a murder that was never solved. Finding out what happened 40 years ago could be the key to unlock the mystery of Octavia's curious marriage, but laying bare such long-buried secrets also promises grave consequences for everyone involved.
©2001 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
An Intimate Ghost
Summary
Jane gets a shock at a wedding she’s hired to cater: arriving late to check in with her crew, she finds that guests are in various stages of undress on the lawn, many seem to be taking an unusual interest in mundane objects like houseplants and the night sky, and more than a few are engaged in some very indiscreet activities in plain view. It doesn’t take Jane long to figure out that someone has spiked the food at the party, most likely with hallucinogenic mushrooms. As the police arrive, the groom takes an unfortunate dive off a diving board and Jane realizes that if she can’t figure out exactly what has happened the blame will fall squarely on her own shoulders.
©2004 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible Inc.
Night Vision
Summary
Joanna Kasimir, an old friend of Jane Lawless, left Minneapolis years ago to make it big in Hollywood and, unlike so many others, she succeeded. Unfortunately, her stardom came at a price. Early in her career, Joanna was involved with a man who quickly went from being an idle interest to a dangerous stalker. Nearly a decade has passed since she sent him to prison, but just as she is about to leave for her hometown to star in her friend Cordelia Thorn's production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, she receives one of his ominous calling cards. Joanna refuses to let him control her life - she can't. Not again. Tired after ten years of fear, ten years of hiding, she calls on Jane, restaurateur and amateur sleuth, and former homicide detective A. J. Nolan, but they may not be able to protect her from a man who refuses to be anyone's one-night stand. And when they find out that Joanna may not be the only one on the run, their investigation quickly spins Jane into a deadly game of cat and mouse. Night Vision promises to be one of Ellen Hart's best mysteries yet.
©2006 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
The Lost Women of Lost Lake
Summary
Restaurateur and part-time P.I. Jane Lawless is taking some much-needed time off at her family’s lodge when her best friend, Cordelia, arrives with news that Tess, one of their good friends, has taken a nasty fall and needs their help with rehearsals for a play that is set to open in a week. When Tess isn’t on crutches, she helps run the Thunderhook Lodge, the premier resort on Lost Lake. And while she clearly needs Jane and Cordelia’s assistance, she isn't exactly acting all that grateful. A man who claims to be a journalist has arrived in Lost Lake with an old photograph and some questions for Tess that go back decades. His questions have put her on edge, and when he shows up peeking through her kitchen window, everyone else is right there with her. As beloved as Tess is, there are plenty of people who don't care about any so-called journalist and are happy to protect her, but how far are they willing to take it? And when will they need answers to questions that that only Tess can provide? In The Lost Women of Lost Lake the most engrossing mystery yet from Lambda and Minnesota Book Award–winning author Ellen Hart - Jane's only hope of protecting her friends from the secrets that are surfacing all around them is to uncover the whole truth before anyone else can.
©2011 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
The Mortal Groove
Summary
Minneapolis restaurateur and amateur sleuth Jane Lawless is in the middle of ringing in the New Year the best way she knows how - with her family, friends, and some excellent champagne - when the biggest financial backers in Minnesota politics break up the party with a little backroom proposition for her father: How'd he like to be the state's next governor? Flattered, Ray Lawless, a retired defense attorney, agrees to run, and the latecomer's sprint to the state capital is going great until reporters and opponents start digging up the kind of dirt that is more valuable than gold out on the campaign trail. He and his family are fair game, but worse than that, so are the men running his campaign. Their secrets, involving the mysterious death of a young woman, have been buried since the summer they all came home from Vietnam. Unfortunately for Jane and her father, those secrets won't stay that way for long. The Mortal Groove, the newest addition to Lambda and Minnesota Book Award - winning author Ellen Hart's multilayered Jane Lawless series, is a haunting tale of dark secrets that is sure to satisfy.
©2007 Ellen Hart (P)2013 Audible Inc.