J. S. Borthwick has 12 audiobooks on Listento.it, narrated by 2 narrators, with an average listener rating of 4.2★ across 6 ratings. The most-rated is The Student Body.
The Student Body
Summary
The campus of Maine's Bowmouth College looks like a picture postcard of New England-snow-covered lawns, students in colorful ski parkas, icicles dangling on the ivied halls. Sarah Deane-English Fellow with an honorary degree in sleuthing-expects to spend a quiet term here taking some graduate courses and doing a little teaching. But then Sarah finds that someone's organized an advanced course in murder. The first lesson comes when a woman student is found frozen into a prize-winning snow sculpture during Carnival weekend. The second is served up with a cozy cup of poisoned cocoa. And when the clues point straight to an English department already rife with rivalries, Sarah realizes that a little learning can be a very dangerous thing...
©1986 J.S. Borthwick (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
Dude on Arrival
Summary
English teacher Sarah Deane and her boyfriend, Dr. Alex McKenzie, leave snowy Maine to join Sarah's feisty Aunt Julia for Christmas at the exclusive Rancho del Gato Blanco resort in Arizona. But they soon realize there's no place like home for the holidays when ranch guests become the prey of a prankster whose destructive acts are tallying up like a Yuletide carol: Garden hose a-spraying... Lounge chair collapsing... Mud in the coffee... Golf carts a-stalling... Rubber snake in bathtub... Wagon wheel a-flying.... The pranks take a murderous turn Christmas morning when one of the guests turns up dead among the gifts in Santa's sack. Sarah and Alex are certain the killer lurks among them. Could it be quirky clerk Cookie Logan? Aging film star Maria Cornish? Her hot-tempered beau Blue Feather Romero? Head wrangler Peter Doubler? Or someone in the entourage of U.S. Senator Leo J. Hopgood? The police even have eccentric Aunt Julia on their list of suspects - but if Sarah and Alex don't find the killer fast, they could all end up on the list of victims.
©1992 J.S. Borthwick (P)2013 Audible, Inc.
Intensive Scare Unit
Summary
Crotchety, 70-something Julia Clancy of High Hope Farm feels a little wobbly one August morning. With stables to clean and riding lessons to give, the stoic New Englander ignores her symptoms - and ends up in the ER with a heart attack. Even then, she's insisting it's indigestion; even then, her sharp eyes don't miss a thing. And a glimpse of something highly unusual will entangle Julia Clancy in the baffling murder of a hospital VIP. The police soon have suspects galore and no hard evidence. But Julia tells her niece Sarah Deane what she saw...and what she fears: that the killer will get her next. Now amateur sleuth Sarah needs to make her own diagnosis of Julia's revelation and sew up the case before the star witness gets a fatal visit from Dr. Death....
©2004 J.S. Borthwick (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
Murder in the Rough
Summary
After weeks of relentless rain and fog, summer graces the Maine coast. Sarah Deane wants only to help her in-laws adjust to living in Ocean Tide, an "architect-designed home-town community", and enjoy the warm weather before she returns to teaching in the fall. She absolutely does not want to become embroiled in another murder investigation. Even when police find the body of an 18 year old on Ocean Tide's golf course, Sarah vows not to let it sidetrack her from an agenda of rest and relaxation. But after a frightened boy causes her to discover a second murder victim, her curiosity - and protective impulses toward a child who may have seen too much-overpower her better judgment. Tiptoeing into territory better left to the authorities, Sarah unearths disturbing family ties and a lethal secret hidden just beneath Ocean Tide's veneer of squeaky clean community values....
©2002 J.S. Borthwick (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
Coup de Grace
Summary
With ready wit and lethal plot, acclaimed author J. S. Borthwick offers up her 10th irresistible Sarah Deane mystery, a heady brew of academic backstabbing - and murder - at a bucolic New England girls’ boarding school. Freshly-minted Ph.D. Sarah Deane is hired to teach English at Miss Merritt’s, only to land in the epicenter of legendary French professor Grace ('Mme. Guillotine') Carpentier’s reign of terror. Mme.’s peckish passion for excellence has inspired universal fear and loathing. A student discovers Mme.’s cloaked hanging effigy. Then Sarah finds a bludgeoned body wearing Mme’s trademark cape. But the victim is not Mme. Is it a case of mistaken identity? It’s up to Sarah, aided by her husband Alex, to find the killer before he strikes again - while the prime suspects, three fractious students, and three furtive professors, follow her every move....
©2000 J.S. Borthwick (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
The Garden Plot
Summary
Sarah, nosy-but-nice English teaching fellow, and her husband, Alex, are at it again. Due to an unfortunate accident that incapacitates a friend, Sarah's abrasive aunt Julia is offered two free tickets with Whirlaway Tours. After much arguing and little listening, Sarah finds herself serving as Julia's companion for the trip. Eyebrows are raised, however, when the group meets in Boston's Logan Airport and Ellen Trevino, the tour's garden expert, doesn't show. Sarah begins to worry that Ellen's problem may be worse than a delayed connecting flight. As strange clues begin to pile up, Sarah calls home to ask Alex to follow up on Ellen's disappearance. Sarah and Alex manage to scrutinize facts and motives from two separate coasts, but Sarah's penchant for snooping may finally have gotten her in too deep....
©1997 J. S. Borthwick (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
The Down-East Murders
Summary
Working on the Godding Museum's annual local artist show is the perfect way for English teacher Sarah Deane to earn a few dollars, relax in the sun and sea air of coastal Maine, and spend the summer with her boyfriend, Dr. Alex McKenzie. But when Sarah and Alex discover the body of Nate Harwood, a cranky local artist, caught in an offshore fish trap, they know they'll have no vacation from amateur detecting until they catch his killer. Could his death be related to the "accidental" drowning of two elderly tourists shortly after they had brought a painting from Prior's Gallery? Is one of the contestants in the museum show willing to go to any lengths to win? Or does someone have strong feelings against seascapes? Sarah and Alex canvass Weymouth Island trying to draw a clearer picture of the killer lurking among them - before they find the next victim.
©1985 J.S. Borthwick (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
Dolly Is Dead
Summary
Everybody loves Dolly Beaugard.... At least that's what Maine college professor and amateur sleuth Sarah Deane always thought. But when Dolly's bloated body washes ashore on the same spot as the drunken Gattling brothers the day before, the police rule homicide. Unfortunately for Sarah, she and her doctor-husband Alex have a local reputation for sharp-eyed detection, so Dolly's sister, Alice, who doesn't trust the police, insists they get involved. Sarah and Alex begin to discover that the connection between the reviled Gattlings and the reputable Beaugards is surprisingly close. And even though her family all depended on Dolly to keep their finances in order, some things just don't add up. Sarah and Alex's only hope is to find out who knew Dolly's secrets-and who might be next on the killer's hit list.
©1995 J.S. Borthwick (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
My Body Lies Over the Ocean
Summary
New England English teacher Sarah Deane, with husband Alex and feisty Aunt Julia in tow, is getting ready to board the Queen Victoria for a luxurious transatlantic cruise. But before they even set sail, two passengers are killed - both members of the British-American trade commission. Now Sarah must wade through a sea of peculiar passengers and quirky crew members to find a killer aboard Vicky - and drop anchor on the seafaring scoundrel....
©1999 J.S. Borthwick (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
Foiled Again
Summary
The Drama School at Bowmouth College is staging its annual Halloween masquerade, known for being a little unusual. This year it's Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with a twist: Romiette and Julio instead. English professor and sometime amateur sleuth Sarah Deane has been recruited to assist backstage with the complicated costume changes. Drama students are known for being mischievous and high-strung, but this year things are a little more serious: During rehearsals a couple of the student actors pass the time by taking whacks at each other with the stage props, and their horseplay leaves Todd Mancuso, the brilliant actor playing Mercutio, wounded. And when Sarah stumbles upon a badly injured student hidden away in a stockroom on Halloween night, events take a turn for the worse. By the time the production is finally staged, a member of the faculty has been badly injured and a student has been killed. Talk about drama! Sarah gets involved, of course, to sort out a mess that involves academic politics, angry actors, and student activities gone horribly wrong.
©2007 J.S. Borthwick (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
The Bridled Groom
Summary
Planning their wedding at High Hope horse farm is trouble enough for teaching fellow Sarah Deane and her fiancé Dr. Alex McKenzie. But now Sarah's widowed Aunt Julia, the farm's crusty, independent owner, is receiving threatening nursery rhymes with her morning paper; a stableman's been mysteriously injured; and someone's taking pot shots at the barn. Could the disturbing events have to do with a mining company that's out to lasso local land? Or with Tilly, a loopy neighbor who thinks it's in her stars to swap farms with Julia? Or even Julia's persistent suitor, Colonel Dodge, who's all too eager to saddle up and charge to her rescue? Though the wedding goes off without a hitch, Sarah and Alex are reined in from their honeymoon when the stable turns up a gruesome corpse...and it doesn't take more than horse sense to recognize foul play.
©1994 J.S. Borthwick (P)2012 Audible, Inc.
Bodies of Water
Summary
Sarah Dean, self-described "accident crime-prone English teacher", and her boyfriend, Dr. Alex McKenzie, are longing for a vacation. No classes, students or conferences for her-no patients, beepers or night calls for Alex. The two-week cruise aboard the Pilgrim, a luxury yacht owned by millionaire evangelist David Mallory, seems the perfect gateway...until one of the passengers turns up murdered...and those left on board are now both suspects and potential victims. Could the killer be the eccentric Mallory? His stern secretary Gracie (also sister of the victim)? The voluptuous chef, Andrea Elder? Ezra, the deckhand? Or even Sarah's younger brother Tony, the other member of the crew? Sarah and Alex must find out quickly, or they could become the next victims....
©1990 J.S. Borthwick (P)2012 Audible, Inc.