River of Denial - Lea Braden

River Bend is just another quiet picturesque town by the Missouri river—until its school superintendent is murdered in her office one evening. Under her leadership, the school district appeared to be thriving. But as investigators are about to discover, Timmons Worthington apparently had more enemies than friends.

After the police find a sticky note stuffed under Superintendent Worthington’s computer keyboard with seventh grade science teacher Samantha Grant’s name scrawled across it, Chief Path Patterson embarks on a quest to work his way down the list of suspects that includes Samantha. As denials flow from suspects, Samantha is once again thrust into amateur sleuth mode as she sets out to find the killer and prove her innocence in an investigation complicated by flying bullets, a flaming toilet, cocaine, and her ex-husband’s crazy trophy wife. Helped by friends and her Shih Tzu, Samantha doggedly searches for the truth. But will she find answers soon enough to save her from prison or will a killer walk free?

In this gripping mystery set in a postcard perfect river community, a middle school teacher must turn amateur sleuth in an attempt to eliminate her name from the list of suspects and find a determined killer.