The accidental death of Mickey Fahey leaves his wife Rhiann paralyzed by grief, his stepson Jimmy cutting school and drinking. The widow's problems are compounded by the unwanted advances of her dead husband's friend.

Rhiann does her best to cope, going back to work, dealing patiently with her son's misbehavior, telling Rory Sinter she's not interested.

A mysterious stranger moves in next door. John Devlin offers Rhiann beer and sympathy, and gives Jimmy a job.

When Sinter tries to discredit John, then beat him to death, Rhiann comes to John's rescue. But she discovers her perfect neighbor isn't what he'd seemed.

Which leads Rhiann to investigate. And to see John in a different light altogether.

This is a story of violent men and violent passions, of missing friends, of loss and discovery. A love story.

When a teacher disappears from a local missionary school in the rural town of West Wheeling, acting sheriff Homer Deters investigates. Before long, he's got three more missing persons: local ne'er-do-well Ash Jackson, a pregnant teenager, and an ATF agent on Jackson's trail. Further investigation turns up the bones of a murder victim in Goode Swamp and a second corpse dumped by the highway. Homer must determine just whose remains these are, and who—if any—among the missing might be their killer. The investigation is complicated by a car theft, a twenty-three vehicle pileup in the center of town, a missing pet tiger, and the arrival of more ATF agents in search of their vanished colleague. With no help from the feds, Homer turns to his moonshiner buddy, Rye Willis, and the town's eccentric postmistress, Nina Ross. Their aid and his own nose for the truth enable Homer to locate the missing, identify the bodies, and bring a murderous impostor to justice.

"Dymmoch handles this farcical crime wave with down-home warmth and humor."
—Kirkus Reviews

Ian Carreg, a charming detective with a career he loves, is coming to terms with the recent death of his wife and middle age. He's sent to apprehend a convicted felon, Jemma Henderson. She is a gifted surgeon with beauty to match and the daughter of a famous physicist—and a murderer. When he pursues her to Cymry Henge, something—or someone—knocks him out cold. He regains consciousness in a strange yet oddly familiar place—second-century Roman Britain. An encounter with three armed horsemen leads to an extended stay in the horsemen's village. Then the Roman cavalry arrives, and Ian and Jemma must fight to save their lives. They become Roman prisoners, and Ian starts to doubt his sanity. When their captors send them on a journey Ian finally accepts the truth - just in time to join with Jemma in foiling a conspiracy that could alter history.

"[A] skillfully written, wonderfully entertaining, and fascinatingly detailed story of an unusual form of sleuthing."
—Booklist

"Chicago police detective John Thinnes began his law-enforcement career as an MP in Saigon in 1972. While in Vietnam, he served as best man when his friend Bobby Lee was married to Hue An. Decades later, investigating a shooting in Chicago's Little Saigon neighborhood, he realizes the victim is Hue An Lee. The prime suspect in the case is her son, Tien Lee, a Stanford grad and owner of a local martial-arts academy. The brass learns of Thinnes' relationship to the victim, and he is pulled off the case, but that never works in crime fiction. Thinnes struggles with recurring nightmares of the war and reaches out to another Vietnam vet, therapist Jack Caleb. Together they wrestle with Thinnes' demons and form an uneasy alliance as they sift through an array of troubled Vietnam vets, hoping to clear Tien and find the real murderer. Dymmoch constructs a very clever procedural and simultaneously explores the horrific lifetime residue of wars on the citizens we ask to fight them. A very strong novel."
—Booklist

"Dymmoch departs from her Thinnes Caleb series with a stand-alone novel starring a notably feisty and witty heroine. Joanne Lessing is a suburban Chicago photographer. Lessing is like many sleuth-heroines these days, a single-mom refugee from an abusive marriage. Her past trauma has left her tender rather than tough, though, and grateful for her escape, her son, and the joy she feels taking photos. One photo, however, lands Lessing in a vat of trouble. As she snaps geese in a park one morning, she photographs a hit-and-run in which a parked car is sideswiped. That same day, an old man in the neighborhood, a federally protected witness, is shot to death. The local cops and some FBI suits believe Lessing's picture may have captured the killer. So, apparently, do the Outfit killer and his goon buddies. A convincing story of deepening peril starring a socko heroine who deserves her own series."
—Booklist

The fourth in the John Thinnes/Jack Caleb mystery series, set in the foggy summer of 1996. Violent Crimes detective John Thinnes hates working rape. He hates the idea of taking on a new partner, too, after the last three ended their careers prematurely. So Thinnes is unhappy in the least when he's assigned to investigate a brutal sexual attack and to show the new "merit appointment" detective the ropes. Don Franchi is a woman with a chip on her shoulder, who's gotten a bad rep on the job for filing sexual harassment complaints. She's no happier to be working with Thinnes. To complicate things further, Thinnes neglects to tell his wife his new partner's a female. The rape becomes the first in a series of "heater cases"—high profile crimes with political connotations. Dr. Caleb gets called in to mediate between the warring partners, then to profile the cunning killer. The trail leads north, to Waukegan, and back into the past. Ultimately the three take the guilty into custody, and the killer is brought to an ironic justice.

Arson, passion, and religious fanaticism are murder in this John Thinnes/Jack Caleb mystery.

Jogging through Lincoln Park, Dr. Jack Caleb runs into a group of lunatics setting a police car on fire—with the officer inside! Caleb rescues the cop, but the man's partner is found stoned to death. When Detective John Thinnes catches the case. evidence points toward members of a charismatic church as the killers. But too many of them die before the cops can round them up. And when the apparent ring leader burns to death in an arson fire, it's too much of a coincidence. The remaining cop killers plead guilty; the case seems to be closed. But as Chicago heats up in the deadliest summer on record, it becomes clear that a serial arsonist is still at large. Thinnes races to find the firebug before he sets the press on fire. And to exonerate a friend, Dr. Caleb sets a trap for the killer. Thinnes and Caleb are nearly incinerated when the doctor's trap brings the case to a fiery finish.

This book is out of print, but is available in the Chicagoland region at The Book Bin and Centuries & Sleuths.

Native American artist Blue Mountain Cat has a style described as "Andy Warhol meets Jonathan Swift in Indian Country." When he's murdered in an exclusive showing in a posh museum, Detective John Thinnes has no shortage of suspects. Targets of the artist's satire include a greedy developer, a beautiful Navajo woman, a black-market antiquities dealer. And some of the museum's patrons were outraged by the artist's work. Even the victim's wife merits investigation; The death of Blue Mountain Cat sends her into shock but doesn't keep her off the long list of suspects. Thinnes drafts Psychiatrist Jack Caleb to guide him through the terra incognita of the art world, and the investigation turns up a desperate director, a savage critic, a married mistress, and shady dealings by the artist's partner. Adding to the tension is pressure on the detective to close the high profile case. Thinnes and Caleb connect apparently unrelated deaths as they follow leads form Wisconsin to Chicago's South Side and to the mystery's explosive conclusion.

This book is out of print, but is available in the Chicagoland region at The Book Bin and Centuries & Sleuths.

John Thinnes is a burned out Chicago Violent Crimes detective. When Allan Finley, a mild-mannered accountant, is found shot to death in his locked apartment, Thinnes is assigned the death investigation. He doesn't believe it was suicide, but he's the only one. The Crime Lab people think he needs a vacation. Even his partner thinks he's been working too hard. When Finley's psychiatrist appears at the scene, Thinnes immediately suspects him—psychiatrists don't usually make house calls. Thinnes hasn't enough evidence to prove murder, but he keeps digging—with the help of Customs, Narcotics, Vice, and the FBI. He nearly loses his own life before he confronts the killer, but he finally comes to know the truth.

The Man Who Understood Cats won the St. Martin's Press Malice Domestic Award for Best First Traditional Mystery of 1992, and received enthusiastic reviews from The New York Times Book Review and Kirkus Reviews. It was recommended by Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, and by Publisher's Weekly as one of the best mysteries of 1993.

"This thoughtful and thought-provoking first novel shines with unexpected talent... With a firm grip on police method, character, and plot, Dymmoch deserves wide attention."
—Library Journal

This book is out of print, but is available in the Chicagoland region at The Book Bin and Centuries & Sleuths.