The Mean Bone in Her Body: 1 (New Royal Mysteries)

Jeaneane Lewis is a disturbed graduate student in a crime writing program who makes a grisly discovery: in the heart of the college/prison town of New Royal Ohio a military widow and her two small children lay dead in a frigid garden pond watched over by a shivering ex-cadaver dog named Daddy. The murders go unsolved but Lewis manages to publish a vivid account of her experience before she falls prey to years of writers block and drug addiction that make her a terrible student but an acceptable assistant to the most unpopular professor in the program Elizabeth Murgatroyd. Just before Lewis is kicked out of NRU Murgatroyds one-night stand with a stranger yields a shocking revelation--not only is he the killer but Lewis story is a complete fabrication. Though shaken by the encounter Murgatroyd means to keep the killers secret until she can write an article of her own. With the help of an ex-con named Crocus the Professor takes a closer look at the murders that have come to define New Royal though first she must explore the twists and turns of Lewis grim past.