The Skull Canyon Murders (Victorian Mansion, #9)

A dead man leaves his money to his father and niece, but who is the dead man? A man's body lies on a narrow ledge in a remote Arizona canyon, but who is he? Is the old gold mine really a mine? Why was the girl murdered behind the mountain cabin? What's it like to be lost in a desert mountain range without food, water, or shelter? Finally, who are the mysterious riders, and what are they up to in the dead of night?
Join Art Parker, his daughters Heather Parker and Mary Ann Markham, and their best friend Jennifer Martin as they travel to southern Arizona to try to answer these questions and stumble upon the solution to several murders as well as other illegal activities. The Cochise County Sheriff's Department is not amused, but that's a normal reaction to this team of amateur sleuths.

John Miller, writing under his full name of John A. Miller, Jr., started writing novels back in late 1991 after working for many years in the mainframe computer and telecommunication fields. He had lived in southern Arizona so he knew the area well and set his first novel, Pima, in that area. Shortly after writing that novel he moved back to southern Arizona where he wrote five more novels in the Pima Series. He returned to his home area near Allentown, Pennsylvania in 1999 and continued to write, launching the Victorian Mansion Series with its nine novels.
Since retiring from their day jobs John and his wife have enjoyed visiting Cape Cod and The Bayside Resort in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts at least once every year, so with their permission he partially set there a standalone novel, The Bayside Murders.
Recently, after reading a number of cozy mysteries, John decided to launch a new series in that genre and named it Three-Zee for its main character, Zelanie Zephora Zook.