The small boy crouched in the back seat of the fast moving taxi. He had no idea why his parents weren’t getting to them until he remembered the horse and buggy couldn’t race like the wind like the car he was in. The lady in front leaned back and covered his small body with the quilt and a smile on her face attempted to reassure him.

The first book “Disappearance in Plain Country” will debut in June, 2014. This is the first of a four-book series of the Beatrice Chandler Mystery Series. Each book is set in a different area of Missouri, my home State. Bea Chandler gets caught up in solving cold cases with Detective Alan McIntyre in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Once solved, she writes about the cases and is now a renown author. She often visits her small hometown of Devils Creek, Missouri and finds cases closer to home that need solutions, none of which are cold cases but hit close to home for her.

“Disappearance in Plain Country” depicts a small boy, an only child of a young Amish couple who are visiting relatives in Seymour, Missouri for the annual Quilt Auction which draws crowds of Amish as well as the English from across America. Abe Stotzfus and his parents and grandparents have arrived from Ohio with their quilts to be sold. They are given two rooms in a relative’s bed and breakfast on the second floor of Miller Bed and Breakfast and Bakery. Across the hall from them, Beatrice and her best friend Margaret Bartlett have booked their rooms. To everyone’s horror the lively group finds themselves in deep sadness when Abe, age three is snatched from the family’s quilt booth during the auction. Bea has grown close to the Plain People she just met and is determined to find the kidnapper or kidnappers and bring Abe home safely to his parents.

By tracing the kidnappers, a childless couple throughout the Midwest Beatrice realizes they are adept at being elusive. Law enforcement, the FBI and Beatrice manage to stay one step behind them hoping an inevitable slip-up will occur.

You will be drawn into the chase, be disappointed when they escape once again and before the end you will have divided your sympathies for the characters. Throughout the book there are times when you will believe Abe will never be rescued at all. In spite of seemingly insurmountable hurdles, Beatrice Chandler vows to bring him home.