The Jazz Ramsey Mysteries

The way Jazz Ramsey figures it, life is pretty good. She is 35 years old and owns her own home in one of Cleveland's most diverse, artsy, and interesting neighborhoods. She has a job she likes as an administrative assistant at an all-girls school and a volunteer interest that she's passionate about - Jazz is a cadaver dog handler. Jazz is working with Luther, a cadaver dog in training. Luther is still learning cadaver work, so Jazz is putting him through his paces at an abandoned building. When Luther signals a find, Jazz is stunned to see the body of a young woman.

Professional women gather from all around Ohio to talk to schoolgirls about their careers. Jazz Ramsey has also signed up to give the girls a taste of her lifelong passion: cadaver dog training. She hides a few bones in the unused fourth floor of the school for Gus the dog to find. The girls are impressed when Gus easily finds the first bone, but then Gus heads confidently to a part of the floor where Jazz is sure no bones are hidden - at least, not any that she's put there. But Gus is a professional, and behind a door that no one has opened in ages, is a human skeleton.

Jazz Ramsey is just getting used to the idea that her on-again-off-again beau, Nick, might actually be a permanent fixture, when she gets an alarming call in the middle of the night from his mother, Kim: There's a dead man in her backyard. Kim has a long history of drinking and a vivid imagination, so when Jazz's human remains detection dog, Wally, finds no evidence of a body, Jazz thinks she can breathe easy. But when the body of a middle-aged man is discovered in a nearby park, and a photo of Nick and his mom is found in his pocket, Jazz has to admit that something isn't adding up.