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Betty Webb

"While examining some timely social issues, Webb also delivers lots of edifying information on the animal kingdom in an entry sure to please fans and newcomers alike." —Publishers Weekly

While taking the yearly "otter count" at a marsh near Gunn Landing Harbor, California, zookeeper Theodora Bentley sees Maureen, her favorite otter, swimming around clutching someone's expensive smartphone. When Teddy rescues the device, she discovers a photograph of a murder-in-progress. A hasty search soon turns up the still-warm body of Stuart Booth, PhD, a local Marine Biology instructor.

Booth was a notorious sexual harasser of young female students, so the list of suspects is long enough to make Teddy wonder if the crime will ever be solved. But when her friend, Lila, one of Booth's original accusers, is arrested and charged with his murder, Teddy begins to investigate. This creates considerable tension with Teddy's fiancé, Sheriff Joe Rejas. He believes the ever-inquisitive zookeeper might be putting her own life at risk, and so orders her to butt out.

Concerned for her accused friend, Teddy ignores Joe's ultimatum. She questions not only members of Gunn Landing's moneyed social elite, but also the other side of the financial spectrum—the financially strapped young women willing to do almost anything to pay for their college tuition. Alarmed by Teddy's meddling, Booth's killer fights back—first with a death threat, then via gunshot.

In this fifth Gunn Zoo Mystery, Teddy is torn between living a peaceful life on her Monterey Bay houseboat with her three-legged dog DJ Bonz, or moving inland to marry Joe, who comes with kids and a mother who has her own mysterious agenda. The choice is scary for Teddy—who has barely been managing her own many-times-married mother, and her imperious employer, Aster Edwina Gunn, overlord of the famed Gunn Zoo. Teddy's life is further complicated by a wayward snow monkey named Kabuki, taunter of teenage boys. The zookeeper's dedication to her charges—including the anteater, the koala, the llama, and Magnus, the polar bear cub from Iceland (met in Teddy's last adventure, The Puffin of Death), never falters in a cleverly plotted series rich in characters and in animal lore.

Gunn Zoo series:

The Anteater of Death (Book 1)

The Koala of Death (Book 2)

The Llama of Death (Book 3)

The Puffin of Death (Book 4)

The Otter of Death (Book 5)

Praise for the Gunn Zoo series:

"'High Society meets Zoo Quest.' I've always been a sucker for zoos, so I also relished the animal details in this highly enjoyable read." —RHYS BOWEN, New York Times bestselling and award-winning author

"Webb skillfully keeps the reader guessing right to the dramatic conclusion." —Publishers Weekly for The Puffin of Death

"Teddy's second case showcases an engaging array of quirky characters, human and animal." —Kirkus Reviews for The Koala of Death

Poisoned Pen Press

Gunn Zoo Series

The Otter of Death

2009 Winner of the Arizona Book Award for Mystery/Suspense

If Lucy, the pregnant Giant Anteater from Belize, didn't kill the man found dead in her enclosure at California's Gunn Zoo, who did? Zookeeper Teddy Bentley must find the real murderer before her furry friend is shipped off to another zoo in disgrace.

Then another human bites the dust, the monkeys riot, and the wolves go nuts. Things get worse when the snooty folks at Gunn Landing Harbor attempt to evict Teddy from the Merilee, her beloved houseboat.

That's just the beginning. Her father, on the lam from the Feds for embezzling millions, gets targeted by a local gangster; and Caro, Teddy's socialite and former beauty queen mother, who loathes Teddy's dangerous job, starts introducing her to eligible bachelors. Then Teddy herself becomes a target for murder.

Hillary Huber

Blackstone Publishing

The Anteater of Death

When zoo keeper Theodora “Teddy” Bentley fishes the body of Koala Kate out of Gunn Landing Harbor, she discovers that her fellow zoo keeper didn’t drown—she was strangled. The clues to Koala Kate’s killer implicate other animal keepers at the Gunn Zoo, including Outback Bill, marsupial keeper and Kate’s Aussie ex-boyfriend; and Robin Chase, the big cat keeper who’s got it in for Teddy. Also displaying suspicious behavior are Speaks-to-Souls, a shady “animal psychic,” and Caro, Teddy’s much-married, ex-beauty queen mother. But murderers aren’t all Teddy has to worry about. Her embezzling father is still on the run from the Feds, and the motor on her beloved houseboat is failing. To pay for the repairs, Teddy agrees to appear on a weekly live television broadcast featuring misbehaving animals that range from a cuddly koala to a panicky wallaby—and all hell breaks loose in the studio. To add to Teddy’s woes, the killer zeroes in on her with near-fatal results.

The Koala of Death returns to Gunn Zoo and the social-climbing humans and eccentric animals that made the prizewinning The Anteater of Death so popular. Listeners will enjoy this behind-the-scenes peek at zoo life and learn that poor little rich girls like Teddy lead much more complicated lives that they’d ever imagine—especially when they’re tracking killers.

The Koala of Death: A Gunn Zoo Mystery

Zookeeper Theodora "Teddy" Bentley takes Alejandro, the Gunn Zoo llama, to a Monterey Bay area Renaissance Faire. Soon after, Teddy stumbles upon the still-warm body of the Reverend Victor Emerson, owner of the local wedding chapel. He is dressed in his royal robes as Henry VIII. At first it appears as if Alejandro stomped the man to death, but a closer look reveals a crossbow dart in the man's back.

Teddy's investigation proves the "reverend" is really an escaped convict, and every marriage he's performed in the past twenty years is null and void. He twice married Teddy's ex-beauty queen mother Caro to wealthy men, and when both marriages failed, Caro received large financial settlements. Now she may have to give all that money back.

But Caro wasn't the only person with a grievance against Victor. The child of the man Victor once murdered may have wanted to kill him, too. Then Teddy's embezzling father flies in from exile in Costa Rica to help spring Caro from jail, putting his own freedom in jeopardy. Can Teddy solve this case before someone else she knows is implicated?

The Llama of Death

California zookeeper Theodora Bentley travels to Iceland to pick up an orphaned polar bear cub destined for the Gunn Zoo's newly installed Northern Climes exhibit. The trip is intended to be a combination of work and play. But on day two, while horseback riding near a picturesque seaside village, Teddy discovers a man lying atop a puffin burrow, shot through the head.

The victim is identified as American birdwatcher Simon Parr, winner of the largest Powerball payout in history. Is Teddy a witness—or a suspect? Others include not only Parr's wife, a famed suspense novelist, but fellow members of the birding club Parr had generously treated to their lavish Icelandic expedition. Hardly your average birders, several of them have had serious brushes with the law back in the States.

Guessing that an American would best understand other Americans, police detective Thorvaald Haraldsson grudgingly concedes her innocence and allows Teddy to tag along with the group to volcanoes, glaciers, and deep continental rifts in quest of rare bird species. But once another member of the club is murdered and a rockfall barely misses Teddy's head, Haraldsson forbids her to continue. She ignores him and, in a stunning, solitary face-off with the killer in Iceland's wild interior, concludes an investigation at once exotic, thrilling, and rich in animal lore.