Susan Cronk

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About Susan Cronk

Finding new and interesting subjects to write about can be quite a challenge for an author, but at present Susan Cronk's futures file is quite full and growing everyday. The Missouri-born writer nurtures her curiosity, her love of history, and her lifelong interest in mystery, adventure, action, and suspense stories by rummaging through stacks of old documents, flipping through the pages of reference books, listening to stories from people of previous generations, digging into old newspapers, and trying to keep up with new releases from her favorite authors. Museums and research-focused libraries are among the author's favorite places to spend time in the real world, never forgetting that the virtual world also has a lot to offer.

Northwest Missouri, Nodaway County specifically, is the place that author Susan Cronk calls home, most of the time. It is where she was born and where she spent the first years of her life. But, as with many Missourians, the author has an adventurous side and is prone to wander. At present, through her online research she is exploring the nation, specifically the eastern part. Susan's latest effort has been to branch out creatively into the cozy mystery genre, publishing the first in her Cozy American Castle Mystery series, The End of Things at Dark Island, early in 2019. She believes that England, Scotland, Ireland, and Germany cannot be left to shoulder all the opportunities castles have to offer as far as mysteries go, so she's trying to do her part for the American side.

Susan has penned four nonfiction books, as of June 2019, with a fifth one slated for release soon. The author is also continuing her research for the Missouri Justice Project, a project she designed to collect and preserve the histories of Missouri's sheriffs, past and present. It is a large-scale project and is expected to continue for many years. In addition to that work, she continues to provide freelance assistance to historians and historical foundations, universities, agencies, and private companies around the nation to collect and preserve their history by conducting oral history interviews, transcribing recordings, and assisting with researching information and collecting documentation.

Author Susan Cronk is an avid reader and enjoys collecting and listening to audio books. Clive Cussler, Vince Flynn, Tom Clancy, Agatha Christie, Ruth Rendell, John Grisham, David Baldacci, and James Patterson are among a long list of her favored authors. She's always on the lookout for the next great mystery, suspense, or action story.

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Author Updates

Titles By Susan Cronk

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Justice In Nodaway County: 1872 to 1931 Oct 28, 2016

by Susan Cronk , Don Nothstine , Sue Nothstine

( 8 )

$3.50

This is a compilation of true-crime essays related to cases from Nodaway County, Missouri between 1872 and 1931.

The cases involve murder and attempted murder. The outcomes for the defendants differed and included punishment by legally-sanctioned hanging, illegal lynching by mob, conviction and imprisonment, acquittal, and exceution by fire. The cases were chosen due to their notoriety at the time.

Other Formats: Paperback

This title and over 1 million more available with Kindle Unlimited.

Brothers Such As These Jun 9, 2013

by Susan Cronk

( 2 )

$2.99

Wayne Warren's boyhood is one of oppression and violence at the hands of an alcoholic father. He survives the violence because of the fiercely protective love of his Aunt Winnie, who moved into her brother's home to raise Wayne after his mother died giving birth to Wayne. Aunt Winnie, a woman of strong faith, teaches her nephew that violence accomplishes nothing, but faith in Christ is great gain and the power of God is undefeatable.

Timothy, an orphan among the world since his birth, spends the first years of his life in a children's home under the stern watchfulness of the home's director. Their personalities clash. Timothy escapes the impersonal existence at the children's home as a teen when Fred McDonough comes there in search of a boy willing to help him on the farm. Eventually, Timothy looks upon the McDonough's as surrogate parents, and their son Alan as a brother. Eventually, he joins the Army and leaves to fight in Vietnam, only to return with a deep burden upon his heart. He turns to the scriptures to find peace, and in the preaching of the gospel, he finds purpose.

Alan, the beloved son of the McDonough's, Irish immigrant farmers, is a nervous and inquisitive boy who often gets into mischief, much to his father's displeasure. When Alan eventually learns that he is not the McDonough's natural child, he struggles with a sudden feeling of distance from the only parents he has ever known. Timothy and the other boys help Alan close that gap.

Eric Williams, gangly and underweight as a boy, grows up in a more traditional home, loved, protected, and well provided for. He wants for little. Prior to his graduation from high school, Eric joins the Marines, much to the surprise of everyone, and goes off to war. He returns to a different world than he knew before, one less secure and less welcoming. He finds a path through the storms brewing around him, with the love and support of his wife Emma and his brothers in Christ.

Troy Benham, a quiet and reserved professor, with an adventurer's heart, lives a sedate life as a child, relishing the time he spends with his friends fishing at the river and partaking of the baked treasures Aunt Winnie sends along with Wayne when he can steal away from his father's farm. Troy leaves his rural Missouri home for a time to test the waters of the world. While teaching at a university he meets Carolyn and eventually falls in love with her. They settle down in Troy's family home and look forward to a future together. When that future is threatened, Troy finds out just how strong the bond between brothers in Christ can be.

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This title and over 1 million more available with Kindle Unlimited.

The Reckoning Mar 24, 2015

by Susan Cronk

( 3 )

$3.00

Dr. Miguel Munoz is practicing the down-to-earth type of medicine he always longed to do. His focus is not on financial profit, but service to his fellow man, particularly the less fortunate and the working class struggling to stay ahead of their bills. When Dr. Munoz's unusual clientele puts him on the foul side of his more affluent and powerful colleagues, particularly Dr. Peter Arliss, he soon finds his life spiraling downward. Soon, he's in much the same circumstances as his patients, struggling to exist. Still, he continues to tend their medical needs. When he stumbles upon a human trafficking operation, he is compelled to act. Along the way, he learns that faith and good friends go a long way in righting the evils of the world, and that for everyone there comes a day of reckoning.

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This title and over 1 million more available with Kindle Unlimited.

Tryst Twist Mar 15, 2015

by Susan Cronk

( 3 )

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Mrs. Hoyle, a young wife, is found dead in her bed early one spring morning. Her sudden and mysterious death compels Dr. Merryman, the county coroner, and his part-time nurse, Miss Jaymes, to dig more deeply into the cause of her death. Was it suicide or murder? What they discover in the course of their investigation surprises everyone, and exposes a silent enemy.

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The Oppressor Project Jul 6, 2013

by Susan Cronk

( 2 )

$1.99

Halline Wells has an aptitude for computers. After her grandmother is defrauded of the family farm, her life savings, and her peace of mind by a group of men Halline refers to as the "Phishermen," she develops her skills further, honing them like a sword, a very sharp two-edged sword. Over the next few years, Halline ingratiates herself upon the Phishermen's world, and finds them in the middle of a special project they have dubbed "Oppressor." Halline is determined to become a part of that project -- and she will use it to destroy the Phishermen.

Other Formats: Paperback

Hezekiah Rasco Jun 15, 2013

by Susan Cronk

( 7 )

$5.95

In 1896, an argument over a butter churn resulted in the death of Katrina "Katy" Baumli, a thirty-five-year-old wife and mother of three young children. In 1910, poker losses resulted in the murders of Oda Hubbell, his wife Clara, and their two small children, as well as the burning of the family home. What did these two crimes, fourteen years apart, have in common? They shared a common acquaintance with Hezekiah Rasco, a handsome, intelligent, charismatic man from Nodaway County, Missouri.

Hezekiah "Hez" Rasco committed his first murder in 1896, at the age of fifteen. The sheer brutality of Katy Baumli's death shocked the people of Arkoe, the quiet farming community near where they lived. The community was stunned again a week later when Hez Rasco confessed to the crime. Ultimately, it would take three trials to get at the truth and secure justice for Katy and her family, and to restore the peace of the community.

In late 1897, Hez Rasco began his first prison sentence in "The Walls," the Missouri State Penitentiary at Jefferson City. There he lived the life of a model prisoner and learned a trade. Hez gained his freedom in 1905, but it was short-lived. He returned to The Walls in October of that same year to serve a two-year sentence for grand larceny, after being found in possession of a stolen horse in Buchanan County, Missouri.

Upon release in 1907, Hez Rasco made his way back to Nodaway County to resume his former life as a farmer, helping out on his father Henry's farm near Guilford, Missouri. On November 19, 1910, after a long day's work, Hez cleaned himself up and went to Guilford in search of some entertainment. There he met up with two acquaintances, Oda Hubbell and Charles Wallace. The men went to an empty boxcar parked on an unused side track at the Guilford depot and began to play poker. Eventually Hez and Oda were left to play until dawn. Hez's losses to Oda during the course of the game resulted in an argument the next morning. Oda refused to acquiesce to Hez's demand to continue playing. Instead, Oda went home that Sunday morning to be with his family. Hez went looking for a gun. By seven o'clock that Sunday evening, the Hubbell family was dead. By ten o'clock, their home was ablaze. Within twelve hours, Hez Rasco, age 30, was under arrest for their murders. But, was he guilty of murder and arson or was he a convenient suspect for predisposed minds? Only the evidence and a jury of twelve men could answer that question.

Hezekiah Rasco: Child of Woe - Man of Sorrow recounts the story of Hez's life, as evidenced through available records.

Other Formats: Paperback , Mass Market Paperback

Dying By Inches Feb 22, 2016

by Susan Cronk

( 5 )

$3.00

Maggie Gillings' life did not begin as a happy chapter in her overall story. This work of biographical fiction, based upon true events, bear evidence to that. Maggie's story, as related to the author, took 103 years to play out fully, thankfully ending in safer and somewhat happier circumstances than it began. The real Maggie Gillings was a creative, relatively happy, and productive person throughout her years. She had a take-charge kind of personality, and despite having only achieved an eighth-grade education, she was intellectually very keen right up until her passing in 2016. The lesson she would have readers come away with from the reading of this account of her life is that you cannot let the past dictate who you will become. Hurdles are just that, things to be overcome and to be left in the past.

Other Formats: Paperback

The End Of Things At Dark Island (Cozy American Castle Mystery Book 1) Feb 10, 2019

by Susan Cronk

( 4 )

$2.99

Castle adventures are not limited to America's cousins across the ocean. America has plenty of its own castles that lend themselves to tales of mystery, intrigue, and romance. The End Of Things At Dark Island is where Effie Portchester and Howard Mantry's story begins. Howard enlists Effie's help to solve a crime that others thought finished forty-six years earlier with the death of the thief. Howard's discovery of several journals among his deceased father's belongings leads him to believe that there are more mysteries waiting to be solved, and treasure to be recovered. Effie and Howard decide to wrap up the mystery once and for all. This tale begins around 1906, long before Effie or Howard were born, and resumes in 1952. Over the decades, technology has changed, people have grown older, memories have faded, and a generation has nearly passed. This first cozy mystery is set on Dark Island, one of more than 1,800 islands in the Thousand Islands area of the St. Lawrence River, spanning both sides of the border between Canada and the United States. Dark Island is home to what was once referred to as Dark Island Castle, originally The Towers, and later renamed Singer Castle in honor of its owner. While the American castle and the island upon which it was built are real, the characters and events within this story are entirely fictitious. The author has taken liberty to move a few things around in the castle and on the island.

Other Formats: Paperback

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Spokojny Valley: Hope for Spring Feb 23, 2018

by Susan Cronk

$3.99

Two generations before, God's faithful people abandoned the decaying society around them in order to preserve their beliefs and their lives. Now, in the peaceful and thriving valley communities, a thread from the old world has begun to work its way back into the social fabric. Their peaceful, productive, useful lives are at risk.

Surrounded by the decaying monoliths of a worldly society, whose self-destruction was assured through the rulings of the nation's high council that had abandoned all fear of God, the people of the Spokojny and Hojny valleys will be forced to make difficult decisions to address the threat to their Utopian world. Will those monoliths be enough of a reminder that God must come first, above all things?

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The Surrogate Nov 5, 2015

by Susan Cronk

( 2 )

$2.99

Robyn Abram didn't realize that the gift she was offering her friends, Jeff and Ann, would spark so much controversy. When a local reporter, Manny Espinoza, exposed Robyn's identity as a surrogate to his readers and questioned whether science was circumventing the natural plan for the creation of new life, a social firestorm erupted. Two political Goliaths awoke and prepared to do battle. After a failed attempt on Robyn's life left her hospitalized and fighting for survival, they stepped up and demanded the right to determine which life would be sacrificed to save the other.

Other Formats: Paperback

This title and over 1 million more available with Kindle Unlimited.

Wandering Belle Mar 21, 2015

by Susan Cronk

( 4 )

$1.99

Ailis Belle and Adelio Beaumont are cast into the cruel world of the Great Depression at the death of their only parent, their mother. Belle, knowing that she cannot care for Adelio, makes the decision to leave her younger brother with a loving adoptive family in Missouri while she goes to Louisiana to carve out an existence for herself. Along the way she befriends a fellow wanderer, Gideon "Highshine" Brown, a talented trumpet player and a young man with a dream of making a name for himself in the world of jazz. When Belle's life is threatened, Highshine seeks a higher power for help. That help comes in the person of Jaimin Aiton, a young preacher of the gospel with a local congregation. Eventually, Jaimin manages to set their feet on narrower paths.

Other Formats: Paperback

This title and over 1 million more available with Kindle Unlimited.

The Sheltering Country Feb 21, 2014

by Susan Cronk

( 4 )

$1.99

The past is the past, or so it should be. But, when a dangerous figure from Mariette Holmes’ past imposes himself on her present and threatens to eliminate any hope for a future, she is left with no other choice but to flee to The Sheltering Country

Mariette soon realizes that danger comes in many forms. So does protection. She is determined to secure a future for herself, and through the kindhearted efforts of those she encounters, hope remains.

Other Formats: Paperback

This title and over 1 million more available with Kindle Unlimited.

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