In the town of Paramont, over a two-year period in the late 1940s, several women have been murdered. For some reason all of the bodies have been placed in or near water -- a river or lake. Detectives Amos Taylor and Richard Samms spend months attempting to track down the elusive killer identified merely as young, “good-looking” and driving a light-colored sedan.

In the early 22nd century, with the world suffering from a continuing ice age, food production in the United States is controlled by the Bureau of Sustenance. Private property has ceased to exist, and all citizens are forced to live in huge towers. However, a small group of people have managed to remain outside. Unfortunately, wisps of smoke from the group’s uncontrolled fire have been seen from a Bureau helicopter and reported. Sustainers Amos Benton and Jake Martinez soon are sent from Tower Seven to search for the “outsiders.”

With his partner Richard Samms, shot and facing a lengthy period of recuperation, Detective Levi Taylor and the other men in the Paramont Police Department are kept busy with the usual number of major crimes. Then, they are plagued for two years with numerous calls from citizens about a Peeping Tom. Considered simply a nuisance problem at first, this changes when a woman is severely beaten and raped. Can Hunter and Samms, now back on the job, find "The Peeper" before someone is killed?

Arriving home from an unsuccessful trip to try and locate the killer of four local women, Deputy Chief Levi Taylor learns of the murder of Paramont's former state senator, Judge Jason Craig Montgomery. Thinking it may be a 'grudge' killing, Taylor and detective Richard Samms begin to question paroled prison inmates formerly sentenced by the judge, along with males relatives of the parolees. Their investigation reaches a standstill until Samms mentions that the two men could be questioning the wrong people . . .

Beautiful and well-educated in business, Olivia remembers that her late grandmother always emphasized that money was the key to independence. At a fundraising event for a pet charity, she meets and eventually marries wealthy Ronald Ridgeway, heir to the Ridgeway Foundation. When her husband asks for help with the foundation’s accounting, Olivia sees her chance over several years to take and secrete several million dollars in a private bank account. Not wishing to take the chance that her theft eventually may be discovered, she leaves on a shopping trip and disappears. Brought in to find Olivia is Boston Detective Randall Hunter who follows her trail of to many cities across the U.S.

Having left Boston and Chicago with millions of stolen dollars from former husbands, Ridgeway and Simpson, the beautiful and elusive woman is now living in Kansas under the name Janet Johansen. There, she meets and marries widower billionaire, Allen Randolphe, who resides in Kansas City, Missouri with his daughter, Margaret. For Janet, life is beautiful until at a Randolphe business event, Chicago guest Rusty Aldred tells Margaret that he knew her stepmother under another name and that a private detective is trying to locate that woman. When Margaret mentions Aldred's comments to her stepmother, Janet has to make a decision: assume that Margaret doesn't believe Aldred and that the detective will never find her . . . or run!

In the a late October night, two shots ring out when a man answers his door, and the shooter quickly drives away. Colorado Springs detectives, Randall Hunter and James Douglass, assume it's a one-time incident until there is another similar murder . . . and then another. Without any leads to the perpetrator, named'the "front-door killer" by the detectives, all they can do is sit and wait for the next victim. SCALES of JUSTICE is the fourteenth book co-authored by Sandra Wells and Betty Alt. Wells has a Ph.D. from Colorado State University in Fort Collins while Alt has an M.A. from Northeast Missouri State University. Both authors have taught at the university level and now enjoy the "fascinating hobby" of writing books.

In the late 21st century, with the new ice age causing worldwide starvation, industrialized nations have condemned all private property. Citizens have been forced into huge tower complexes, and land is used solely for food production under the Bureau of Sustenance. Amos Benton and Jake Martinez, employees of the Bureau, are sent from Tower-7 to investigate interior damage and missing items taken from a sustainer pod near Dallas. It is finally decided that the incursions into the pod are due to hungry animals. Benton, recalling his capture and escape nearly three years earlier from a group of people still living outside, is not so sure . . .

Death Invades the Rectory Werewolves and vampires whispered to the young man that he had to kill someone before one o'clock in the afternoon or he would be killed. With this delusion in his mind, 20-year-old Douglas James Comiskey entered the St. Leander rectory in Pueblo, Colorado, and stabbed to death priests Tom Scheets and Louis Stovik. The August 1996 murders would leave the town residents stunned and grieving while police searched for the murderer. About the Authors Death Invades the Rectory is the eleventh book co-authored by Betty L. Alt and Sandra K. Wells. Sandra K. Wells has a Ph.D. from Colorado State University in Fort Collins and retired as Chief Investigator from the Pueblo, Colorado, District Attorney's Office. Betty L. Alt has an M.A. in history from Northeast Missouri State University. Currently, both authors are teaching classes in the Sociology Department at Colorado State University - Pueblo.