As a research assistant for a Texas detective agency, Maggie Haslo has a knack for connecting the dots. She can see that the facts don't add up in the suspicious death of her friend Mando. A history professor at the local university, Mando was killed in what the police are calling a drive-by shooting-but Maggie's not buying it.

Before his death, Mando had invited Maggie to the diving site of a sunken Spanish galleon off the Gulf coast; when her friend, Sister Clare, asks her to come investigate suspicious circumstances at her convent on nearby Mustang Island, Maggie decides to combine trips. A few days later, a nun is murdered, and Maggie makes a shocking discovery: the deaths of Mando and the nun are related.

As she drives back and forth between the city and the island with her faithful German shepherd, Zoe, Maggie must put aside her sadness for the friends she has lost in order to be strong for friends that are still living. In the process, she meets more trouble than she could have imagined, but also a blue-eyed detective-who turns out to be trouble of different kind.

Maggie's detective skills are about to be put to the ultimate test. Can she crack the case before another dead body shows up?

As a research assistant for a Texas detective agency, Maggie Haslo has a knack for connecting the dots. She can see that the facts don't add up in the suspicious death of her friend Mando. A history professor at the local university, Mando was killed in what the police are calling a drive-by shooting-but Maggie's not buying it.

Before his death, Mando had invited Maggie to the diving site of a sunken Spanish galleon off the Gulf coast; when her friend, Sister Clare, asks her to come investigate suspicious circumstances at her convent on nearby Mustang Island, Maggie decides to combine trips. A few days later, a nun is murdered, and Maggie makes a shocking discovery: the deaths of Mando and the nun are related.

As she drives back and forth between the city and the island with her faithful German shepherd, Zoe, Maggie must put aside her sadness for the friends she has lost in order to be strong for friends that are still living. In the process, she meets more trouble than she could have imagined, but also a blue-eyed detective-who turns out to be trouble of different kind.

Maggie's detective skills are about to be put to the ultimate test. Can she crack the case before another dead body shows up?

C.R.M.E. is a workbook for anyone needing (or wanting) to do a research project that can stand the test of claiming scientific significance. The workbook leads the reader in a logical progression from the measurement of variables in the research design to the formulation of testable hypotheses.

I taught such a research class at the college level for twenty years and learned how few people know the meaning of significance. Even students who came into the class having taken statistics as a pre-requisite were "fuzzy" about the concepts of standard deviations, significance, and standard scores. I realized there were two reasons for this: learning out of context; that is, without seeing an application, and secondly, being overloaded with too much statistics, which led to mere confusion. Thus my approach was to include the most common types of statistical tests covering a wide spectrum of measurements and having them applied in a real research project. Once this much is learned, it is easier to branch out to more sophisticated measurements and testing.

This workbook was also used with adult students in the university's weekend program. These were students from various large corporations in the city who were finishing their undergraduate degrees. It was they who gave me the idea to share the workbook, as many of them were given research projects to do at their place of employment and gave me very positive feedback. I genuinely hope that you find it helpful as well.

Best wishes, Prof. M.