Cold Pursuit by Nancy Mehl

Cold Pursuit

by Nancy Mehl

July 17 - August 4, 2023 Virtual Book Tour

Synopsis:

Ex-FBI profiler River Ryland still suffers from PTSD after a case went horribly wrong. Needing a fresh start, she moves to St. Louis to be near her ailing mother and opens a private investigation firm with her friend and former FBI partner, Tony St. Clair. They're soon approached by a grieving mother who wants them to find out what happened to her teenaged son, who disappeared four years ago. River knows there's almost no hope the boy is still alive, but his mother needs closure, and River and Tony need a case, no matter how cold it might be.

But as they follow the boy's trail, which gets more complicated at every turn, they find themselves in the path of a murderer determined to punish anyone who gets in his way. As River and Tony race to stop him before he kills again, an even more dangerous threat emerges, stirring up the past that haunts River and plotting an end to her future.

Praise for Cold Pursuit:

"Guaranteed to captivate with plot twists you won't see coming."
~ Tosca Lee, New York Times bestselling author

"This story is sure to leave you breathless from the thrill of the ride. Hold on tight, it's about to get exhilarating!"
~ Lynette Eason, bestselling and award-winning author of the Extreme Measures series

"Cold Pursuit sucked me in from the first riveting page and pulled me deeper into an intricate, danger-filled plot."
~ Elizabeth Goddard, bestselling author of Cold Light of Day

Book Details:

Genre: Suspense
Published by: Bethany House Publishers
Publication Date: July 2023
Number of Pages: 336
ISBN: 9780764240454 (ISBN10: 0764240455)
Series: Ryland & St. Clair (#1)
Book Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | ChristianBook.com | Goodreads | Baker Book House

Read an excerpt:

Synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon in which the stimulation of one sense triggers an instantaneous and involuntary experience in another. In other words, it causes two or more senses to cross. People with Synesthesia may be able to “hear” color, or “taste” sound. There are many kinds of Synesthesia, and people who have it sometimes have more than one type.
—The Synesthesia Network

Prologue

River Ryland was convinced that madness exists only a breath away from genius. The man who stood in front of her and Tony had proven this to be true. He’d kept his identity hidden from the FBI’s best. Now River and Tony’s lives were about to end, and there was no one to save them.

Moonlight caused the river to sparkle as if it were layered with precious jewels. But the image didn’t provoke a sense of beauty. It spawned a feeling of terror so deep and evil that her body betrayed her. She couldn’t move. Why were they even here? She and Tony were behavioral analysts for the FBI, not field agents. They wrote profiles for the agents who were trained to confront insanity. A call from another agent had brought them here. “Come and see,” she’d said. “It’s important. I think we got it wrong.”

This was someone they trusted. Someone whose opinion mattered. Jacki was so smart. So naturally intuitive. And so surely dead. Why hadn’t River been alerted by the quiver in her voice? Why hadn’t the profiler profiled her friend and realized she was in trouble? She’d failed Jacki, Tony, . . . and herself. And now, without a miracle, she and Tony were going to die on the bank of this killer river—with moonlight standing guard over their execution.

“Come closer,” the man said to River, his face resembling a Greek theater mask. Was it Comedy or Tragedy? She wasn’t sure. She couldn’t think. Even though she willed her feet to move, she stayed where she was. It was as if her shoes had been glued to the ground. But that wasn’t possible, was it?

The man swung his gun toward Tony. “I said move. If you don’t, I’ll shoot your friend.”

River forced her feet from the spot where she stood. It took every ounce of strength and willpower she possessed. She locked her eyes with Tony’s. Slowly, she made her way toward the man in the moonlight, his gun glinting in the soft light as he pointed it at her. A line from Shakespeare’s Othello echoed in her mind. It is the very error of the moon; She comes more nearer earth than she is wont and makes men mad.

She turned her face toward the man who planned to take her life. She knew she shouldn’t panic. She knew how to fight. How to defend herself. She hated feeling so helpless. So afraid. This was the moment she desperately needed to summon the trained agent inside of her. The one who knew how to confront evil. Yet she was aware of how powerful this man was. How deadly. He’d killed eleven women that they knew of, not counting Jacki, but he’d teased authorities with letters claiming up to eighty. Although it sounded impossible, it wasn’t. Transient women went missing every day. Hookers. Teenagers living on the streets. The number could be right. The one truth that was indisputable? No one had ever survived him. No one.

When she was close enough to smell his sour breath, in one quick move, he swung the gun back toward Tony and fired four times. Tony fell to the ground.

River started to scream his name, but before she could make a sound, the killer’s hands were around her neck, squeezing. Choking the life out of her. Suddenly, something clicked on in her brain, like her alarm clock in the morning. She had to help Tony—if it wasn’t already too late. She struggled, hitting at this horror of a human being. This man full of death and destruction. Then she rolled her eyes back in her head and stopped breathing, holding her breath for dear life. And that’s exactly what it was. Life. Hers and Tony’s. She went limp, hoping the monster would think she was dead.

He finally dropped her on the ground and walked toward his car. She needed to gulp in air but was afraid he’d hear. Breathing in a little at a time hurt her chest, yet she had no choice. She began to crawl quietly toward the gun he’d taken from Tony. It lay only a few feet away. She had no idea where hers was, but that didn’t matter.

She heard him close the trunk. She scrambled as quickly as she could until her fingers closed around the barrel of the gun, but before she could pick it up, he was behind her. He hit her on the head, and she felt herself losing consciousness. She could only stare up at the moon and hate it for watching this happen.

The next sensation she experienced was throbbing pain in her head and neck. Her first reaction wasn’t relief, it was surprise. The pain was awful, but didn’t that mean she was alive? A flash of euphoria gave way to terror when she realized she couldn’t move. Where was she? Why was she wet? She couldn’t see anything, and her hands were bound in front of her. Her fingers reached out and touched something hard. What was it? When she realized she was trapped inside some kind of container—and that water was leaking in—she screamed out in horror. She was in a large chest. All of the Strangler’s victims had been found in the Salt River, and most of them were inside old trunks. But they’d been dead when they went into the water, and she was still alive. He’d done it on purpose because she’d come too close. He needed more than her death. He wanted her to experience the terror he knew his madness could create.

River struggled with all her might, but she couldn’t get free. She pulled her hands up to her mouth and tried to use her teeth to rip through the duct tape wrapped around her wrists. She realized immediately that there was too much of it. She couldn’t make enough progress to help herself before she was completely submerged. The river was seeping in, slowly but surely. She was on her side, and half of her head was already under water. She cried out in terror as she tried to push herself onto her back so she could clear her nose and mouth, but there wasn’t enough room. As hope faded, she did something she never thought she’d do again. Something she hadn’t done in many years. She prayed.

“God, please. If you’re real, if you care anything about me, save me. Get me out of here. I’m sorry I’ve been so angry at you. If you give me another chance . . .” She couldn’t get the rest of the words out because water filled her mouth and she began to choke. She’d swallowed some of it, and she couldn’t catch her breath. She was suffocating. Drowning. Just when she’d decided to give in to the inevitable and let death overtake her, something flashed in her mind. Right before the Strangler hit her . . . there was something. A movement on the hill behind them. Was someone watching? Had they gone for help? Was there a chance? As much as she wanted to believe it, another part of her thought it would be best to just relax and float away. Hope only brought disappointment, and she’d experienced too much of it. Still, she couldn’t help but grab onto a slim chance that . . .

That’s when she felt it. Movement. Something jostled the trunk. Was she being lifted out of the river? As the water level began to decrease inside the trunk, River began to cry. She was going to live. “Thank you, God,” she croaked. “Thank you.”

He was convinced he’d been born to be exceptional. He was certainly smarter than these weak, feckless creatures who revolved around his genius. Was he a god? Or was he a demon? Who was smarter, God or Lucifer? It seemed Lucifer had certainly ruined the plan of the Almighty. If God was really the Creator of all things, how was it that one of His creations was able to rebel and cause such havoc on Earth? Seemed to him that the devil was the winner of that particular contest.

So, on whose side was he working? Being honest about it, he didn’t really care. He only knew that the desire to rid the world of those who were unworthy of life burned in him like a fire. One that he had no power or will to quench. It was his destiny. His reason for living. His fate had been decided for him many years ago, and he’d accepted it gladly. Lucifer or Jehovah. It didn’t matter.

Some would call what he’d done sin. But what was sin anyway? Perhaps it was the road less traveled because of fear of retribution. He didn’t fear judgment. His god didn’t threaten him. Instead, he only fueled the glorious desire that clawed and scratched inside him, demanding release.

He especially enjoyed pitting himself against those who called themselves righteous because they had the ability to forgive. Forgiveness was for the feeble-minded. He would never forgive. He hated anyone who considered themselves moral or spiritually justified and had promised the voice that whispered in the darkness that he would never fail to respond to its unending song of reckoning against them.

He laughed suddenly, the sound echoing around him. These idiotic cattle thought they’d defeated him, but he had a surprise for them. All he had to do was wait. They would rue the day they’d tried to cage him.

The killing hadn’t stopped. It had only just begun.

Chapter One

Brian woke up shivering again, calling out for his mother and father. As he looked around the small room he rented in the rundown boarding house, reality sunk in. He had no idea where his parents were, and even if he could find them, they didn’t want him. They’d stuck him in that residential facility until he was eighteen, like some kind of unwanted dog left in the pound. They’d paid the hospital boatloads of money for all those years, yet when he’d been released there was no family waiting to take him home. So why was he still having the same nightmare? Would it ever leave him alone?

Before they’d kicked him out, the social worker at the hospital had found him a job, but if he wanted to keep it, he had to visit a therapist every week. He hated going, but he couldn’t walk away from his job. Although he didn’t make much, at least he could pay for this room. Fredric, a kind man who’d worked in the hospital cafeteria, had helped him find this rooming house and had even paid his rent for two months. Brian was grateful for Fredric’s help, but this place was really awful. Paint peeling off the walls. A shared bathroom for all three rooms on this floor, which was usually dirty. The guy who lived across the hall drank and didn’t flush the toilet. And at night the cockroaches came out. Brian didn’t blame Fredric. He’d done everything he could with his limited funds. Brian blamed his parents. They were rich. They could have helped him. Kept him safe. Brian hated them with every fiber of his being.

When he was very young, they were attentive—even loving. But as he grew older, and they realized he was different, everything changed. Although he’d never met his father’s father, he’d heard the whispers—that Brian was crazy, just like his grandfather had been. When he first began to tell his parents what he was experiencing, they seemed concerned. Then when doctors informed them he was hallucinating and that he needed professional help, the way they looked at him changed. The word schizophrenia became his enemy—and his identity.

At first, his father appeared to care for his broken son, but as his mother applied pressure, he began to distance himself—just as she had. It was clear he wasn’t the child they’d wanted. And then his brother was born. And his sister. They were perfect. As he grew older and his problems began to increase, it was obvious that his mother only saw him as an embarrassment. Something that interfered with their perfect lives. Thankfully, in their eyes, God had shown them mercy and given them the children they deserved, so sending him away solved their dilemma. He had a memory of his parents fighting one night. His father wanted Brian to stay with them, but his mother had threatened to leave him and take his ideal children away. Finally, his father gave in. Brian hated him even more than his mother for caving in to her demands. For turning his back on the son that needed him so desperately. After he went to live in that terrible hospital with its white walls, disinfectant smells, locked doors, and abusive staff, his parents began to visit him less and less. The more he begged them to take him home, the more uncomfortable they became, and by the time he was thirteen, they stopped coming altogether. As he remembered the anger he’d felt, bad words swirled around in the air, each letter a different color. As they turned red, he mouthed the words he saw, and rage built inside him. He would need to release it soon.

Suddenly his alarm clock went off, causing the air around him to pulsate. He hit the alarm and pushed himself up from the bed. It was an especially cold November. The blanket he’d purchased from Goodwill wasn’t enough to keep him warm, especially in this drafty room, but it was all he could afford if he wanted to pay his rent and eat. As his teeth chattered, the word cold floated in front of his eyes. He couldn’t hold back a sneeze that made his mouth feel funny. He swiped at the bad words that started flying around his head.

“Stop it!” he said loudly. Immediately, he put his hand over his mouth. What if someone complained because he was too loud? No matter what, he couldn’t lose this room. He had nowhere else to go, and he didn’t want to live on the streets. That was a nightmare he couldn’t face.

The afternoon sun shone through a gap in the curtains on his window, but it brought no warmth. He took off his sweatpants and sweatshirt and hurried over to the decrepit chest of drawers where he kept his clothes. He pulled out his work pants and some clean underwear. Then he went over to the hooks on the wall where he hung his three work shirts. There was only one clean shirt left. He’d have to go to the laundromat tomorrow. That could be a problem since he had to see his therapist in the morning. He’d have to wake up early to get everything done. He glanced at the clock on the top of his dresser. Four o’clock. He needed to leave by five-thirty to get to work on time. At least the cleaning company left him alone, since they trusted him and knew he would get the job done. As long as he had a place to live and he could keep his fifteen-year-old car running, he would keep showing up.

His supervisor usually only showed up once a week to collect Brian’s time sheet. He used to check his work, but he didn’t anymore. Most importantly, the man never gave him the look. Brian hated that look. The one he saw on his parents’ faces before they’d shipped him off. Rage burned inside him toward normal people who laughed at him and treated him as less than human. As he headed toward the bathroom, the word blood pulsated in front of his eyes, and he could almost taste its sugary aroma in his mouth.

***

Excerpt from Cold Pursuit by Nancy Mehl. Copyright 2023 by Nancy Mehl. Reproduced with permission from Baker Book House. All rights reserved.

 

 

Author Bio:

Nancy Mehl (www.nancymehl.com) is the author of almost fifty books, a Parable bestseller, as well as the winner of an ACFW Book of the Year Award, a Carol Award, and the Daphne Du Maurier Award. She has also been a finalist for two Carol Awards, and the Christy Award. Nancy writes from her home in Missouri, where she lives with her husband, Norman, and their puggle, Watson. To learn more, visit nancymehl.com.

Catch Up With Our Author:
NancyMehl.com
Goodreads
BookBub - @NancyMehl
Twitter - @NancyMehl1
Facebook - Nancy Mehl Fan Page

 

 

Tour Participants:

Visit these other great hosts on this tour for more great reviews, interviews, guest posts, and opportunities to WIN in the giveaway!

 

 

JOIN IN ON THE GIVEAWAY -

This is a giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Tours for Nancy Mehl & Bethany House Publishers. See the widget for entry terms and conditions. Void where prohibited.

 

 

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Tours

 

My Take: I really liked Cold Pursuit which is the first book in a new series Ryland + St. Clair. I thought the mystery was really good and it kept my attention. The book left you waiting for the next book which I will be reading to find out what happens. It was interesting to go behind the scenes abit with FBI profilers and to realize that they don't always get the profile right. I look forward to the next book. I received a review copy of this book from Partners in Crime Book Tours in exchange for a review. All opinions are my own and I was not required to write a positive review.

A Deadly Wilderness by Kelly Irvin

A Deadly Wilderness

by Kelly Irvin

May 22 - June 16, 2023 Virtual Book Tour

Synopsis:

A frantic anonymous crisis center hot-line call propels counselor Susana Martinez-Acosta smack into the center of a murder investigation and a homicide detective’s arms. Exactly where she doesn’t want to be. Following the tragic death of her husband, she’s struggled to build a safe haven for herself and her son. That new world doesn’t include hit men and persistent detectives with dangerous jobs.

An idyllic wilderness hike turns deadly when homicide detective Ray Johnson tumbles into a ravine and lands on a corpse later identified as the son of a prominent citizen. Ray works to solve the political hot potato murder before city leaders bumps him from the case. His determination to find the man’s killer leads him from the wealthiest enclaves in San Antonio to the city’s dark underbelly, all the while trying to win the woman he loves.

A Deadly Wilderness is a romantic suspense novel that will take the reader along on a tumultuous journey as the consuming need for material wealth drives a deadly wedge among family members who haven’t learned when enough really is enough.

The journey ends where it began—in a deadly wilderness. Not everyone will survive the trip.

Book Details:

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Published by: Ally Press
Publication Date: May 2023
Number of Pages: 250
ISBN: 978-1-953290-24-3
Book Links: Amazon

Read an excerpt:

A panicked voice penetrated the pain. “Mr. Ray! Mr. Ray!”

Small hands patted Ray’s face. He opened his eyes to a soft, blue sky dotted with tufts of popcorn clouds. Benny’s dirty face filled his vision. He sucked in air and immediately regretted it. The rank odor of decaying flesh made his eyes water and bile burn in the back of his throat.

“What the—” He tried to rise. Pain dug a trench from one ear to the other. He sank back. “What is it?”

Benny leaned in close. Ray heard his agitated breathing and smelled his little boy sweat. The dirt and leaves on his clothes told Ray he’d come down the side of the ravine in a slip-and-slide fashion. “Marco fell on a—a body. You gotta get up. He’s dead. It stinks. It stinks bad!”

“Whoa! Easy, Benny, easy.” Ray grabbed his hand. “Are you hurt?”

“No! We gotta get out of here!” Thin features contorted with fear, Benny tugged from Ray’s grasp and darted toward Marco, who knelt a few feet away, his back to Ray. “Come on, let’s just go!”

“Marco, are you hurt?” Ray struggled to get up. A sharp pain in his ankle, coupled with the fierce pounding in his head, made the ground rise and fall. He sank back again. “Marco? Are you okay?”

Marco swiveled around. Tears streaked his face, but Ray saw no blood. His amber eyes wide, his gaze swung back-and-forth from the ground to Ray. He’d lost his cap; leaves clung to his shorts and T-shirt. “I landed on him. I touched him. Somebody cut his finger off!”

Marco’s voice cracked. He pointed. Ray followed the line of his trembling fingers. Three outstretched fingers pointed back, a bloody stub where the fourth should have been. The hand Ray had seen before he passed out belonged to a body, spread-eagle and half-covered by brush.

The man hadn’t been dead long—his features were recognizable—but birds and other animals had begun their work of tearing soft flesh from bone as San Antonio’s early summer heat baked the body. “Move away.” Ray schooled his voice to stay cool and calm. He hated that Benny and Marco had seen this—they’d both had enough tragedy in their lives. First things first: he wanted them away from the scene, then he’d shift from off-duty friend to on-duty police officer once they were calm. “Come over here so I can take a look at you.”

Gaze still on the body, Marco stumbled to Ray, one arm dangling awkwardly at his side. Ray grabbed his thin frame in a hug. “Look at me, Marco. Does your arm hurt?”

Marco buried his head in Ray’s chest. Ray felt a shudder rip through him. “Where does it hurt?”

“My wrist.” Marco held out his swollen arm.

“Can you bend it?”

Marco’s sharp intake of breath answered that question.

“You have to watch where you’re going on these trails.” Ray kept his tone soft. Marco had enough problems without this.

“I was thinking.” Marco’s tone mixed anger and shame. “About stuff.”

“Yeah, about Mr. Ray and your mom.” Benny piped up. Thin face pinched, he’d squatted next to Ray.

“Huh-uh! I was not.” Marco gave Benny a look that said hush up. Benny ducked his head, showing his foster cousin his usual deference.

“Don’t worry about it. We’re gonna be fine.” Ray understood Marco’s preoccupation. Susana was never far from Ray’s mind, either—not since the day the previous year when he’d helped his former partner move his sister from Corpus Christi to San Antonio. “Just give me a minute.”

He touched the back of his head where pain pounded like a jackhammer. His fingers came back bloody. His stomach rocked and ears buzzed. He considered his options. With his ankle injured, it seemed unlikely he could hike out. And there was the body to consider.

If his cell phone had survived, and he could get a signal, he’d call Samuel, his boss and Susana’s brother. It wouldn’t be a pleasant conversation. Samuel was almost as protective of his nephew as Susana was of her son. “We’ll have to wait for your Uncle Samuel to get the medical examiner and the evidence guys out here, and then we’ll get you to the ER so they can fix up that arm.”

“No!” Marco stopped, his lips pressed together. His skin had turned sickly gray. “Don’t call Tío Samuel. He’ll worry. I could hike back to the trailhead and get somebody. Benny can stay here and take care of you.”

“No.” Benny looked offended. “You fell down. I’ll hike. You stay here.”

Red spots flamed on Marco’s pale cheeks. “I’m the oldest—”

“Just hang on, guys, no one’s hiking anywhere alone.” The scene was already contaminated. The medical examiner’s investigator and the evidence techs wouldn’t be happy. He needed to move the boys as far back as possible. “Go sit by that tree over there. Benny, why don’t you look around, see if you can find our caps? And my sunglasses. Who knows where they ended up.”

Marco stumbled over to the Ashe juniper on the edge of the strip where they’d landed. Benny, hands on his hips in an unconscious imitation of an angry adult, started up the incline in search of Ray’s San Antonio Police Department cap.

After glancing back to make sure they weren’t looking, Ray let his head drop, jaw clenched, and tried to stand. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Giving up, he sucked in a breath through his mouth to avoid the smell and scooted close enough to get a good look at the body.

Blue shirt, jeans, hiking boots. Dried red stains cascaded down the front of the shirt and jeans. Blood. Too much blood for a simple tumble down a hill. The ring finger on the left hand was missing. Theft of a ring or a trophy? A breeze ruffled the man’s sleeve. Ray had the sudden sensation the corpse might raise its injured hand in a macabre wave.

No. This guy would never move again. Ray slid off his backpack and rummaged for his cell phone. It had survived intact, and he had a signal.

Samuel sounded preoccupied. “What’s up? I thought you were hiking with the boys.”

“I am—was.” Ray explained the situation. “The guy’s missing a finger and he’s covered with blood. It wasn’t an accident.”

“We’ll get paramedics up there for you and Marco.” Always the problem-solver, Samuel’s voice bounced around as if he were already moving. “Salvador is next on the rotation—I’ll bring him with me.”

“I can handle the investigation. Just send out Deborah.” Deborah Smith would love telling her colleagues that her new partner had walked off a cliff.

“You’re on vacation—and you’re injured.”

The vacation hadn’t been Ray’s idea. Samuel had insisted. “So? As soon as the paramedics get me fixed up, I want the case. I’m bored with this vacation thing.”

“We’ll talk when I get there.” When Samuel used his boss voice, there was no sense arguing. “I’m on the way. I’ll call Susana after I assess the situation.”

“I should call her—” Ray could already hear that conversation in his head.

“She’s at the hotline center. She won’t answer her personal phone on shift.” Samuel’s voice held a hint of pity. “Besides, I’m her older brother. She’ll just snap at me. You, she’ll chew up and spit out.”

Ray dropped his cell phone into the backpack and stared at the body. He’d tumbled head over heels several hundred yards, injured his ankle, and blacked out in order to find this guy. No matter what Samuel said, that made it his job to find out how the man had ended up at the bottom of a cliff. Dead and missing a finger.

***

Excerpt from A Deadly Wilderness by Kelly Irvin. Copyright 2023 by Kelly Irvin. Reproduced with permission from Kelly Irvin. All rights reserved.

 

 

Author Bio:

Kelly Irvin is the author of more than 30 Amish romance and romantic suspense novels. She has penned eight critically acclaimed romantic suspense novels, including Trust Me, which debuted in 2022. Publisher’s Weekly said of the novel: “(In this) whirlwind romantic thriller . . . Irvin follows the characters through twists and turns, writing through the lens of faith and broken faith, while illuminating a bridge across shattered relationships to second chances.” Her latest novel is A Deadly Wilderness, released May 23, 2023, from Ally Press.

The Kansas native is a graduate of the University of Kansas School of Journalism. She has been writing nonfiction professionally for more than 30 years, including 10 years as a newspaper reporter. She retired in 2016 after working 22 years in public relations for the City of San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department. She is a member of ACFW and Alamo City Christian Fiction Writers. She and her husband make their home in South Texas. They are the parents of two children and the grandparents of four grandchildren. In her spare time, Kelly reads, writes poetry and short stories, and spends time with her grandchildren as often as possible.

Catch Up With Kelly Irvin:
www.kellyirvin.com
Goodreads
BookBub - @KellyIrvin
Twitter - @Kelly_S_Irvin
Instagram - @Kelly_Irvin
Facebook - @Kelly.Irvin.Author

 

 

Tour Participants:

Visit these other great hosts on this tour for more great reviews, interviews, guest posts, and giveaway entries!

 

 

ENTER FOR A CHANCE TO WIN:

This is a giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Tours for Kelly Irvin. See the widget for entry terms and conditions. Void where prohibited.

 

 

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Tours

 

My Take: I have liked all of Kelly Irvin's thriller that I have read and this is no exception. I was anxious to get to the end to find out who was the real bad guy and of course if the romantic situations would get worked out. I really hate that the police have to cater to the people who have money and have to do things that doesn't help with the case but such is our lives in the modern world. I gave this a 4 out of 5 stars on Goodreads and would recommend it to anyone who likes a good suspense novel. received a review copy of this book from Partners in Crime Book tours and all opinions are my own.

Altered by Rob Kaufman

 

Justin Wright, New York City’s premier psychiatrist, is determined to help Frank Devlin, a young man with multiple personalities (“alters”), live a happier, more fulfilling life. Little does he know that Frank, and his alters, are secretly weaving themselves into Justin’s life in ways that will affect the Wright family forever…

 

Title: Altered
Author: Rob Kaufman
Publisher: Independent
Pages: 276
Genre: Psychological Suspense Thriller

When Frank Devlin walks into Justin Wright’s office, the renowned New York City clinical psychiatrist decides to take on one of the most challenging cases of his career.

After their first session, it’s obvious Frank has multiple personalities (“alters”) and each one couldn’t be more different than the other. Justin must get to know each individual alter in order to discover the best route to take so that Frank can live a full and happy life. He must also delve into Frank’s past, one filled with mystery, darkness and trauma — the true causes behind his personality split.

As Justin deals with Frank’s issues, he’s also confronted with his own demons: the kidnapping of Michael, his youngest son, seven years earlier… a wife he adores, Mandy, who refuses to accept her son is gone… a constant struggle with his oldest son, Dylan, who was watching over Michael the day the boy was taken. And his problems get worse as, unbeknownst to Justin, Frank and his alters are secretly weaving themselves into his life in ways that will affect the Wright family forever.

A suspense-filled story driven by emotion, angst and the ultimate revenge, “Altered” brings readers down a twisted path of uncertainty and mind games ­— leaving them shocked, heartbroken and questioning what could possibly come next…
“Crazy-good plot lines and shocking information that had me gasping for breath at every turn!” – Anne F., Amazon Vine Reviewer

“It was an amazing ride with tension building throughout until the final twist ending.” – Patricia G., NetGalley Reviewer

Release Date: November 15, 2022

Soft Cover: ISBN:979-8358757523; 329 pages; $13.99; Kindle $7.99; FREE on Kindle Unlimited

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3BlpCjs 

Book Excerpt  

The frigid breeze whipped across his face. He ran up the city blocks, wiping melted snowflakes from his eyelids so he could see where he was going. By the time he reached 49^th Street, he was out of breath and had to stop. He leaned against the steel pole that held both the street signs and traffic lights. After a few deep breaths, he wiped the liquified flurries off his cheeks and walked as quickly as he could until he reached 50th.

He made a right off Park and because the office was so close to the corner, he could see a glow of light coming from the window. Breathing a sigh of relief, he went through the building’s glass front door and made a quick left. He didn’t stop long enough to ring the bell to let anyone know he was about to enter. Trying to catch his breath, he opened the office door.

The first thing he saw was a man holding a gun up to his own temple.

He yelled, and before he could say a coherent word, he watched the man turn toward him and heard a loud bang. And then another.

His legs wobbled, then his head banged on the wooden floor. He brought his hand up to his throat and felt warm liquid oozing from a hole in his neck. He was surprised at the lack of pain and how rapidly numbness was spreading throughout his body. His throat felt like it was swelling up, closing his airway. He fought out a gasp and heard a soft gurgle. Did he just make that noise? Was blood filling his throat?

He tried to take another breath and heard the same sloshing liquid. His mind went void of thought, his body, frozen.

Suddenly there was muffled yelling, unintelligible screams. Something that felt like a hand cupped the back of his head and soft skin brushed his cheek. As time passed, seconds… minutes... hours… he couldn’t be sure, everything faded except a weightlessness enshrouding him, a gentle sense of calm. He closed his eyes and listened to the blood pump, with each heartbeat, through the opening in his neck.

From some obscure corner of his mind, reality edged its way back in and he struggled to open his eyes one last time.

Through the haze of his dissolving vision, he saw a familiar face hovering over him. Anguish twisted it, and as if from a long distance away, he heard the cries and moans falling from the man's mouth.

He wanted to cry, grieve for them both, but once again his heavy eyelids fell down. The weeping and mumbling became a fading hum and then ultimately silence.

His final thought was not about this man who sobbed above him, his killer or the “why” behind what just happened. It was the hope that he’d see the loved one he’d lost — a hope that made him smile inside as a comforting warmth enveloped his body like the most snug of blankets warmed by the sun itself.

Watch the Trailer!

More...

About the Author

Rob Kaufman novels are known for having characters with whom people can relate, while at the same time, bringing them on a journey from which most people would crumble.

His degree in Psychology was the first step toward getting beneath the surface of the people in his life. What followed was a lifelong search for what makes people tick – what forces them to become evil when deep down they are yearning for love. Rob’s characters walk this search with him, deep into the human psyche, creating psychological thrillers from everyday events.

Rob’s books are perfect for those who enjoy thrillers but also need strong emotion to keep them deeply involved with the characters.

“All my books hit home for me,” says Rob. “There are always parts that make me laugh out loud as I write them… and many, too many, that make me cry. And the great thing is, I’m finding that many readers of my books experience the same emotions.”

Rob’s books receive both national and international praise with most reviews noting that his storylines are extremely “unique” and “sobering” and the twists and turns are “masterful”.

Website or Blog:  www.authorrobkaufman.com

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/AuthorKaufman

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorRobKaufman

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/745558.Rob_Kaufman

Sponsored By:

Buried in a Good Book by Tamara Berry audio book Narrator Tanya Eby

Don't miss the first book in a brand-new gripping and hilarious bookish cozy mystery series by author Tamara Berry! Put your sleuthing hat on―Buried in a Good Book features: A thriller writer who knows way more than anyone should about death and dismemberment Her young daughter who's more intrigued by dead bodies than she probably should be An isolated cabin in the woods that's probably―definitely―hiding something The tiny mountain town that seems less than troubled by a sudden abundance of murders Bestselling thriller writer Tess Harrow is almost at the end of her rope when she arrives with her teenage daughter at her grandfather's rustic cabin in the woods. She hopes this will be a time for them to heal and bond after Tess's recent divorce, but they've barely made it through the door when an explosion shakes the cabin. Suddenly it's raining fish guts and...is that a human arm? Tess was hardly convincing Gertie that a summer without Wi-Fi and running water would be an adventure. Now she's thrust into a murder investigation, neighbors are saying they've spotted Bigfoot in the woods near her cabin, and the local sheriff is the spitting image of her character Detective Gabriel Gonzales―something he's less than thrilled about. With so much more than her daughter's summer plans at stake, it's up to Tess to solve this case before anyone else gets hurt. My Take: I really enjoyed this first book in a cozy mystery series. It had you thinking that certain people were behind the things that were happening but it turned out to be a totally different person. I thought it was an enjoyable story and I liked that it was a fish out of water story . The narrator did a good job except one of the characters that was a female sounded more like a male.

Remember Me by Tracie Peterson.

From the Yukon to Seattle, the hope of a new beginning waits just around the corner. Addie Bryant is haunted by her past of heartbreak and betrayal. After her beau, Isaac Hanson, left the Yukon, she made a vow to wait for him. When she's sold to a brothel owner after the death of her father, Addie manages to escape with the hope that she can forever hide her past and the belief that she h awill never have the future she's always dreamed of. Years later, Addie has found peace in her new life as a photographer, training Camera Girls to operate and sell the Brownie camera. During the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Expo in Seattle, Addie is reunited with Isaac, but after the path her life has taken, she's afraid to expose the ugliness of her former life and to move toward the future they had pledged to each other. When her past catches up with her, Addie must decide whether to run or to stay and face her wounds in order to embrace her life, her future, and her hope in God. My Take: I really enjoyed this book by Tracie Peterson. I had never heard about the Camera Girls who took pictures during the Expo in Seattle Washington. I knew from the beginning that there might be trouble from her brothers and I was waiting with baited breath with every turn of the page. Addie was a seeker in the Christian faith and she had some questions for both her friends in Seattle and Isaac. I could understand her hesitancy in getting back together with Isaac after everything that had happened to her since they had last seen each other. I got angry at her brothers for the way they treated her but I had to keep telling myself that that was the way the world was back then. I would highly recommend this book if you like stories of redemption and historical fiction with a spiritual side. I received a review copy of this book from the author for my personal review.

Remember Me by Tracie Peterson

The Bone Records by Rich Zahradnik

The Bone Records

by Rich Zahradnik

January 30 - February 10, 2023 Virtual Book Tour

Synopsis:

NY Police Academy washout Grigg Orlov discovers an eerie piece of evidence at the scene of his father's brutal murder: a disc-shaped X-ray of a skull. It's a bone record--what Soviet citizens called banned American songs recorded on used X-rays. But the black-market singles haven't been produced since the sixties. What's one doing in Coney Island in 2016?

Grigg uncovers a connection between his father and three others who collected bone records when they were teenage friends growing up in Leningrad. Are past and present linked? Or is the murder tied to the local mob? Grigg's got too many suspects and too little time. He must get to the truth before a remorseless killer takes everything he has.

Praise for The Bone Records:

"The Bone Records grabs you by the throat on the very first page, then never slows down as it takes you on a wild ride through New York City streets filled with Russian intrigue, underworld crime, police corruption and a man’s desperate quest to avenge his father’s murder. Shamus Award-winner Rich Zahradnik has written a taut, terrifically exciting and thought-provoking thriller."

R.G. Belsky, award-winning author of the Clare Carlson mystery series

"The plot is not only timely, but utterly unique—a tale of cultures colliding, often with sudden and unexpected consequences, as lonely city claims-adjuster Grigg Orlov spends his long nights chasing down leads on the mysterious disappearance of his father... This is a compelling read, highly recommended."

LA Times bestselling author Baron R. Birtcher

"A fast-paced thriller set around Coney Island during the tumultuous lead-up to the 2016 presidential election… The Bone Records is a well-crafted mountain of intrigue and non-stop action."

Bruce Robert Coffin, award-winning author of the Detective Byron Mysteries

"A wonderfully flawed protagonist and a complex mystery combine with current events in Zahradnik's best novel to date. The Bone Records had me hooked from page one."

Elena Taylor, award-winning author of All We Buried and the Eddie Shoes mystery series

Book Details:

Genre: Mystery
Published by: 1000 Words A Day Press
Publication Date: November 2022
Number of Pages: 338
ISBN: 9798985905649
Book Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads

Read an excerpt:

Chapter 1

Friday, August 19, 2016

Grigg’s reunion with his father was brief—eight minutes to be exact—and ended when a man with a nickel-plated revolver shot Dad twice.

Three hours before the violence began, Grigg struggled through the crowd on the Coney Island subway platform. He was the last to reach the stairway to the station’s exit. Again. Even the old folks were gone. His wrecked knee held him back.

Outside the station, Deno’s Wonder Wheel turned slowly, towering over the amusement park that took its name from the ancient fifteen-story ride. The wheel’s spokes glowed a hot neon white. Hazy coronas surrounded all the lights.

Tick-tick-tick-tick.

Grigg had started wearing his father’s Timex soon after he had gone missing. He put the watch up to his ear, as he’d done too many times before. It wasn’t loud enough to be heard. The clockwork noise was in his head. Maybe a reminder to keep looking. Maybe a reminder that six months was already too long in missing persons cases.

His father’s watch read 8:18 p.m.

He limped away from Coney Island’s amusement parks toward his house on West 28th off Mermaid Avenue. As he did, the street darkened. He checked behind him more than once. The neighborhood became far less amusing as night came on—and the farther you went from the fun parks. Mugging wasn’t the thrill ride Grigg needed. He didn’t want any more trouble. He had a lifetime’s supply. His long days pinballed him between two jobs and the search for his father.

But despite Grigg’s best efforts, the minutes and hours and days kept spinning off the Timex, found by the police in a Howard Beach motel room, the last place his father was seen before he vanished into the thin March air. Their empty house waited to reflect Grigg’s loneliness back at him. His mother had died when he was eighteen months old. His boss at the city’s claims adjustment office rarely talked to him outside of giving orders. All of his connections—he couldn’t really call them friends—in the neighborhood he owed to his father. Dad, like the rest of them, had immigrated from Russia. Unlike the rest of them, he’d married a woman from Jamaica, a union that guaranteed Grigg would always be on the outside in Little Odessa.

The rubber soles of his cheap dress shoes slapped the wet pavement. A thunderstorm had blown through while he was on the subway, leaving behind the sticky-thick humidity. His messenger bag tugged on his shoulder.

He went over the lead he’d uncovered tonight. Going door-to-door in a Midwood apartment building full of Russians, he’d talked briefly to a tenant named Freddy Popov, who recognized Grigg’s father when shown a photo. Popov said a man—maybe a cop—had been canvassing the building with a picture of Grigg’s dad four weeks earlier. Inside the man’s apartment and shielded by Popov, someone said something in Russian. Popov got hinky, then said he didn’t know anything more and slammed the door. Grigg banged on it until a woman across the hall threatened to call the cops. He left with only the knowledge that someone else—maybe a cop?—was also searching for Dad. Still, that bit of info was his biggest lead to date.

Grigg limped up to the small, two-story brick house—kitchen, living room, two bedrooms over a garage—a duplicate of the other attached homes on the street. He unlocked the steel gate, then the front door, and stepped inside.

The thunk of the door closing echoed through the house. Two days ago, Grigg had moved everything out except for the sleeping bag in his bedroom of twenty-seven years and a blue duffel, readying the old house for its new owners. He turned the deadbolt.

He shouldn’t be staying here tonight. He’d spent all his free time on the search for Dad, right up until the closing on the sale of the house. Even at the end, he’d hoped for a breakthrough that would save him from selling. He’d signed the papers yesterday, writing a check for $1,650—most of his savings—because the house was underwater on a second mortgage his father had taken out. Grigg knew the out-of-state buyers wouldn’t be moving in for three weeks, so he’d kept a copy of the key.

Trespassing in my own house. Inviting trouble when I already have too much.

The plan was to use the next three weeks to find an apartment share, but the lead from Popov tugged at his thoughts. Would it pull so hard that he’d spend his free time searching for Dad and end up homeless? He ducked his own question and instead pictured going back to demand Popov tell him more. He shook his head. He could barely keep his mind on his housing problem for the space of a single thought. He took a beer out of the refrigerator, went up to his room, and rolled his sleeping bag into a fat pillow to lean against.

Grigg popped open the 90 Years Young Double IPA. Nine percent alcohol. The strong stuff he’d dubbed “floor softener.” He downed two sixteen-ounce cans, and the ache faded from the muscles in his damaged leg.

He took out his phone. He’d run through his data allowance last week. Three days until the new billing cycle. At least he had his music. He played the Decembrists, their songs about revenge and ships at sea set to jangly indie rock. He followed with the Killers, then Vampire Weekend.

Tick-tick-tick-tick.

His father’s watch read 11:20 p.m.

He opened his notebook and wrote down “Day 191” along with what he’d learned. It was longer than any previous entry—yet not long at all. So many days. The silence in the house chilled him, sending goosebumps in waves over his arms and thighs. He got up and turned down the air conditioner. It wouldn’t help. He missed his father’s voice, the way it had warmed their home. They could talk about everything and anything, a lot of anything, but such interesting anything. Dad was always there with his questions, his curiosity, and his deep interest in whatever Grigg was up to. There were days his father was more intrigued by Grigg’s job than Grigg was. Even that helped.

A fourth beer. He floated on the wood floor of his empty bedroom. Slept.

A thump. The floor hardened underneath him. Another thump. Half buzzed, halfway to a headache, Grigg opened his eyes. He heard it again. Not a dream. On the roof. He followed the steps above him to his father’s empty bedroom. He was about to switch on his phone’s flashlight when legs—silhouetted by the glow from the street across the way—dangled over the room’s tiny balcony. They descended slowly, inching, hesitating, as if the intruder were no expert at this sort of move. The toes stretched to touch, and finally, the person dropped, stumbled, and landed on their knees.

Grigg didn’t know whether to laugh or arm himself. If this was a robbery, then the joke was going to be on a thief who’d picked a house with nothing in it. Grigg decided discretion was the better part of whatever, returned to his bedroom, and pulled the stun gun from his messenger bag. Ever since he’d been attacked when he was in the police academy—suffering the knee injury that forced him to drop out—he hadn’t felt safe unless he carried the weapon.

He placed the messenger bag next to his duffel in the hallway in case he needed to get out fast. In the kitchen, he grabbed his second six pack as a backup weapon.

Of course, he could escape by the front and leave the intruder for the police to deal with. But if he did, then the buyers would be notified, and he’d lose the three weeks of temporary housing he’d been counting on.

He crept through the doorway into the main bedroom.

The figure, whose face remained in deep shadow because of the streetlight glow from behind, rattled the handle to the single balcony door, used his elbow to smash in the square pane nearest the knob, reached in, and turned the simple metal lock. As he pushed the door open, Grigg stepped forward, hit his phone’s light, and thrust forward the stun gun.

“Get the fuck out of my house!”

The figure froze. “I’m not going to hurt you, Grigg.”

Grigg moved closer.

“Dad? Dad!”

Full beard and longer hair, but it was him.

Grigg didn’t know whether to hug his father or scream at him.

“I came to say goodbye,” Dad said.

“Goodbye?”

“I’m leaving. For Russia. I don’t know when I’ll be able to return. It’s the only way.”

“I don’t understand.” Any of it. “You said you’d never go back.”

“It’s the only way to fix things.”

“Things? What things?” Popov’s suggestion about a cop. “Are the police after you?”

A click came from the front door, and Grigg spun. Seeing his father and not an intruder had put the brakes on his fear. Now, his heart raced. He squeezed the handle of the stun gun with a sweaty hand. Keep it together.

The knob turned.

The front door flew open. 

Chapter 2

Friday, August 19, 2016

The man was tall and red haired with a short beard and a flattened nose. He held a long-barreled, nickel-plated revolver. Looked like a .357 magnum.

“Shit.” Grigg grabbed his bags—there wasn’t time to recover the sleeping roll from his room and stuff it in the duffel—dropped back into the bedroom with his father, and shut and locked the door, though it wouldn’t hold for long. “Guy’s armed. Is someone after you?”

“Yes. But no, not now. That’s why I came across the roof.”

Grigg’s thoughts spun like he’d boarded the Tilt-A-Whirl at Deno’s Wonder Wheel. This was fucking nuts. His dad came back and moments later they were under attack. His stomach flipped as if he were actually on the ride.

A hundred questions.

A thousand.

Something hit the bedroom door hard.

No time for any.

“We’ll go out the way you came in.”

“I can’t make it back on the roof. I barely made it down.”

“I’ll boost you.”

They were on the balcony in seconds. Grigg grabbed his father’s thighs and lifted upward, bearing as much of the weight as he could on his good right leg. It wasn’t enough. He nearly fell over; instead, he leaned against the iron railing to regain his balance and shoved until Dad was able to drag himself onto the roof.

Another crash from the bedroom door.

Grigg tossed his duffel down into the backyard for later retrieval.

The bedroom door gave way after the third blow.

Grigg ripped free a can of 90 Years Young and hurled it hard into the shadowed darkness of the room. The man yelped in pain.

Grigg didn’t wait to learn more. He moved to the side and climbed onto the balcony railing. Two loud gunshots, the weapon aimed at the space he’d vacated. He dropped the remaining beers and started pulling himself onto the roof. His arms were strong, but the left leg slowed him. Scrambling with all his strength, he made it up.

Below the asphalt roofing, in the attic, was the weapon he really needed, a registered .32 in a gun safe. No way to get it now.

Should’ve been better prepared.

“Run!” Dad whispered.

Run was right. There’d be time for should-haves later. Right now, Grigg had pissed off the gun-wielding asshole who was after his father for reasons unknown.

He went as fast as his left leg would allow, which meant he and his sixty-eight-year-old dad kept about even. They dodged around the boiler chimney and an AC unit. Neither structure looked tall enough to block a clear shot. They needed something bigger between them and that nickel-plated revolver. Like now.

They crossed to the roof of the next attached house and the next.

“How’d you get up here?” Grigg gasped, trying to picture a way down to street level and coming up empty.

“The Kiev Bakery at the corner has a fire escape.”

That meant winning a block-long race over rooftops. Against bullets and a faster runner.

“Stop!” came a deep voice from behind them.

“Why’s he after you?”

Instead of an answer, the report of the gun, then another.

Dad grabbed his side, groaned, and slowed but kept running, slewing off to the left. Grigg stayed with him.

“Get to Katia. Katia Sokolov—”

“Katia?”

Dad jerked and spun nearly in sync with the sound of the third shot. Hot blood sprayed Grigg’s face.

His father listed hard to the left, veering toward the edge of the roof and the backyard two stories below.

Grigg grabbed for his dad’s arm, but his hand slipped on blood.

He reached again to get a hold, but his father, as if driven by the red jet from his neck, took two more steps.

And disappeared off the roof.

Grigg stopped.

Stared at the twisted body below.

The next gunshot lifted the messenger bag hanging from his shoulder.

Shock made way for raw panic. Flee or die. The fire escape. Too far. He had to get down the way he came up. He dropped to the balcony of the house beneath him, then repeated the maneuver to reach the ground, bad knee screaming from the punishment of the twin blows, shirt drenched in sweat and blood.

His father’s body lay face up with an arm under his back and the right leg bent at an unnatural angle. A two-story drop wouldn’t necessarily kill you. But the neck wound …

“Stay there or I will shoot you.” The killer began taking Grigg’s route to the ground.

The man had one shot left before he needed to reload. Or had he reloaded already?

Grigg knelt. Pressed his hand to his father’s neck where the blood pulsed.

His father’s eyes were open. With the slightest of movements, he patted at his blazer pocket. The jacket was no surprise. Dad always wore blazers. Weekdays and weekends. All seasons. Why the hell does that matter now? Tilt-A-Whirl thinking. A black tube protruded from the pocket. Grigg pulled it out.

Another shot.

Dirt leapt inches from Grigg’s foot.

The gunman stood on the second-floor balcony and looked to be reloading.

Warning bells almost drowned out the unending ticking in Grigg’s head as he held the tube up for Dad to see. “Is this what he’s after?”

Dad’s eyes didn’t move. Stared upward. Locked in on something. Or nothing. His mouth was a black hole ringed with blood and spittle on thin lips. Grigg checked for a pulse. Neck first, then ear to chest. Nothing.

The gunman hung from the balcony, preparing to make the drop to the ground.

Fighting the nausea creeping up from his gut, Grigg ran as darts of pain shot from his left knee into his thigh. He climbed over the fence into the opposite yard, then into another next door, and found a shed to crouch behind.

From two backyards away, the gun went off.

A kill shot when Dad was already dead.

Grigg heaved up what was left of his dinner and the beers. Heaved again. Too much noise. Ground down his teeth to stop. He spat quietly to clear the taste of puke. Failed.

He couldn’t see or hear the shooter, but he didn’t dare move. Grief, anger, and fear threatened to swamp anything like clear thinking. A tidal wave against a rowboat. He needed to save himself. He needed to be a coward. Five minutes, then ten ticked off on his father’s watch as he looked at the fence. Shadowed darkness. A deep purple oozed across his vision from staring too hard at the wooden slats.

Finally, he ordered himself to leave.

Be practical: the duffel bag.

He crossed two more backyards until he could approach his house—what used to be his house—from the other side. He saw no one in the yard where the body lay, looking from this distance like a dark mound. But the killer could be waiting somewhere to take him out. He inched with his back up against the wall (it was darkest near the houses), grabbed the bag, and slipped out to the avenue without incident.

His destination: the Conquistador Arcade in the Coney Island amusement area. He worked there most evenings. He had a key.

Cleaning the blood from his face and arms and out of his hair took an hour. Might have taken less time, but he kept scrubbing long after his skin was clean. If only he could scrub tonight away. After searching for six months, he’d had mere minutes with his dad before the attack. Grigg was too exhausted to cry. He knew the shirt was a write-off but left it soaking in the sink anyway, now the least of his lost causes.

He needed to go to the police. He knew that. But they hadn’t given a shit when Dad disappeared. Grigg had been the only one looking. Murder was different than missing, right? Then again, he knew of too many unsolved killings in Coney Island.

He found it hard to think. Ideas, memories, discrete facts were fireflies inside his head. They whirled, collided, and spun off into the darkness. The lights led nowhere. Connected nothing. Would it help if he could catch them all in a jar like he had on an upstate trip with Dad? Or would that only mean the same confusion jammed in a smaller space?

He exited the bathroom of the arcade, which had closed hours ago, and moved to the Skee-Ball machines against the back wall. Rows of blinking arcade games shielded him from the front windows. He sat down. It was ironic. No, just sad. Grigg had dreamed of becoming a cop since he was a kid. The police academy hadn’t worked out. Worse than that, it’d cost him his knee. Failed. Failed to find his father. Then Dad found him too late. Another failure. Exhaustion pressed down on him like the air had thickened, had weight. Maybe he’d lie down in the lane of this machine. He absently pulled out the black tube he’d taken from his dad’s pocket. The shock again. He’d forgotten all about it. He took off a blue rubber band. The flimsy, plastic-like material unrolled: a super-thin black disc with a hole in the middle, like an old record. One of the arcade games flashed, and Grigg caught sight of something in the translucent black material. Film? He played his phone’s light through it from behind, and the image of a skull materialized. He held the light closer. An X-ray of a skull, though like no X-ray he’d ever seen. For one obvious reason, it was circular; on closer inspection, the edge was uneven, like it had been cut by hand. The disc bore handwritten Cyrillic lettering. Grigg couldn’t read or speak the Russian language, but smaller English script had also been written on the film: “Not Fade Away,” right above the skull’s eye sockets. He tipped the disc sidelong and scanned the surface. Wait … are those grooves? Grooves, three inches’ worth, cut into the X-ray disc, but only on one side.

Grigg would have sworn he was holding an old-fashioned record album—if an album were thin, translucent, and had a skull X-ray on it but no proper label.

He turned it over again. Connections came together in his head. The sting of memory going back six months, the night before his father disappeared, the second to last time Grigg had set eyes on the man.

Dad had stood in the living room, whistling and sorting through the mail: a couple fliers, a bill, and a manila envelope. He had opened the envelope, and Grigg had glimpsed a black thing—maybe disc shaped—slipping from it.

Was it a disc? Maybe he only wanted it to be. It seemed so long ago.

The way he remembered it, Dad froze, stopped whistling, then turned away from Grigg to hold the object over a table lamp before hurrying to his bedroom. His father hadn’t come out again—no goodnight, no nothing—and was gone when Grigg awoke the next morning.

In the aftermath of his father’s disappearance, he’d forgotten about the envelope and the black thing.

Grigg reached further into his memories but could find nothing else. That period had become a blur. He’d been overwhelmed by the search—plus two jobs and money running out fast. Finding his father had seemed more important than figuring out why he’d left. Maybe he had gotten it backward. Maybe the why came first.

He looked at his phone, useless as a tool to identify the object for certain. That would have to happen in the morning. And on the chance it played like a vinyl record, he needed to listen to it before he turned it over to the cops.

The strange disc generated enough adrenaline to further clear the fog in his brain. His father’s last words: get to Katia Sokolov. If his thoughts hadn’t been scrambled by the murder, he’d have wondered at that name sooner. First, probably. He couldn’t talk to the cops until after he spoke with Katia, something he hadn’t done in more than a year. Still, there was no way he’d sic a pack of homicide detectives on her. He owed her that much. More.

Thinking of how he’d lost Katia took him to losing Dad for good and wrenched sobs from him for twenty minutes, a half hour. He wasn’t sure.

God, I so need sleep.

Grigg risked the chance of being seen, snuck out, and bought a four-pack of strong ale at a bodega on Surf Avenue.

He was asleep midway through the second can.

***

Excerpt from The Bone Records by Rich Zahradnik. Copyright 2022 by Rich Zahradnik. Reproduced with permission from Rich Zahradnik. All rights reserved.

 

 

Author Bio:

Rich Zahradnik is the author of the thriller The Bone Records and four critically acclaimed mysteries, including Lights Out Summer, winner of the Shamus Award. He was a journalist for twenty-seven years and now lives in Pelham, New York, where he is the mentor to the staff of the Pelham Examiner, an award-winning community newspaper run, edited, reported, and written by people under the age of eighteen.

Catch Up With Rich Zahradnik:
www.RichZahradnik.com
Goodreads
Instagram - @rzahradnik
Twitter - @rzahradnik
Facebook - @RichZahradnik

 

 

Tour Participants:

Visit these other great hosts on this tour for more great reviews!

 

 

ENTER TO WIN:

This is a giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Tours for Rich Zahradnik. See the widget for entry terms and conditions. Void where prohibited.

 

 

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Tours

 

My Take: This book has it all, history, mystery, Russian Mobsters and non stop action from beginning till the end. I was really interested in the Bone Records as I had never heard of them before. I found the story very engaging and it kept me wanting to keep reading which is the sign of a good story. I recieved a review copy of this book from Partners in Crime Book Tours and was not required to write a positive review.

Dark of Night by Colleen Coble

Dark of Night

by Colleen Coble

January 9-February 3, 2023 Virtual Book Tour

Synopsis:

The law is about justice—not grace. But perhaps ranger Annie Pederson can find a way to have both.

As if the last few months haven’t been hard enough—complete with threats on her life and the return of her first love, Jon—Annie has to figure out whether or not to believe a woman who claims to be her sister, Sarah, who was abducted twenty-four years ago at age five. Annie’s eight-year-old daughter, Kylie, has plenty of questions about what’s going on in her mother’s life—but there are some stones Annie doesn’t want uncovered.

As Annie grapples with how to heal the gulf between her and her would-be sister and make room in her daughter’s life for Jon, she’s professionally distracted by the case of yet another missing hiker in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. A woman named Michelle Fraser has now been abducted, and though the woman’s estranged husband is at the top of their suspect list, Annie and her colleagues will need to dig deeper and determine whether these recent mysteries are truly as unrelated as they seem.

In this second novel of bestselling author Colleen Coble’s latest romantic-suspense series, Annie and Jon must fight for the future—and the family—that could once more be theirs.

Book Details:

Genre: Romantic Suspense
Published by: Thomas Nelson
Publication Date: January 2023
Number of Pages: 352
ISBN: 0785253742 (ISBN13: 9780785253747)
Series: Annie Pederson #2
Book Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | ChristianBook | Goodreads

Read an excerpt:

Chapter 1

Should she even be out here alone? Michigan’s U.P. was a whole lotta wilderness. Michelle Fraser’s shoulder blades gave a tingle and made her glance back to see if anyone was following her. No one there. But in spite of seeing no movement in the trees and bushes, she couldn’t discount her gut instinct. She’d been spooked ever since she left the safety of the women’s shelter.

Maybe it was just knowing she was out here with no backup that had her on edge.

The heavy scent of rain hung in the twilight air as she set the last of her wildlife cameras in the crook of a large sugar maple tree. A northern flying squirrel chattered a warning from its nest. The glaucomys sabrinus’s agitation made Michelle pull away in time to avoid being nipped.

Thunder rumbled in the distance, and a spooky mist blew through the forest. The sooner she was out of here, the better. Her last set of cameras hadn’t turned up the elusive mountain lions she’d been searching for, but a hunter in neighboring Ontonagon County had snapped a picture of a large male reclining on a rock. If she could acquire more data, it would aid her research for the magazine article proving mountain lions inhabited the area. And she had to have pictures.

She’d been obsessed with big cats for as long as she could remember. Even the various names held a fascinating mystique: catamount, puma, cougar, mountain lion, panther.

A mosquito landed on her arm, and she swatted it. Her hands came away with a drop of blood on her fingers. Yuck. She wiped the residue on her khaki shorts and turned to go back to her ATV. A sound erupted to her right, and it sounded like either a puma or a woman’s scream. The hair on her neck prickled, and she moved that way.

The scream pealed again, and she removed the lens cap on the camera slung around her neck. Her palms dampened, and her breath came fast. Walking toward danger might not be the smartest thing, but Michelle couldn’t help herself. She yearned to see a puma in the wild in all its power and beauty. Her knees shook as she pulled out a bullhorn from her backpack to frighten away the cat if it sensed her as prey.

Queen pumas would be protecting their litters in June, so she needed to be careful. Her lungs labored as she rushed in that direction. Her black belt in jujitsu wouldn’t do much against the speed and power of a puma. She seized a large branch to make herself seem bigger as she advanced through the forest. Evergreen needles clawed at her arms as she forced her way through a thick stand of white pine.

She paused on the other side and caught the glimmer of water. Lake Superior’s waves lapped at the rocky shore, and she spotted a yellow kayak riding the swells in the shallow surf. A discarded backpack bobbed beside it.

Her sense of unease grew as she observed the scene. Glancing around, she approached the water and snagged the backpack from the lake, then pulled the kayak onto the rocks. Her gut told her someone was in trouble.

Should she call out? If it was wildlife threatening the woman she thought she’d heard, Michelle could scare it off with a flare. But if the attacker was human, she didn’t want to give away her presence and put the woman in greater danger. She scanned the area for bear or cougar scat but found nothing.

The sound of oars slapping the water came from her left, and she ducked back into the shadow of the pines until she could tell the intent of the boaters. Two figures partially shrouded in mist paddled a large canoe around a rocky finger of the shore. The glimpse of broad shoulders through the fog indicated they were probably men. She strained to listen through the sound of the wind and water but couldn’t hear much.

She couldn’t put her finger on why she didn’t want them to see her. Maybe because they were men, and Brandon might have sent them after her.

“I know she ran this way. Trying to get to her kayak, eh.” The man’s heavy Yooper accent carried well over the water.

“Can’t see her through this mist,” the other man said. “I don’t know why I let you talk me into this. Your love life isn’t my business.”

“You owe me. Let’s try on down the shore. There’s a deer trail toward the road she might have tried to take.”

Their voices faded as their canoe moved past. She didn’t get a good look at their faces. Was a woman out there trying to escape an abusive ex? Michelle had seen plenty of that kind of trauma this past year and had experienced abuse personally.

Once they were out of sight, she stepped back into the clearing. “Hello,” she called softly. “Is anyone here? I can help you.”

She walked across the green mossy clearing, searching for a sign of an injured woman. The bushes to her left shivered and rustled, and she stepped closer. “Hello? Do you need help?”

The leaves parted as the mist swirled along the ground, and the pale oval of a woman’s face emerged. Long blonde hair hung in strings along her cheeks, and her eyelids fluttered as though she might faint. Michelle rushed forward and helped the young woman to her feet. She was in her early twenties with a slight build. Mud smeared her khaki shorts and red top, and she was barefoot.

She seemed familiar, and Michelle reached down to touch her forehead. She nearly recoiled at the heat radiating from the young woman. “Wait, aren’t you Grace Mitchell?”

They’d met when Grace first arrived at the shelter, but Michelle hadn’t immediately recognized her with the mud and dirt on her face and hair. The woman’s fever alarmed Michelle. “You’re burning up. We need to get you to a doctor.”

“I-I’ll be fine. Do you have some way out of here?”

“My ATV is this way.” Michelle put her right arm around the woman’s waist and helped her stumble toward the trail. “What are you doing out here?”

Grace paused and wiped the beads of perspiration from her forehead. “I spotted my ex driving past the shelter, and I knew he’d found me. That day we met, you mentioned a remote area you liked with a great camping spot, and I decided to try to find it. You know, hide out until I figured out where to go to get away from Roy. But I stopped by to get camping gear from my parents, and he must have followed me here. He’s out there somewhere. He and a buddy.” Her blue eyes flashed with fear. “I can’t let him find me.”

They reached the ATV, and Michelle got Grace situated, but it was a tight squeeze on the vehicle meant for one person. Michelle got water out of her backpack and helped Grace drink some. She grabbed her phone, too, and took a quick photo of the traumatized girl before she dropped it back into the pack.

Michelle started the machine and pulled out onto the trail back to the cabin where she’d been hiding out. She should have gotten out of here earlier since the weather had caused darkness to fall sooner than expected. It would be slow going on the rough trail with only the headlamps pushing the darkness back a short distance.

After only a few minutes, Michelle realized she’d gotten off the trail. She stopped the machine and looked around. Which way should she go? She consulted her compass and decided to push due west. They’d only gone a few feet when the ground gave out under the machine, and they went flying into the air. When Michelle hit the ground, something in her right leg snapped, and the excruciating pain was instantaneous.

She bit back a scream but couldn’t stop the moan as she pulled her knee to her chest. The swelling was already starting four inches above her ankle, but at least it didn’t appear to be a compound fracture. “I-I’ve broken my leg. Are you all right, Grace?”

When Grace didn’t answer, Michelle felt along the ground until she touched her thigh. “Grace?” She felt up the young woman’s body to her face.

Grace wasn’t breathing. “Oh no,” Michelle whispered. She checked her out in the dark as best as she could. No pulse.

Michelle dragged herself to the machine but it was on its side, and she couldn’t right it with her broken leg. No one would be searching for her out here, so she had to find shelter. But how?

The pain made it hard to think. She froze at the sound of movement in the vegetation. Something big was crashing toward her. A deer? A mountain lion or bear?

A man’s shoulders moved into sight, and his expression sent shivers up her spine. When he reached down to lift her up, the pain intensified in her leg, and her vision went black.

///

Law enforcement ranger Annie Pederson sat at a table by herself in the small interrogation room at the Rock Harbor jail and waited for Taylor Moore to be brought in for questioning. Maybe it was Annie’s imagination, but it seemed as if the beige paint on the walls reeked with the guilt and despair of countless years of interrogations. Even the clean scent of the disinfectant used in the area didn’t dissipate the unpleasantness. She didn’t like this space and wished she could have talked to Taylor at the coffee shop or somewhere more pleasant.

But this meeting might be the end of her lifelong search, so she would have faced even tigers in this place.

The door opened and Taylor entered. Several weeks ago Annie had hired her to help out around the Tremolo Marina and Cabin Resort and with Annie’s eight-year-old daughter, but the woman had been picked up for questioning about the necklace found belonging to a murdered girl. Her claim to be Annie’s sister, Sarah—kidnapped from Tremolo Island twenty-four years ago—had turned Annie’s every thought on its head. According to Taylor’s ID, she was twenty-nine, three years younger than Annie, so that detail matched Sarah.

Annie’s heart squeezed at Taylor’s ducked head and stringy locks. The bright-red hair dye was fading, and glints of her natural blonde color showed through. Her jeans and tee looked like she’d slept in them for days, and the scent of stale perspiration wafted from her.

Taylor glanced up, and Annie bit back a gasp at the defiance gleaming in those vivid blue eyes that matched Annie’s eye color instead of the muddy brown Annie was used to. Jon Dunstan had claimed Taylor was wearing contacts to change her eye color, and it seemed he was right.

Annie had prided herself on her ability to read people in her line of work. She’d always thought she could detect a liar with no problem. Taylor had completely snowed her. After Taylor’s impeccable references, Annie had trusted the woman with her child.

Sheriff Mason Kaleva ambled in behind Taylor. He gestured to the chair across the table from Annie. “Have a seat, Ms. Moore.”

In his forties, his husky form brought solace to Annie. He’d always been there for her and his town, and his kind brown eyes swept over her in a questioning gaze. She gave him a little nod to let him know she was okay.

Taylor’s eyes narrowed. “It’s Ms. Vitanen. Sarah Vitanen.”

A wave of dizziness washed over Annie, and she bit her lip and eyed Taylor closely. “You claim to be my sister, but do you have any proof?”

The chair screeched on the tile floor as Taylor pulled it out before she plopped onto it. “I should have expected you wouldn’t welcome me with open arms. After all, you did nothing to stop my abduction.”

Heat swept up Annie’s neck and lodged in her cheeks. “What could an eight-year-old do to stop an adult? If you’re really Sarah, what was the name of your favorite stuffed animal?”

“Cocoa,” Taylor said without hesitation. “It was a brown kitten. I couldn’t have a real one because Mom was allergic.”

Annie’s eyes widened. She caught her breath as she studied the other woman across the table. “Let me see your left knee.”

Rebellion flashed in Taylor’s blue eyes, and she leaned down to yank up her baggy jeans, then stood with her tanned knee exposed. A faded two-inch scar just below her kneecap matched the one in Annie’s memory. Sarah had gotten snagged on a large metal hook under the dock at the marina. It had taken fifteen stitches to close the wound, and Annie had helped her sister hobble around for several weeks.

But was that proof? Kids had scars from all sorts of things. She wanted to believe her sister was still alive, but was Taylor really Sarah?

Her breath eased from her lips, and Annie couldn’t speak for a long moment. “You really believe you’re Sarah? Did you research all that and make sure the details matched?”

Taylor just stared back at her with that same defiance. In Annie’s dreams, finding Sarah meant a tight embrace and happy tears, but Taylor’s stance with her arms folded across her chest and her jutting chin warned Annie off any displays of affection. Not that she was feeling any warmth toward the other woman in this moment.

When the other woman plopped back in her chair and didn’t answer, Annie licked her lips. “Why didn’t you tell me when you first showed up looking for work? Why the fake name? I’ve been searching for my sister for years.”

“Have you? Have you really?”

Annie glanced at Mason. “Ask him if you don’t believe me.”

Mason shifted his bulky form and nodded. “I’ve been helping Annie search. We’ve sent DNA samples numerous times over the past ten years. Her parents searched for Sarah, and even hired investigators, until their deaths.”

Annie hadn’t known that. Her parents’ business, the Tremolo Marina and Cabin Resort, operated on a shoestring, so they must have taken much needed money to try to find Sarah.

Annie shifted her gaze back to the woman across the table. Taylor twisted a strand of hair around her finger in a coil. Sarah used to do that too. If this was a scam, it was an elaborate one. With all her heart Annie wanted to believe it, but she couldn’t quite accept it. It was so sudden, and the circumstances were bizarre.

Mason cleared his throat. “We’ll need a little more proof. We can get the DNA back in a week or so.”

“I have nothing to hide,” the other woman said.

Annie had spent twenty-four years agonizing over her failure to save Sarah. The guilt had nearly swallowed her alive, though everyone told her she couldn’t have done anything. Until a few days ago, she hadn’t been able to recall much about that awful night. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to remember how she froze in fear when the kidnapper grabbed Sarah.

Annie fingered the scar on her neck where the attacker had wounded her with a knife. She’d been left for dead in the cold waters of Lake Superior, and while logically she knew she was no match for the gruff woman who’d snatched her sister, Annie had struggled to believe it.

“Were any of the things you told me about your life true? Those things you said about your m-mother?”

“I had a rotten life, if that’s what you’re asking. All those things I said about my mother were true. And it was all your fault.”

There was nothing Annie could say to counter that when her own conscience condemned her too. She was only too glad when her boss, Kade Matthews, texted her with a new case. Mason could continue the questioning about the necklace.

***

Excerpt from Dark of Night by Colleen Coble. Copyright 2022 by Colleen Coble. Reproduced with permission from HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.

 

 

Author Bio:

Colleen Coble is a USA TODAY bestselling author best known for her coastal romantic suspense novels, including The Inn at Ocean's Edge, Twilight at Blueberry Barrens, and the Lavender Tides, Sunset Cove, Hope Beach, and Rock Harbor series.

Connect with Colleen online at:
colleencoble.com
Goodreads
BookBub: @colleencoble
Instagram: @colleencoble
Twitter: @colleencoble
Facebook: colleencoblebooks

 

 

Tour Participants:

Visit these other great hosts on this tour for more great reviews, interviews, guest posts, and giveaway entries!

 

 

 

GIVEAWAY:

This is a giveaway hosted by Partners in Crime Tours for Harper Collins and Colleen Coble. See the widget for entry terms and conditions. Void where prohibited.

 

 

Get More Great Reads at Partners In Crime Tours

 

My Take: This was a great second book in this series. We pick up right where we left off from the first book in the UP of Michigan. Annie and Jon are still struggling on how is the best way to navigate their rekindled love and how to let their daughter Kylie know that Jon is her biological father. Also they are waiting for the results on if Annie's sister has returned after 24 years after being abducted. There are also some mysteries about a missing hiker and if her abusive husband is resposible. I look forward to continuing this series. I received a review copy of this book from Partners in Crime Book Tours and was not required to write a positive review.