Part of Mario Balzic Detective Mystery, book 13
First published 1998
Detective Mario Balzic thought the double murder was buried in the past. Seventeen years have passed since two bodies turned up in a remote cabin, victims of what appeared to be a drug transaction turned deadly. Now the cold case surfaces again, pulling Balzic into a web of conflicting accounts and half-remembered details. Each witness tells a different version of that night's events. The investigation leads Balzic down a winding path toward a small-town police chief whose corruption may hold the key to the truth. But the chief lies bedridden, felled by a stroke that has left him unable to speak. Balzic must piece together fragments of testimony and decode the silence of the one person who knows what really happened. The deeper he digs into the old case, the more he uncovers about the rot that can fester in small communities when power goes unchecked.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, detective
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: corruption, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Rocksburg
Period: 17 Years Ago
256 pages · Mass Market Paperback · Grand Central Publishing