First published 2015
Jon Stanton's world collapses around him. His fiancé walks out. Panic attacks strike with increasing force. His police work turns savage and uncontrolled. After he nearly beats a surrendering human trafficker to death, Stanton recognizes the truth he has avoided for decades. His sister Elizabeth vanished twenty-seven years ago, and that loss drives his spiral toward madness. To save himself, Stanton reopens the case that has haunted his family since childhood. Dead ends block every path until investigators uncover multiple corpses buried in the home of Elizabeth's former junior high teacher. This breakthrough pulls Stanton into Seattle's hidden networks of child exploitation and abduction. Each revelation brings him closer to understanding Elizabeth's fate, but the investigation threatens to destroy what remains of his stability. The deeper Stanton digs into this underground world, the more he questions whether some truths cause more damage than the mysteries they solve.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, psychological-thriller
Vibes: dark, emotional, fast-paced, thought-provoking
Tropes: mental-breakdown, obsession, reopening-cold-case, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Seattle
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
213 pages · Paperback · CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Content warnings: child-abuse, mental-illness, violence