First published 2015
Police Chief Jesse Stone surveys the wreckage after a massive storm tears through Paradise. In the debris of a collapsed building in The Swap, his team uncovers three corpses. The first victim, wrapped in blue plastic, died recently. The other two are skeletal remains of teenage girls who vanished during a Fourth of July festival twenty five years ago. The cold case hits close to home for Officer Molly Crane, who knew both missing girls. Stone must navigate the tangled history of a crime that happened before he arrived in Paradise. The investigation takes a deadly turn when the mother of one victim returns to town to claim her daughter's remains and becomes the killer's next target. Stone works to connect the decades old disappearances to the fresh murder, peeling back layers of buried secrets that someone will kill to protect.
Genres: suspense, mystery, crime, thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, suspenseful
Tropes: cold-case, found-family
Setting: Paradise
Period: Fourth of July, Twenty-Five Years Ago
352 pages · Hardcover · G.P. Putnam's Sons