Terrie Morrow

Michael Hiebert’s remarkable debut novel tells the riveting story of a small Southern town haunted by tragedy. Abe Teal wasn’t even born when Ruby Mae Vickers went missing twelve years ago. Few people in Alvin, Alabama, talk about the months spent looking for her, or about how Ruby Mae’s lifeless body was finally found beneath a willow tree. Even Abe’s mom, Leah, Alvin’s only detective, has avoided the subject. But now, another girl is missing.

Ada promised herself she would never go back to the Trace, to her unbearable life on the swamp, and to her harsh father in Mississippi. But now, after running away to Baton Rouge and briefly knowing a different kind of life, she finds herself with nowhere to go but back home. Matilda, daughter of a sharecropper, is from the other side of the Trace. Doing what she can to protect her family from the whims and demands of some particularly callous locals is an ongoing struggle, so she forms a plan to go north.

When a park ranger stumbles across the bodies of Valerie and Tyler Yates by a creek in the small town of Denton, Detective Josie Quinn is first on the scene. Still reeling from the news that her abusive mother is dying, Josie suspects this is more than just accidental poisoning, and she’s right: Someone jammed a crudely carved pendant necklace down Valerie’s throat before she died. Combing the area, Josie’s team discover a third sleeping bag indicating there could have been an extra guest around the fire that night. A lucky escape? A missing victim? Or a suspect on the run?

Deep in the Smoky Mountains, the victim lies, sacrificed on a makeshift altar. FBI agent Dallas Sloan knows the scene all too well - just as he knows the killings won't stop until there are four more bodies. Genny Madoc's "sixth sense" has brought many of Cherokee Pointe's residents to her isolated log cabin, looking for help. But now it's Genny who needs help from the disturbing visions she sees. Thrown together by necessity, drawn to each other by desire, Dallas and Genny must band together, searching the darkest heart of a town's hidden secrets.

Eleven years ago, the Co-ed Slayer murdered nine female students on the Oregon State University campus. Lacey Campbell barely escaped his attack, but lost her best friend whose remains were never found. As the sole surviving victim, Lacey helped send the sadistic serial killer to prison for life. Now a forensic odontologist examining teeth and bones for the state Medical Examiner, Lacey is devastated when she arrives at a crime scene and identifies the skeletal remains as her college friend’s.

For Mercy Kilpatrick, returning to rural Oregon has meant coming to terms with her roots. Raised as a prepper, Mercy is now relying on her survivalist instincts to defend her town from the people the law can’t reach. But this time, an investigation calling up a dark past for her and police chief Truman Daly may be hitting too close to home. A rainstorm has uncovered the remains of five people - a reprise of the distinctive slaughter of two families twenty years ago. Except the convicted killer is in prison.

Reporter Michael Brody is used to getting answers. The one that’s eluded him, though, for twenty long years is learning what happened to his brother Daniel the day his school bus disappeared. When the remains of the other children are discovered - and Daniel’s aren’t among them - a desperate Michael calls upon the sole survivor of the tragedy, Chris Jacobs, hoping he will finally break his silence.