Secret Remains
A Coroner's Daughter Mystery
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4.1 • 34 Ratings
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A forensic mystery full of small-town suspense “with a twist no one will expect”—for fans of Kathy Reichs and Jayne Ann Krentz (New York Journal of Books)
Dr. Emily Hartford’s cold case investigation points to viper’s nest of lies and a shocking prime suspect: her old high school flame.
It’s been 12 years since Sandi Parkman went missing after being dropped off at home by her schoolmate, Nick Larson, now the Sheriff of Freeport, Michigan. When a construction crew unearths Sandi's bones—along with Nick’s letterman jacket and one of his hairs—Nick becomes suspect number one in the murder.
Dr. Emily Hartford, the daughter of Freeport’s medical examiner, is called in to investigate, but the case is about to get personal. Nick was Emily’s high school love, and now she has to either clear his name—or contend that he’s the killer. As she delves into the case, a host of other suspects emerge: a coterie of Nick’s jock friends from high school; Sandi’s sister, Tiffany, now a dancer at a local strip club; and James VanDerMuellen, a trust funder who’s recently returned to Freeport.
As the autumn skies darken over Freeport and the holiday season looms, Emily must sift through more than Sandi’s brittle bones to solve the case. Can she exonerate Nick—and rekindle their long-smoldering romance? The race is on to find the truth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in Freeport, Mich., Dornbush's middling second Coroner's Daughter mystery (after 2018's The Coroner) opens on a dramatic note with the fatal heart attack of surgeon Emily Hartford's medical examiner father, who's barely in the ground when Emily gets a call from Sheriff Nick Larson. Nick, who wants to rekindle their high school romance, asks her to examine some bones unearthed by a construction crew. The subsequent autopsy reveals that the victim was Sandi Parkman, a teen last seen a decade earlier, and it's clear from the "blunt-force trauma to the neck, right ribs, and skull" that Sandi was murdered. When Nick is arrested for the crime, Emily vows to find the real killer, aided by, among others, former FBI agent Delia Andrews, who now owns the town's best bakery. Unfortunately, Emily's problems define her character, not her response to those problems. Take them away, and she's a complete zero. This entry reads like a cozy with autopsies, minus the sense of fun.
