Harrowing loss, psychological trauma, and a deadly mystery test the human will to survive in this electrifying novel from award-winning author Brian Freeman. Lisa Power is a tortured ghost of her former self. The author of a bestselling thriller called Thief River Falls , named after her rural Minnesota hometown, Lisa is secluded in her remote house as she struggles with the loss of her entire family: a series of tragedies she calls the Dark Star.;...

When fellow detective Serena Dial witnesses a brutal murder with ties to an earlier case, detective Jonathan Stride investigates human-trafficking activity in the Duluth port and struggles with the possibility that he may have sent an innocent woman to prison.

"On a rainy June morning, tens of thousands of people crowd into Duluth for the city's biggest annual event: the Duluth Marathon. Exhausted runners push to reach the finish line and spectators line the streets to cheer them on. Then, in a terrifying echo of the Boston bombing, there is an explosion along the race course, leaving many people dead and injured ... Within minutes, Jonathan Stride, Serena Dial, and Maggie Bei are at work with the FBI to...

"After nearly dying of a gunshot wound, Jonathan Stride has been on leave from the Duluth Police for more than a year. When his partner, Maggie Bei, gets called about a suspicious abduction involving a local lawyer, she tells Stride it's time for him to come back. Attorney Gavin Webster says he paid $100,000 in ransom money to the men who kidnapped his wife. Now they've disappeared with the cash, and she's still missing. Gavin claims to be desperate...