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Getting in his car was a mistake. But as the frigid air whipped through her thin coat, she felt too cold to say no. Now, snowflakes settle on her long dark lashes. Ice-cold and forever fifteen years old, she’ll never see her mother’s smile again…
As the biggest snowstorm the Outer Banks has seen in decades ravages the coastline, Detective Casey White is called to an abandoned junk yard miles beyond the marshes. Teenager Jill Carter’s body is posed on her back, a look of terror frozen on her beautiful face. Casey’s heart breaks for Jill’s family. She vows she’ll do whatever it takes to find the merciless killer who left this girl out in the cold all alone.
But the unforgiving blanket of snow will soon claim the crime scene, and the team are up against the clock to catalogue any vital evidence… then Casey notices strange objects arranged in patterns around the girl’s body. Among them is a selection of perfectly preserved autumn leaves that has no place in the salvage yard in the dead of winter.
When the new District Attorney goes above Casey’s head to charge Jill’s high school sweetheart with the crime, Casey is certain she’s making a mistake. The poor boy is terrified and heartbroken, but he isn’t a murderer. Casey must rush to make sense of the sparse, ritualistic evidence they have, before another life is ruined.
As the snow continues to fall, another young girl is found frozen forever, the same strange items displayed around her body in a deliberate ritual. And Casey knows now this is only the beginning… Can Casey hunt down a killer determined to add another teenage girl to his collection, before it is too late?
Fans of Lisa Regan, Elle Gray and Melinda Leigh will be up all night reading this totally addictive mystery thriller!
Featured Series
11 primary booksDetective Casey White is a 11-book series with 12 primary works first released in 2020 with contributions by B.R. Spangler. The next book is scheduled for release on .
Reviews with the most likes.
Spangler Returns With One Of His Creepiest Killers Yet. Seriously, while Spangler has had some pretty creepy killers in this series in particular, this one is certainly near the top of that particular chart - and we see this from essentially the opening words of this text.
Maintaining the series cohesion, this tale is nearly as much about Detective Casey White's personal and professional struggles as it is the "freak of the week" murder mystery, so even as White finds herself going up against one of her toughest investigations to date... she's also encountering a lot of things that make her question a lot of things, and these ultimately could prove quite interesting indeed to the overall series - or even perhaps an ending at some point in the near-ish future?
For me, this particular tale, with its falsely accused high school student in particular, took a bit of a more personal tack, as I too ran into a somewhat similar situation at that age, so I know all too well what that feels like. In my personal case, while it wound up leading me to leave that school, it also wound up giving me everything I now have thanks to a very crucial several month period there between Fall 1998 and Summer 1999. I'll simply note that I have - still, all these years later - a very nicely written apology letter from one of the leaders of those falsely accusing me back then and that because of all of that, I met my high school mentor, Tommy Harris, then of the now long defunct Bartow Academy in Cartersville, Georgia - and it was Mr. Harris who became so instrumental in helping shape truly the rest of my life. So while we don't know how this situation affects the rest of this particular character's life in the world Spangler has created here, I can state with confidence that such situations *can* wind up ultimately benefitting the falsely accused - even though the hell they go through in the short term can be quite immense, and Spangler does a great job of showing this.
Read this book because it really is an excellently written creepy murder mystery set, as always with this series, in North Carolina's Outer Banks. And hey, maybe something in it will resonate with you too. Either way, make sure to leave a review once you've read it.
Very much recommended.
Originally posted at bookanon.com.