BLOOD IN THE CRADLE
Official Blurb:
It’s a case every detective dreads—the one that forces them to confront their traumatic past.
When decorated detective Chloe Van Belle receives a call about a severed limb in a fountain, she dreads returning to Encounters, a renowned angel-worshipping church tied to her dark childhood wounds. She’s further shocked to learn six-year-old Lillian vanished [from the congregation] without being reported.
Chloe’s half-sister Rosie, a devout believer engaged to the reverend’s son, remains unwavering that everything unfolds according to divine will, refusing to see the evil in front of her.
An eerie search leads to Lillian’s body tucked in a cradle with a vintage watch, linking the crime to a similar murder twenty years ago. The gruesome scene triggers Chloe’s morbid fascination with death, making her visual-gustatory synesthesia, which gives murder a literal sweet taste, harder to hide. With Chloe’s nightmares and half-memories resurfacing, she engages in a macabre game of cat and mouse with the killer.
As casualties grow and evidence points to the highest levels of the church leadership, Chloe must protect Rosie and her team—but is it from a monster or herself?
A must-read for fans of Alex Marwood’s The Poison Garden and Tana French’s In the Woods!
SINS IN THE DARK
SINS IN THE DARK
Official Blurb:
Homicide detective Chloe Van Belle is still haunted by her previous case, when she’s called to a brutal crime scene…
A grandmother is slaughtered, her daughter shot and clinging to life, and twin toddlers have vanished into the winter night.
The first twenty-four hours are critical to finding the toddlers alive, but Chloe is second-guessed and undermined by her new sergeant, Adriana Ladera, who doesn’t trust or respect her, doesn’t know the community, and discourages work camaraderie.
As Chloe chases leads, the twins’ mother becomes her prime suspect until Chloe discovers a link to the Encounters cult-like church and whispers of a decades-old adoption ring rooted in Halpin River. Chloe struggles to separate her past with the church and her tangled family ties from the case.
Navigating serpentine twists, Chloe won’t rest until she finds the missing children—no matter how deadly it becomes.
Sins in the Dark is a gripping detective thriller filled with shocking twists, chilling cult secrets, and a relentless hunt for justice.
Altar of Silent Bones
Official Blurb:
A doomsday cult. A homicide detective on the edge. A bloody and rising body count.
When Detective Chloe Van Belle is pulled from a macabre murder scene at a carnival fun house to investigate a grisly site deep in the Ohio woods, what she finds turns her stomach: an altar of human and animal remains, including the skull of a young child.
Chloe suspects The Hearth—a secretive religious cult obsessed with children and prophecy. Then she uncovers a disturbing pattern of missing children that may tie The Hearth to the trafficking and adoption network she exposed months earlier.
As fear spreads through Halpin River and more people are murdered, the case turns personal. Chloe’s cousin Katie joins The Hearth, convinced her kidnapped son is still alive and living with a new family. And Chloe’s journalist sister Hannah, chasing the story of a lifetime, may be reckless enough to compromise the investigation or get herself killed.
With the cult’s prophecy countdown days away, Chloe must uncover the truth and The Hearth’s plans before more children vanish—or worse—are sacrificed, and her recently reconciled family is swallowed by the carnage.
Content Warnings
Full list of Content/Trigger warnings found in The Halpin River Homicides.
