Nell Brach

After her beloved grandfather’s unexpected death, twenty-one-year-old Nell—along with her mom and little brother Tyler—move back to Tennessee to live in her mother’s childhood home. They’ll have a house that’s paid for, friends nearby, and Nell will finally be able to follow in her grandfather’s footsteps in attending the police academy. But while they’re unpacking, six-year-old Tyler disappears without a trace. Nell is sure the old station wagon that she saw in her neighborhood is somehow related to his disappearance. But how?

A dead teenage girl. A growing suspect list. A town full of liars. At 28, Detective Nell Brach is both the youngest and the first woman to make detective in her close-knit Tennessee community. Assigned her first case as lead investigator, she’s determined to prove herself and find out what happened to the 13-year-old “good girl” found in the woods. However, the deeper Nell and her new partner, Vaughn, dig, the more potential suspects they discover…including Nell’s lover, a local judge.

Still reeling from the arrival of her derelict father—a virtual stranger—and its effect on her family, Detective Nell Brach finds welcome distraction in her work. The vicious murder of a homeless Jane Doe passing through Nell’s rural jurisdiction carries more questions when the subsequent identification shockingly links her to a long-closed murder case that Nell’s deceased grandfather investigated. A case whose convicted killer is scheduled to die soon by lethal injection.