Ryan DeMarco Mysteries

The perfect family. The perfect house. The perfect life. All gone now. What could cause a man, when all the stars of fortune are shining upon him, to suddenly snap and destroy everything he has built? This is the question that haunts Sergeant Ryan DeMarco after the wife and children of beloved college professor and best-selling author Thomas Huston are found slaughtered in their home. Huston himself has disappeared and so is immediately cast as the prime suspect.

A year after the gruesome homicide case in which Ryan DeMarco put a bullet through the heart of the madman who killed his only friend's family, he can't face another day on the force. Now, heading out on an extended road trip with Jayme, his former colleague and current girlfriend, DeMarco is ready to let his old wounds heal. But when the pair arrives in Jayme's tiny hometown for her grandmother's funeral, they're quickly recruited to help solve a long-dead case involving the skeletons of seven young girls.

Ryan DeMarco would rather not go home. Not now, maybe not ever. But when his estranged wife attempts suicide, he has no choice but to return to western Pennsylvania, and all the memories that wait for him there. Unfortunately, it's not only ghosts from the past waiting to greet DeMarco upon his return. An old high school classmate has risen through the ranks to become a county sheriff, and he is desperate for help investigating a series of murders that might tie into a cold case from his and DeMarco's school days.

Former Sergeant Ryan DeMarco's life has been spent in defiance - he's defied death, loneliness, and betrayal all while fighting the worst parts of humanity. He's earned a break, and following the devastation of their last case, DeMarco and his girlfriend Jayme want nothing more than to live quietly in each other's company. To forget the horrors they've experienced and work on making each other whole again. But dreams of a peaceful life together are shattered when two bodies are discovered in a smoldering car in the woods, and another is found brutally mutilated nearby.

There's not much that would convince retired police sergeant Ryan DeMarco to take on another private investigation case, but he can't refuse a nine-year-old Michigan girl begging for help finding her biological father. The road trip to the Upper Peninsula promises DeMarco and his partner, Jayme, a chance to heal from their last case, which ended in a traumatic brush with death for DeMarco. But things aren't as they first appear in the woods of Michigan, and the seemingly simple paternity investigation soon morphs into something deadly.