Concrete Evidence

Two young women are murdered on the same night in neighboring Ohio towns. Katrina is well-loved, successful, hard-working, and religious; she's shot in a public park in her home town. Isabel is troubled and always in trouble, friendless and alone; she's stabbed in her shabby apartment. The police quickly link the two murders, and conclude that Katrina killed Isabel for unknown reasons and was murdered in revenge by Isabel's boyfriend, who has vanished. Case closed.

Except that everyone who ever met Katrina knows this is a lie. Katrina's uncle, who owns a hardware store, begs one of his employees to find the truth. Faye Churchill is a newcomer to town: private, smart, insightful, and logical. She had been the manager of a tech startup, but she jumped ship before the company went belly up, which allowed her to retire early and start a new, quieter life.

That's not what she gets. In her relentless search for the truth, she enlists a canny ex-mayor, an enigmatic chief of police, a wild and weirdly capable executive assistant, and a hyperactive eight year-old boy. While unweaving the separate lives and intertwined deaths of Katrina and Isabel, Faye uncovers a bizarre conspiracy and the cutting edge of a ruthless international organization. She has a good chance of discovering what really happened to Katrina—if she can stay alive.