Killing Streak

Lost love, dangerous secrets . . . and murder.

Killing Streak, the first installment in Merit Clark’s award-winning Denver-based mysteries, takes homicide detective Jack Fariel on an unexpected detour into his own troubled past.

A shooting in a neighborhood of million-dollar homes at first appears to be a straightforward case for Jack’s return to homicide after medical leave. When a young man’s body is found, Jack is eager to get back to work and determined to find answers.

Successful businessman Evan Markham is rich, handsome, and pissed when someone leaves a dead body in his guest house. He’ll use every shred of power and influence he’s accumulated to control the investigation.

Because Evan has a past he doesn’t want his wife—or the police—to find out about. Jack has a past too—with Evan’s wife.

Killing Streak has more twists and turns than a Rocky Mountain road has switchbacks and the Colorado weather becomes, almost, another character.

Gripping, fast-paced, with a complex plot, fans of Michael Connelly, Robert Crais and J.A Jance will enjoy Killing Streak.

Killing Streak is the winner of the 2015 Colorado Independent Publisher’s Association EVVY Award and a Quarterfinalist in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest. It's the first in a series featuring Denver homicide detective Jack Fariel.

Praise for Killing Streak

Homicide detective Jack Fariel's first case after a bout with cancer involves his high school sweetheart, her rich, psychotic husband and a string of unsolved murders....The Fariel chapters are confidently written, and Clark paints a convincing portrait of the Denver Police Department in action. Fariel doesn't have a futuristic crime lab or Sherlockian insights; he just does good police work that's fun to follow.
~Kirkus Reviews

A web of deceit, murder, lost love, and regret
~Publishers Weekly

Graphic, mesmerizing and fearless writing
~Donnell Ann Bell, author of The Past Came Hunting & Deadly Recall)

Merit Clark's debut novel is a dark delight. She builds the tension until it becomes intolerable
and releases it in a climax that not only satisfies, it satiates. The blood in this story runs hotter than the sex, and the sex sizzles.
~Harlen Campbell, author of Sea of Deception, Monkey on a Chain & Jennifer's Weave

Amazon reader reviews:
"Unpredictable, gripping. It took over my life, I couldn't put it down and leave it alone."

"I took it on vacation and rationed out the last 100 pages because I didn't want it to end and I didn't want to finish it so fast! The novel is well thought out, the plot twists are great, it's graphic but only in ways that draw you into the characters even more."

"I can't remember the last time I stayed up really late so I could finish a book."