The deaths of a priest, a psychologist, and a young woman, all apparently due to natural causes, puzzle Homicide Detective Donovan Burke. Were their deaths really due to natural causes, or something more sinister? Discovering that a bell was found beside each of the bodies, Burke searches for a connection, a search that leads him to Kristi Nelson. Are the deaths, as they seem, merely coincidence? Burke doesn't think so, but if a clever killer is roaming the streets of Des Moines, is Kristi Nelson his next victim? As the holidays come to a close and a New Year's Eve blizzard envelops the city,...

Detective Donovan Burke has seen his share of corpses, but when he is called to a crime scene where the body of a young woman is propped against the gnarled trunk of a tree at the river's edge, the hard shell and aloof demeanor he's spent years trying to develop begins to crumble. Clutched in the victim's small, lifeless hand is a plastic bag containing clumps of her own, dark brown hair, and scrawled in blood-red paint on her shaved head is the word Sinner. The police begin the investigation treating it as an isolated case, but within a week another young woman falls prey to the sadistic...

Murder wasn't an essential ingredient on Shelby Drake's list of cake-decorating supplies, but when this young widow makes the transition from cake decorator to private investigator, she quickly finds herself wielding a gun instead of a spatula. As a newly licensed PI, Shelby agrees to help a friend and jumps into the venture full of enthusiasm and naivete, but within weeks, her plans of leaving the actual investigating to her partner are shattered. Suddenly she is immersed in a world of danger and deceit where nothing is as it seems and everyone is suspect. Accidentally coming across some old...