Jonathan Stride novels

Jonathan Stride and Serena Dial discover that two seemingly unrelated cases--a hit-and-run "accident" and a celebrity killed during a fling with a prostitute--have a bizarre connection to a brutal crime from Las Vegas's shady past.

Ten years ago, six-year-old Catalina Mateo hid under the porch of her family home while a knife butchered her mother and a bullet killed her father. Now a rough-sleeping orphan, Cat arrives at the house of Detective Jonathan Stride, pleading for protection. Drenched in the icy waters of Lake Superior, she claims to have narrowly escaped a cold-blooded killer.Stride's raw instinct is to protect Cat, whose late parents' case-and his personal guilt associated...

"On a rainy June morning, tens of thousands of people crowd into Duluth for the city's biggest annual event: the Duluth Marathon. Exhausted runners push to reach the finish line and spectators line the streets to cheer them on. Then, in a terrifying echo of the Boston bombing, there is an explosion along the race course, leaving many people dead and injured ... Within minutes, Jonathan Stride, Serena Dial, and Maggie Bei are at work with the FBI to...

Jonathan Stride's best friend, Steve Garske, makes a deathbed confession: he protected Stride by covering up a murder. The police dig up Steve's yard and find a body with a bullet hole in its skull. With suspicion in the murder pointing at him, Stride finds himself off the case and on leave from the Duluth Police. His only ally in clearing his name is his wife, Serena.