Author: susanclaytongoldner
When Detective Winston Radhauser receives a frantic call, ‘shots fired at Mountain View High School’, he and his partner are on the scene in less than four minutes. Chaos greets them. Screaming students run in every direction. Some hide behind bushes. One boy has fallen into the memorial fountain, his arm bleeding so profusely it turns the water red. Others lie on the ground, blood seeping into … into the concrete in dark pools.Procedure demands first responders wait for SWAT to clear the building, but Radhauser enters, fearing more injuries and loss of life. In the band room, two students,…
The idyllic town of Ashland is nestled in the foothills of Siskiyou Mountains. Locals often describe it as a little bit of England set down in Southern Oregon. Yet amidst the historic craftsman bungalows, the world-renown Shakespeare theaters, and the lush, manicured gardens in Lithia Park, something evil lurks.While walking his pet raccoon, 72-year-old Homer Sullivan spots something shiny … shiny sparkling in the leaves near Ashland Creek. Thinking it might be something valuable, he hurries over to retrieve it, hoping he’ll become someone’s hero. He panics when he discovers it’s a diamond ring and it’s attached to a severed…
Five days after a tragic fall kills her 10-year-old son, Blair Bradshaw, an actress with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, is found dead. Her husband, Franklin Bradshaw, an esteemed criminal defense attorney, discovers her body. It is carefully displayed under her son’s tree house, among the flowers and other memorabilia left at the site of his death.Franklin insists her death is a suicide brought … suicide brought on by the loss of their son. But Detective Radhauser finds evidence at the scene—bloody shoe prints on one of the rocks in the nearby creek, the careful way the body is arranged, and…
Lillianna Ferguson has spent the last twenty years pretending her father is dead. She moved to Oregon—far away from her childhood home in Delaware—changed her name from Emma to Lillianna and vowed never to go back.When her brother, Greg, phones, begging her to come home to care for their father who has been diagnosed with a dangerous, aortic aneurysm, she is adamant in her refusal. When did he … When did he ever take care of her?But Greg is equally stubborn in his arguments that she return, as the surgeon at Johns Hopkins won’t repair the aneurysm without first amputating…
When Parker Collins, a gifted writing student at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, fails to show up for the first day of fall classes, his frantic girlfriend, Rishima Reynolds, files a missing person’s report. Though Parker has a history of alcohol abuse, disorderly conduct, and truancy, she insists he is committed to his writing classes, and is adamant something is very wrong.Persuaded by … wrong.Persuaded by the depth of her conviction, Radhauser drives up to a cabin at Sunset Lake where Parker spent the last month finishing a novel. It’s a manuscript his mentor, Professor Madison Hollingsworth, claims is brilliant.…
Something evil has taken root in Ashland, Oregon. And with it, an uneasy feeling sweeps down on Detective Winston Radhauser. If someone doesn’t intervene, that evil will continue to multiply until the unthinkable happens.While on vacation with his wife and their newborn son, Detective Radhauser receives a call from Captain Murphy–a high school kid has been branded with a homophobic slur and is … slur and is hospitalized in Ashland, a small town known for, and proud of, its diversity. And this is only the beginning. White supremacy, homophobia and racism are one thing. But murder is something else.Radhauser will…
** IND’TALE RONE AWARD WINNER BEST THRILLER OF 2019 **Father’s Anthony’s devotion to God and His Church begins to unravel the moment Rita Wittier steps inside St. Catherine’s Cathedral in San Francisco. He struggles to control his feelings, but two years later, he is a man obsessed.In an attempt to rediscover the priest he intended to become, Anthony flies back to Delaware to visit Father … visit Father Timothy. If redemption can be found anywhere, surely it can be found in the church of his childhood and in the soothing Irish brogue of his former mentor.The months pass, 60 Minutes…
The past always finds us.When Detective Winston Radhauser is awakened by a call from dispatch at 12:45a.m., it can mean only one thing—something terrible awaits him. He races to the Pine Street address. In the kitchen, Caleb Bryce, nearly deaf from a childhood accident, is frantically giving CPR to 19-month-old Skyler Sterling. Less than an hour later, Skyler is dead.The ME calls it a murder and … calls it a murder and the entire town of Ashland, Oregon is outraged. Someone must be held accountable. The police captain is under a lot of pressure and anxious to make an arrest.…
On a bench at the edge of the Lithia Park playground, someone is stalking two-year-old Emily Michaelson as she plays with her eighteen-year old half sister, Brandy. The child’s laughter curves through the sunlight, as if on wings. The stalker is more enamored than ever, but aware of Brandy’s vigilance with Emily, knows a kidnapping won’t be easy. Planning to gain Emily’s trust, the stalker gives … gives her a necklace—little girls love pretty things. A few days later, Brandy and Emily arrive at the park for the Children’s Health Fair. When the stalker sees them enter the public restroom,…
After two mysterious deaths, Arizona detective Winston grows suspicious of Matt, a local teenager racked with guilt and secrets. When Matt’s father is charged with murder, the questions intensify in this heart-pounding work of suspense.