Lean, tense, and politically charged; a page-turner.
In the tenth entry in the Brad Parker and Karen Richmond series, Cooper takes readers on a tense, morally urgent investigation where political power, institutional secrecy, and murder collide.
Dr. Abina Owusu, a researcher at the Maine Translational Research Institute, is arrested by ICE and branded a national security threat. Though she has publicly criticized government policy, she insists she has done nothing illegal. Promised release after days in jail, she is instead driven into the woods and murdered. Assigned to the case, Lieutenant Karen Richmond and her husband, Dr. Brad Parker, uncover a similar killing in New Hampshire. As the pattern sharpens, they move quickly to reveal the truth before more lives are claimed.
Cooper handles current political fault lines with subtlety, allowing issues of authority, institutional secrecy, and scientific vulnerability to develop without overt commentary. Brad’s parallel effort to hold his research institute together under crushing funding cuts adds genuine emotional gravity. The prose is restrained, the pacing deliberate, and the tension steadily accrues. The result is a quietly unsettling thriller that leaves a lasting impression.
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