The Watcher ( Jonathan Stride #4 )

EDITORIAL REVIEW: Two young lovers. A sultry summer night. One brutal, cold-blooded murder. In this stunning, atmospheric thriller, Brian Freeman takes you deep into Detective Jonathan Stride’s complicated past. It’s the case that has haunted Stride for thirty years. During the summer after his junior year of high school, he fell in love with beautiful Cindy Starr, the girl who would become his wife. But on the Fourth of July, the same night that Jonny and Cindy cemented their love, Cindy’s older sister Laura was savagely murdered. The police suspected a vagrant of committing the crime, but no one was ever arrested, and the case was closed. Now, Laura’s best friend Tish Verdure has returned to Duluth to write a book about Laura’s death. Tish knows secrets that a lot of people would like to keep hidden, including information about Cindy that leave Stride questioning his entire past. When a young girl is found drowned in the St. Louis River and a witness to the original murder attempts suicide, Stride realizes that the violence of the past is spilling over into the present. As he unearths the explosive events that led to Laura’s murder, Stride discovers that the ripples of her death changed everyone’s lives, including his own. Can Stride put to rest the ghosts of his past, or will they devour him whole? "Two young lovers. A sultry summer night. One brutal, cold-blooded murder. In this stunning, atmospheric thriller, Brian Freeman takes you deep into Detective Jonathan Strideαs complicated past. Itαs the case that has haunted Stride for thirty years. During the summer after his junior year of high school, he fell in love with beautiful Cindy Starr, the girl who would become his wife. But on the Fourth of July, the same night that Jonny and Cindy cemented their love, Cindyαs older sister Laura was savagely murdered. The police suspected a vagrant of committing the crime, but no one was ever arrested, and the case was closed. Now, Lauraαs best friend Tish Verdure has returned to Duluth to write a book about Lauraαs death. Tish knows secrets that a lot of people would like to keep hidden, including information about Cindy that leave Stride questioning his entire past. When a young girl is found drowned in the St. Louis River and a witness to the original murder attempts suicide, Stride realizes that the violence of the past is spilling over into the present. As he unearths the explosive events that led to Lauraαs murder, Stride discovers that the ripples of her death changed everyoneαs lives, including his own. Can Stride put to rest the ghosts of his past, or will they devour him whole"--Google books Lieutenant Jonathan Stride has never forgotten the case that made him decide to join the police force. Back in the 1970s, Laura - sister of Stride's girlfriend - was murdered. The obvious suspect was a vagrant, who slipped through the hands of the police, including Stride's detective hero Roy. Now, though, Stride's looking at the case in a new light. Tish Verdure, an old friend of Laura's, has come home: and she's certain that the killer was a local boy, now an attorney with connections at the highest level. Stride's soon convinced that there was a deliberate decision to direct the investigation towards a simple solution and away from Tish's suggested perpetrator: but he's also convinced that Tish is hiding a secret about the past. A secret that could have shattering consequences - including a second murder... This thriller takes you deep into the complicated past of Detective Jonathan Stride. Even those involved in the closest relationships can be kept in the dark about a loved one's past. When a woman shows up in town and informs Stride that she is writing a book about the 30-year-old mystery surrounding the murder of the older sister of the girl who grew up to become Stride's spouse, he's forced to re-examine the validity of his bond with not only his late wife, Cindy, who died of cancer five years earlier, but also that involving his current love interest, a former Vegas cop turned PI, Serena Dial