The Quiet Hand

Three murders. The first lies in a run-down urban motel: a woman strangled, a witness glimpsing a man slipping into the night. Before detectives can find him, he’s discovered in a park, his throat slashed open with an unusual knife left nearby. Fingerprints on the blade point to an ex-con, until an anonymous call and a police raid leave him dead, too. Three deaths. Three answers that come too quickly. Portland Detective Rebecca Friedrich can’t shake the feeling that none of it adds up. Removed from the cases but unwilling to let go, she follows clues that don’t quite fit the tidy story everyone else is ready to accept. Each step forward pulls her deeper into something colder and more deliberate than she expected—and into shadows she hoped she’d left behind. The truth is buried just beneath the surface, and Rebecca is the only one who refuses to stop digging.