Showing results by author "Mary Stone" in All Categories

Thirteen years ago, Winter Black came home early from a sleepover to find her parents brutally murdered and her little brother gone — taken by a serial killer called The Preacher. Now a rookie FBI agent assigned to her first murder case, Winter has returned to the small Virginia town where she grew up. But when bones found by a hunter lead to the discovery of a secret burial ground containing the remains of children, the investigation suddenly hits close to home as the past and future collide with each new shocking discovery.

Twelve hours earlier, Interim Sheriff Rebecca West was enjoying a casual lunchtime burger. Now she’s preparing for a hurricane headed straight for Shadow Island. While hauling sandbags and calming town officials, the last thing she needs is a stunned man stumbling into the sheriff’s department. Covered in blood.

Dr. Autumn Trent returns to Virginia after successfully assisting the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit yet again. Part of her heart remains in Florida with her long-lost sister whose trail has evaporated, but she moves forward to focus on her work as a forensic and criminal psychologist. Intent on doing just that, she heads to Virginia State Hospital, where the prodigy of The Preacher awaits her return. Justin Black becomes the least of her worries when a new case practically falls in Autumn’s lap.

A bank robbery turns into a blood trail as a pair of unhinged masterminds hack their way through a list of the most notorious US heists. The copycat crimes, emulating famous robberies, escalate as the FBI work with local law enforcement. But the federal team has problems of its own. Sun Ming, Winter Black’s partner and nemesis, has her own agenda, while Winter can’t keep her mind off The Preacher, the notorious serial killer who murdered her parents and holds the key to finding her missing little brother.

The man who’s been stalking Private Investigator Winter Black is dead, but he wasn’t working alone. Threats linger in the shadows, and she can’t shake the chilling feeling that she’s being watched. It’s about to get personal…again. A flyer advertising her business—Black Investigations—was found on the tenth-floor balcony of a woman who apparently jumped to her death. Except Winter has never seen the brochure before. Stranger still, her two newest clients received the same fake flyer, along with a blackmail letter.

Military veteran Amelia Storm returns to her hometown of Chicago when her beloved police officer brother is killed in the line of duty. Now she is a special agent with the FBI. No longer a scared girl, she vows to avenge her brother and do what she can to end the city's deep wells of corruption.

Following the incident that brought justice to her parents’ killers but ended her career, former FBI Special Agent Rebecca West needs a fresh start. Hoping to find peace, she decides to spend a few months in the sleepy beach town of Shadow Island, where she spent idyllic summers as a kid. However, her vacation is cut short when a seventeen-year-old goes missing with no leads or clues. When the girl’s body is found in a nearby marsh with strangulation marks around her neck, Rebecca can’t say no when the overworked sheriff asks her to help investigate.

The Preacher is dead, the case solved, but now, Special Agent Winter Black’s missing brother seems to be taunting her, leaving a trail that leads back to their old house in Harrisonburg. As she learns more, Winter must fight the urge to revert to that primal part of herself that was set on secrecy and vengeance during the investigation of her parents’ murder. Especially now that her best friend and partner Noah Dalton’s own past has come back to play.

When the survivors of the massacre at the Riverside Mall are murdered one after the other, the police suspect a serial killer and turn to the FBI. Winter Black is on the case, working to track down the third person involved in the mass shooting that happened the same night she took down The Preacher, the man who killed her parents. The hit list is long, while the list of suspects is short, and when the killer ends up dead, the suspect list narrows down to a pinpoint.

The late Sheriff Alden Wallace has barely been laid to rest when another body is found on Shadow Island. Once again, former FBI agent turned interim sheriff Rebecca West’s vacation plans will have to wait. This time, the victim is the son of one of Shadow Island’s privileged elite. Found gruesomely posed at a picnic table in the park—suffocated, choked, and shot, with a cryptic note shoved in his pants—his death is as personal as it is disturbing.

Sometimes, the beginning is the end. For 13 years, FBI Special Agent Winter Black has been haunted by a man who performed heinous acts. Murdering her parents. Abducting her baby brother. Leaving her in a coma that changed her life forever. For 13 years, she’s suffered mentally and physically. Often doubted her sanity and ability to move forward to achieve her goal of bringing that brutal man down. Thirteen years of regret. Of hope. Of fear. Of hate.

For more than 13 years, special agent Winter Black has believed her little brother was dead - kidnapped and murdered by The Preacher, the same lunatic who killed her parents. A lead into Justin’s whereabouts brings her out of her hiatus to chase it, but other cases need her attention, too. At the FBI, tensions are high when a body is dug up, encased in a 55-gallon drum. The team soon realizes they aren’t hunting the typical serial killer, but a skilled surgeon.

Six months ago, on the night Winter Black and her fellow agents took down The Preacher, a mall massacre occurred. Today, one of the gunmen responsible for taking 15 innocent lives that night is killed - with a well-placed bullet fired from nearly a mile away. Clearly a professional, either military or law enforcement, the sniper leaves zero evidence, other than a note.

Human webs are the deadliest...When Ryan O’Connelly - the unwilling accomplice of a bank robber turned mass murderer - slipped out of the FBI’s grasp, no one expected to hear from him again, much less of his own volition. But when he shows up at the FBI’s doorstep after almost a year of successful evasion, he has information to point Special Agent Winter Black in the direction of a brutal serial killer.

When a fisherwoman reports seeing a local young woman potentially assaulted or abducted, Shadow Island Sheriff Rebecca West’s heart constricts. The disappearance of three other girls in the span of a week can’t be a coincidence. But other than being about the same age, everything else about the girls and their mysterious disappearances are inconsistent. Besides, since all are legal adults with no jobs but plenty of nice things, it’s entirely possible they just took off on an impromptu vacation. Except none of the girls took their car. And no one is answering their phone.

The path to power is paved with blood. In the wake of a landmark election on Shadow Island, the tide of power is set to turn. Newly elected Sheriff Rebecca West stands ready to dismantle the Yacht Club’s ruthless grip over the island. And she isn’t alone. She has her team as well as the newly elected chair of the Select Board by her side. But victory comes at a perilous cost. The ballots have barely been counted when tragedy strikes. The new Select Board Chair’s life hangs by a thread after a deliberate sabotage turns her victory drive into a fight for survival.

Armed with fleeting clues as the number of victims pile up, Autumn is sure of only one thing...unless she and the team can stop her, their spider will suck her sweethearts fatally dry. And this time, as the team goes undercover, it could be one of their own. Autumn’s Break, the second book in Mary Stone’s Autumn Trent Series, is a riveting psychological murder mystery that will leave you second-guessing every single person you meet.

The serial killer who slaughtered Winter’s parents has come out of retirement, leaving bloody victims in his wake. Special Agent Winter Black has spent her entire life preparing for this moment, and she intends to end the man who took everything from her and solve the disappearance of her little brother — no matter the cost.

When the dead can't speak, the shadows whisper their secrets. There’s never a dull moment on Shadow Island, especially for its small but growing sheriff’s department. This time, Sheriff Rebecca West, along with new deputy Viviane Darby, discover a man hanging from the rafters of the caretaker’s shed at Oceanview Cemetery. Does death follow Rebecca? Or does she attract it? The scene suggests suicide—an unlocked padlock, a rope, a toppled bench, and the lifeless body.

Less than twenty-four hours after Hurricane Boris ravages Shadow Island, it delivers one final blow. Two corpses, lashed together, wash up on the shore. Some of them, anyway. With no primary crime scene, no witnesses, and barely any human remains, Sheriff Rebecca West has precious little to work with. Are these victims connected to the seemingly untouchable Yacht Club, or did Boris’s awesome power simply push them onto her beach?