The Thaw

The Thaw – Kindle (available for Pre-Order on Amazon. Release date is March 27, 2027)

Spring has finally come to Buffalo Ridge, Colorado, but the melting snow brings more than floodwater.
After a brutal winter, Sheriff Cade Parker is hoping the town can begin to heal. The Platte River is rising, the old snowpack is breaking loose, and the first signs of spring should bring relief. Instead, the thaw uncovers a skeleton buried near an abandoned logging bridge a body that has been hidden for decades.

As Cade begins the investigation, the case reaches further into the past than he expected. The dead man was last seen in the early 1960s, working at a logging camp tied to Cade’s own family. What first looks like an old accident soon points to something much darker: a secret protected by silence, fear, and powerful people who never wanted the truth found.

This time, the case is personal. Cade must face painful questions about his father, his grandfather, and the family name he thought he understood. With help from Alice, Donna Dee, and Evan Mercer, Cade follows a trail of old records, buried memories, and clues hidden in plain sight.

But as the river keeps rising, so does the danger. Someone in Buffalo Ridge is still willing to kill to keep the past buried.
In the third book of the Sheriff Cade Parker Mountain Mystery Series, The Thaw brings the town’s long-held secrets to the surface. Cade must decide whether truth and justice matter only when they are easy or whether the law must reach even into his own family’s past.