Kira no longer runs to the door when Gemma comes home. She lifts her head from the spot by the window where the afternoon sun pools on the hardwood, and her tail sweeps the floor in a slow arc, and that is enough.
The veterinarian has been honest: months, not years. Good months. Let her have them. So Gemma does, learning what it means to grieve someone who is still there, to love a dog who is slowly releasing her grip on the world with the same patient grace she brought to everything else.
Atticus is four months old. The cabin is full in a way it has never been. Marco’s coffee mug is always in the rack. There are two toothbrushes in the bathroom. These small changes have accumulated into something Gemma didn’t know she was building: a life that is solid beneath her feet.
And then a construction project at Elk Creek Elementary uncovers human remains beneath the foundation, a child, buried there for over fifty years, in a trench that was left open by a plumber who ran behind schedule and a contractor who didn’t wait. Tommy Fielding. Missing since 1967. The town has been walking over him for half a century.
Kate leads the field work. Gemma mentors from behind. And in the county records office, amid boxes of permits and change orders and handwritten notes that are fifty-seven years old, they begin to reconstruct the last days of a child who deserved better.
The Good Man is the book of transitions: Kira finding peace, Atticus growing, Kate stepping fully into her own, and Gemma learning what it means to be the one who passes the work forward.
Perfect for fans of Nevada Barr, Jenn McKinlay, and Margaret Mizushima. A quieter mystery, and the one that will break your heart most cleanly.
Book 11 of 14. Kira’s final season. Kate’s graduation. The series’ most emotional book. Start with Book 1.
Genre: Cozy Mystery
The veterinarian has been honest: months, not years. Good months. Let her have them. So Gemma does, learning what it means to grieve someone who is still there, to love a dog who is slowly releasing her grip on the world with the same patient grace she brought to everything else.
Atticus is four months old. The cabin is full in a way it has never been. Marco’s coffee mug is always in the rack. There are two toothbrushes in the bathroom. These small changes have accumulated into something Gemma didn’t know she was building: a life that is solid beneath her feet.
And then a construction project at Elk Creek Elementary uncovers human remains beneath the foundation, a child, buried there for over fifty years, in a trench that was left open by a plumber who ran behind schedule and a contractor who didn’t wait. Tommy Fielding. Missing since 1967. The town has been walking over him for half a century.
Kate leads the field work. Gemma mentors from behind. And in the county records office, amid boxes of permits and change orders and handwritten notes that are fifty-seven years old, they begin to reconstruct the last days of a child who deserved better.
The Good Man is the book of transitions: Kira finding peace, Atticus growing, Kate stepping fully into her own, and Gemma learning what it means to be the one who passes the work forward.
Perfect for fans of Nevada Barr, Jenn McKinlay, and Margaret Mizushima. A quieter mystery, and the one that will break your heart most cleanly.
Book 11 of 14. Kira’s final season. Kate’s graduation. The series’ most emotional book. Start with Book 1.
Genre: Cozy Mystery