Cold Comfort
(2026)(The ninth book in the Alex Harlan FBI Thrillers series)
A novel by Phillip Strang
Some deaths are too kind to be true.
On the Oregon coast, in a county where the fog rolls off the river and the bar swallows a body without a sound, a woman is pulled from the water at first light. Robin Mercer drowned drunk, the ruling says — except Robin feared the water her whole life and never touched a drop. Her death is signed off as a tragic accident before her own sister can even make the drive.
The signature belongs to Doc Conroy: the beloved county medical examiner who has sat with Quill County's grieving families for twenty-five years. Everyone trusts him. Everyone loves him. That is exactly the problem.
FBI profiler Alex Harlan has built his career hunting the people who turn trusted institutions into weapons — and what he finds beneath one small-town coroner's office is worse than a killer. It's a trade. Accidents made to order, sold to anyone who needs an inconvenient person gone, certified by the kindest hand on the coast.
To prove it, Alex has to climb a chain that does not want to be climbed — against a tide that drowns the careless, a town that will not hear a word against its good doctor, and a man whose mercy is the most dangerous thing in the room. Because the cruelest lies are the comfortable ones. And out here, the calm, cold water only looks safe.
Cold Comfort is the ninth Alex Harlan thriller. Every book stands on its own; together they tell a larger story.
Genre: Mystery
On the Oregon coast, in a county where the fog rolls off the river and the bar swallows a body without a sound, a woman is pulled from the water at first light. Robin Mercer drowned drunk, the ruling says — except Robin feared the water her whole life and never touched a drop. Her death is signed off as a tragic accident before her own sister can even make the drive.
The signature belongs to Doc Conroy: the beloved county medical examiner who has sat with Quill County's grieving families for twenty-five years. Everyone trusts him. Everyone loves him. That is exactly the problem.
FBI profiler Alex Harlan has built his career hunting the people who turn trusted institutions into weapons — and what he finds beneath one small-town coroner's office is worse than a killer. It's a trade. Accidents made to order, sold to anyone who needs an inconvenient person gone, certified by the kindest hand on the coast.
To prove it, Alex has to climb a chain that does not want to be climbed — against a tide that drowns the careless, a town that will not hear a word against its good doctor, and a man whose mercy is the most dangerous thing in the room. Because the cruelest lies are the comfortable ones. And out here, the calm, cold water only looks safe.
Cold Comfort is the ninth Alex Harlan thriller. Every book stands on its own; together they tell a larger story.
Genre: Mystery
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