Hard Truth
Mariah Stewart
Ballantine, Nov 2005, $6.99
ISBN: 0345476670

Nine years old Melinda Egan vanished without a trace. Not long afterward her older brother Jason, a nasty youngster, also disappeared. The locals assume they just ran off.

Years later, a section of the Stiles farm is sold. To the shock of the new owner, human bones are found that are later identified as those of Jason. At about the same time Lorna Stiles has returned home to settle her late mother's estate. She is totally unsatisfied with the police investigation because she demands to know what happened to her best friend Melinda. Her friend Regan Landry introduces Lorna to former FBI Agent T.J. Dawson, a private investigator, who agrees to look into the murders especially the disappearance of Melinda. As Lorna fears a family member is a serial killer who used or perhaps still using the Stiles farm as a personal cemetery, T.J. soon believes his job is to keep Lorna safe from this murdering psychopath who he feels still lives.

Mariah Stewart is simply amazing as she has over the past few months consistently kept the quality level of her thrillers stratospherically high though she has released several novels. Her current tale, HARD TRUTH, is a fabulous romantic investigative thriller that never slows down from the moment the first corpse is found until the climax. Fans will want to read the previous tale COLD TRUTH and look forward to the next story DARK TRUTH as this is an author who provides fantastic serial killer tales that keep the audience's attention throughout.

Harriet Klausner