Fortunes of the Dead

Lynn Hightower

Jul 2016 · The Lena Padget Mysteries Book 2 · Open Road Media

About this ebook

Southern PI Lena Padget’s hunt for a missing coed leads her into a deadly mystery born in the fires of the ATF’s Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas.
 
Though still haunted by ghosts from her past, Lena Padget has made a good life for herself in Lexington, Kentucky, as a private eye specializing in cases involving abused women and children. But Lena’s latest case threatens her romantic relationship with her live-in lover, police detective Lt. Joel Mendez. Hired by the family of college student Cheryl Dunkirk, who disappeared while serving as an intern for the US Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, Lena is working the same missing person’s case that Joel is officially exploring—albeit from a different angle.
 
But Cheryl’s fate may be linked to a series of mysterious deaths of ATF agents who were involved in the disastrous raid on the Branch Davidian cult’s complex, and Joel and Lena’s personal issues will have to be put aside when an ice-cold serial killer’s insatiable hunger for blood turns their professional competition into something deadly.
 
Fortunes of the Dead chronicles PI Lena Padget’s second gripping excursion into the darkest corners of human experience. A story of blind rage, vengeance, madness, and murder that crackles with suspense, it will appeal to readers of Karin Slaughter and Laura Lippmann.
 
Fortunes of the Dead is the 2nd book in the Lena Padget Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
 

About the author

Lynn Hightower grew up in the South and graduated from the University of Kentucky, where she studied creative writing with Wendell Berry and earned a journalism degree. She is the author of ten novels, including two mystery series, one featuring homicide detective Sonora Blair and the other featuring private investigator Lena Padgett. Flashpoint, the first Sonora Blair mystery, was a New York Times Notable Book. Satan’s Lambs, the first Lena Padget mystery, won the Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel. Hightower has also written the Elaki series of futuristic police procedurals, which begins with Alien Blues.
 
Hightower’s novels, which have been translated into seven foreign languages, have appeared on the Times (London) bestseller list and have been nominated for the Kentucky Literary Award, the Kentucky Librarians First Choice Award, and the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She teaches at the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program, where she was named Creative Writing Instructor of the Year in 2012. The author lives with her husband in Kentucky.