Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska Series

New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag returns with a thriller that begins with a shocking crime scene you’ll never forget and follows two relentless detectives on a manhunt that ends in a chilling confrontation with the essence of human evil.

It was a crime so brutal, it changed the lives of even the most hardened homicide cops. The Haas family murders left a scar on the community nothing can erase, but everyone agrees that convicting the killer, Karl Dahl, is a start. Only Judge Carey Moore seems to be standing in the way. Her ruling that Dahl’s prior criminal record is inadmissible raises a public outcry—and puts the judge in grave danger.

When an unknown assailant attacks Judge Moore in a parking garage, two of Minneapolis’ s top cops are called upon to solve the crime and keep the judge from further harm. Detective Sam Kovac is as hard-boiled as they come, and his wisecracking partner, Nikki Liska, isn’t far behind. Neither one wants to be on this case, but when Karl Dahl escapes from custody, everything changes, and a seemingly straightforward case cartwheels out of control.

The stakes go even higher when the judge is kidnapped—snatched out of her own bed even as the police sit outside, watching her house. Now Kovac and Liska must navigate through a maze of suspects that includes the stepson of a murder victim, a husband with a secret life, and a rogue cop looking for revenge where the justice system failed.

With no time to spare, the detectives are pulled down a strange dark trail of smoke and mirrors, where no one is who they seem and everyone is guilty of Prior Bad Acts.

“[Tami Hoag] demonstrates just why she has become one of the hottest names in the suspense game. Bottom line: Leaves competition in the dust.”—People
 
Sorry. The single word is written on a mirror. In front of it hangs a Minneapolis Internal Affairs cop. Was it suicide? Or a kinky act turned tragic?
 
Either way, it wasn’t murder. At least not according to the powers that be. But veteran homicide detective Sam Kovac and his wisecracking, ambitious partner, Nikki Liska, think differently. Together they begin to dig at the too-neat edges of the young cop’s death, uncovering one motive—and one suspect—after another. The cloud of suspicion falls not only on the city’s elite, but over the very heart of the police department. Someone wants the case closed—quickly and forever. But even with their careers and their lives on the line, neither Kovac nor Liska will give up. As they unearth a connection between a two-month-old murder case and one that has been closed for twenty years, they find themselves chasing a killer who will stop at nothing to keep a dark and shattering secret.
 
“Without a doubt, one of the most intense suspense writers around.”—Chicago Tribune
 
“Tami Hoag is the queen of the crime story.”—New York Post

She writes the kind of thrillers that keep readers and critics awake all night.

She grabs you with a story as frightening as your worst fears, as chilling as your unspoken secrets.

She is New York Times bestselling writer Tami Hoag, today’s most exciting master of suspense.  Ashes to Ashes is her most terrifying novel yet…read on…

Some killers are born.

Some are made.

For him, the question is irrelevant.  The taste for murder has always been present, prowling the edge of his consciousness like a hungry wolf.  In a wooded Minneapolis park, he performs his profane ceremony.  He arranges the body to his satisfaction.  He pours the accelerant, anointing the dead.  Then he lights the match.

"Ashes to ashes."

The newspapers have dubbed him the Cremator.  He has already claimed three lives.  And he won’t stop there.  He has a plan for greatness.  Only this time there is a witness.  A teenage runaway with a dubious identity and a murky past, Angie DiMarco has seen the face of the killer in the flickering light of the funeral pyre.  Now the police have Angie, but Angie isn’t talking.  

Enter Kate Conlan.  She knows all too well the dark side of the human heart.  Once an up-and-coming FBI agent, she left the Bureau under a cloud of scandal.  Now, instead of catching criminals, she helps their victims and protects witnesses.  The job of advocate suits her just fine–until she’s assigned to Angie.

Not even Kate can tell if the troubled youth is a reluctant witness, a potential victim, or something more troubling still.  Her superiors are interested only in badgering Angie for a lead, because the Cremator’s latest victim may be the daughter of Peter Bondurant–an enigmatic billionaire businessman with power to influence the way the case is handled.

Bondurant pulls strings and gets Special Agent John Quinn brought to the case.  The FBI’s ace profiler of serial killers, Quinn shares a painful past with Kate and hides a secret that is driving him toward madness.  He is a man on a ragged edge, and yet his insatiable need to do justice drives him to catch the Cremator–no matter what the cost to himself.

Amid a frenzy of public hysteria, politics, and media attention, Kate is confronted with the most difficult role of her career–and her life.  For she is the one woman who has what it takes to stop the Cremator…and the one woman he wants next.