This is Book 4 in the Detective McDaniel Thrillers series.
The series is best read in order. Please consider reading Book 1, Hold Back the Night, before enjoying Already Gone.
A Friday night screaming match turns deadly.
Levi Riley and Jayda Bloom broke up over a year ago, but still live together in the same small house with their little girl, Chamomile. It's a tense arrangement not helped by Jayda’s drug use and her new boyfriend’s frequent visits. One Friday night, an argument turns physical and the tensions boil over into bloodshed.
The following morning, a neighbor finds the front door ajar, the house trashed, and a puddle of blood soaking into the bedroom carpet. Detective Darren McDaniel and his partner, Brent Vanderwyk, quickly determine it’s a case of domestic violence turned deadly. But both Levi and Jayda are missing – as is the little girl.
As the detectives plunge into the hunt for a suspect, a body and a missing toddler, the case becomes increasingly bizarre. The couple have ties to money laundering, drug trafficking, organized crime, and even darker secrets. As much as Levi and Jayda hated each other, plenty of other people had reason to want either or both of them dead.
With their suspect list steadily growing, and the missing toddler’s time slipping away, McDaniel and Vanderwyk race against the clock, piecing the puzzle together, hoping to save little Cami before her time runs out.
Axel Blackwell lives aboard an old trawler in a misty bay on the northwest edge of America. In his life he has been a preacher man, a salesman, and a lawman (occupations which all pretty much use the same script – “Do what I say or something really bad will happen.”)
Now he just writes stories.
His works include the Darren McDaniel Thriller Series, the Stillwater Suspense Series (Co-written with Dawn Lee McKenna), and two standalone paranormal thrillers: The Timeweaver’s Wager and Sisters of Sorrow.
Keep up to date with Axel's publishing schedule and other cool news by signing up for Axel's newsletter at AxelBlackwell.com