James Lilliefors – författare

Luke Bowers is in the good and evil business.

On a cold, late-winter morning in the Chesapeake Bay community of Tidewater County, Bowers discovers a dead woman seated in a pew at the church where he is pastor—her eyes open, her hands clasped as if in prayer.

Nothing at the scene identifies the woman or explains why she was at the church. And when state police homicide investigator Amy Hunter comes to town to head up the case, not everyone is pleased that a young, female outsider has the job. The only lead in solving the crime is a sequence of numbers that has been carved into the victim's right hand, which Bowers suspects may be a reference to the Book of Psalms.

With Bowers's help, Hunter follows a chain of seemingly innocuous clues to track down a deranged serial killer and unravel an elusive criminal enterprise that is more powerful than they ever could have imagined.

James Lilliefors's unlikely detective duo, Pastor Luke Bowers and homicide investigator Amy Hunter, return in a new murder mystery set in Maryland's picturesque Tidewater County

Tourists like Susan Champlain pass through the Chesapeake Bay region every year. But when Susan pays Pastor Luke Bowers a visit, he's disturbed by what she shares with him. Her husband has a short temper, she says, and recently threatened to make her "disappear" because of a photo Susan took on her phone.

Luke is concerned enough to tip off Tidewater County's chief homicide investigator, Amy Hunter. That night, Susan's body is found at the foot of the Widow's Point bluff. Hunter soon discovers Susan left behind clues that may connect her fate to a series of killings in the Northeast, a powerful criminal enterprise, and to a missing Rembrandt masterpiece, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee.

Whoever is behind the killings has created a storm of deception and betrayal, a deliberate "tempest" designed to obscure the truth. Now Hunter and Bowers must join forces to trace the dangerous secret glimpsed in Susan's photo. But will they be the next targets on a killer's deadly agenda . . . ?

In remote pockets of the Third World, a deadly virus is quietly sweeping through impoverished farming villages and shanty towns with frightening speed and potency. In West Africa, an undercover dissident journalist learns of an investment consortium planning to funnel billions of dollars into the continent. Before he can publicize details, he is savagely murdered. And in Washington, a three-word message left in a safe deposit box may be the thread that connects these seemingly unrelated incidents—if, that is, two brothers can decipher it before time runs out. Charles Mallory, a private intelligence contractor and former CIA operative, begins to discover the traces of a secret war, with a bold objective—to create a new, technologically advanced, and lucrative society in an unlikely region of Africa; a model civilization able to solve the age-old, seemingly insoluble problems that plague many Third World nations. With the help of his brother, Jon, can he break the story to the world before it is too late—before the "humane depopulation" takes place? As the stakes and strategies of this secret war become more evident, the Mallory brothers find themselves in a complex game of wits with an enemy they can''t see: a new sort of superpower led by a brilliant, elusive tactician who believes that ends justify means.

Homeland Security Secretary Catherine Blaine receives a frightening communication from a hacker identified only by the pseudonym Janus. The message is the latest in a series correctly predicting natural disasters around the world—disasters that, Janus claims, were manufactured, not natural at all. And, according to the email, unless the United States does as Janus instructs, another disaster is coming—a Category 5 hurricane that will hit the Eastern Seaboard and destroy the lives of tens of millions of people.

Unaware of the crisis in Washington, investigative journalist Jon Mallory stumbles upon a list of seven prominent scientists who have been murdered over the past dozen years. When the person who gave him the list disappears, Jon realizes he has unwittingly become part of a deadly chain of events and contacts his brother, private intelligence contractor Charles, for help. Meanwhile, Catherine Blaine has also come to Charles for help in tracking down Janus and uncovering the frightening new weather technology that threatens the world.

En kall vintermorgon ser Luke Bowers en kvinna sittandes på bänken i kyrkan där han är pastor. Hennes ögon är öppna, hennes händer är sammanflätade som om hon bad. Och hon är död.Kriminalaren Amy Hunter kommer till staden för att leda utredningen. Det enda spår hon har att gå på är en serie nummer som är inkarvade i den döda kvinnans högra hand. Pastorn misstänker att siffrorna syftar på verser i Psaltaren.Med Bowers hjälp, och en rad till synes intetsägande ledtrådar, påbörjar Hunter jakten efter en seriemördare. Spåren leder dem till något större och mäktigare än de någonsin kunde ha föreställt sig.

Att Susan Champlain inte är som de andra turisterna i Tidewater County förstår pastor Luke Bowers direkt. Susan söker upp honom och berättar att hennes man har hotat henne till livet på grund av ett foto. Besöket gör honom så pass uppskakad att han nämner det för sin vän, kriminalkommissarie Amy Hunter.Samma natt hittas Susans döda kropp på stranden. Polisen hittar kopplingar till en stulen tavla av Rembrandt, andra olösta mordfall och de mäktiga kriminella rörelser som verkar i området.Amy Hunter anar att den som ligger bakom morden har byggt upp en väv av illusioner och bedrägerier för att dölja sanningen. Amy och pastorn slår sina kloka huvuden ihop. Och samtidigt riskerar de att bli mördarens nästa måltavla ...