Jess Lourey – författare

Inspired by a terrifying true story from the author’s hometown, a heart-pounding novel of suspense about a small Minnesota community where nothing is as quiet—or as safe—as it seems.Cassie McDowell’s life in 1980s Minnesota seems perfectly wholesome. She lives on a farm, loves school, and has a crush on the nicest boy in class. Yes, there are her parents’ strange parties and their parade of deviant guests, but she’s grown accustomed to them.All that changes when someone comes hunting in Lilydale.One by one, local boys go missing. One by one, they return changed—violent, moody, and withdrawn. What happened to them becomes the stuff of shocking rumors. The accusations of who’s responsible grow just as wild, and dangerous town secrets start to surface. Then Cassie’s own sister undergoes the dark change. If she is to survive, Cassie must find her way in an adult world where every sin is justified, and only the truth is unforgivable.

An ITW Thriller Award and Anthony Award winner.Perfect town. Perfect homes. Perfect families. It’s enough to drive some women mad…In a tale inspired by real events, pregnant journalist Joan Harken is cautiously excited to follow her fiancé back to his Minnesota hometown. After spending a childhood on the move and chasing the screams and swirls of news-rich city life, she’s eager to settle down. Lilydale’s motto, “Come Home Forever,” couldn’t be more inviting.And yet, something is off in the picture-perfect village.The friendliness borders on intrusive. Joan can’t shake the feeling that every move she makes is being tracked. An archaic organization still seems to hold the town in thrall. So does the sinister secret of a little boy who vanished decades ago. And unless Joan is imagining things, a frighteningly familiar figure from her past is on watch in the shadows.Her fiancé tells her she’s being paranoid. He might be right. Then again, she might have moved to the deadliest small town on earth.

The Amazon Charts bestselling author of Unspeakable Things and Bloodline explores the darkness at the heart of the rural Midwest in a novel inspired by a chilling true crime.In the summer of ’84, fourteen-year-old Frankie Jubilee is shuttled off to Litani, Minnesota, to live with her estranged mother, a county prosecutor she barely knows. From the start, Frankie senses something uneasy going on in the small town. The locals whisper about The Game, and her mother warns her to stay out of the woods and away from adults.When a bullying gang of girls invites Frankie to The Game, she accepts, determined to find out what’s really going on in Litani. She’s not the only one becoming paranoid. Hysteria burns through the community. Dark secrets emerge. And Frankie fears that, even in the bright light of day, she might be living among monsters.

Killers hiding in plain sight. Small-town secrets. A girl who knows too much. From the Amazon Charts bestselling author of Unspeakable Things and Bloodline comes a nerve-twisting novel inspired by a shocking true crime.Minnesota, 1977. For the teens of one close-knit community, summer means late-night swimming parties at the quarry, the county fair, and venturing into the tunnels beneath the city. But for two best friends, it’s not all fun and games.Heather and Brenda have a secret. Something they saw in the dark. Something they can’t forget. They’ve decided to never tell a soul. But their vow is tested when their friend disappears—the second girl to vanish in a week. And yet the authorities are reluctant to investigate.Heather is terrified that the missing girls are connected to what she and Brenda stumbled upon that night. Desperately searching for answers on her own, she learns that no one in her community is who they seem to be. Not the police, not the boys she met at the quarry, not even her parents. But she can’t stop digging because she knows those girls are in danger.She also knows she’s next.

Two girls vanished. A woman buried alive. Between two crimes lie decades of secrets yet to be unearthed in a pulse-pounding novel by the Edgar Award–nominated author of Unspeakable Things.Summer 1980: Despite the local superstition that the Bendy Man haunts the woods, three girls go into a Minnesota forest. Only one comes out, dead silent, her memory gone. The mystery of the Taken Ones captures the nation.Summer 2022: Cold case detective Van Reed and forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck are assigned a disturbing homicide—a woman buried alive, clutching a heart charm necklace belonging to one of the vanished girls. Van follows her gut. Harry trusts in facts. They’re both desperate to catch a killer before he kills again. They have something else in common: each has ties to the original case in ways they’re reluctant to share.As Van and Harry connect the crimes of the past and the present, Van struggles with memories of her own nightmarish childhood—and the fear that uncovering the truth of the Taken Ones will lead her down a path from which she, too, may never return.

By-the-book forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck and rogue BCA agent Van Reed must catch a cold-case killer who’s returned to abduct a small town’s children one by one in this heart-stopping novel from the Edgar Award–nominated author of Unspeakable Things.In 1998 an Alku, Minnesota, family of five was brutally murdered in their sleep. The event shook the insulated community but, without any solid leads, was relegated to the cold case files, where it moldered for twenty-five years. Until today.Agent Harry Steinbeck hoped never to return to the northland, a place that holds terrible memories of his sister’s abduction. But when a recent homicide is connected to Alku’s unsolved mass murder, he and cold case agent Evangeline Reed have no choice but to investigate.The case grows impossibly darker as, one by one, the children of Alku begin disappearing. And Harry and Van can’t shake the sensation that someone is watching every move they make.As an elusive killer’s trail leads to a truth more sinister than either imagined, Harry knows there’s only one way to crack this case: he must finally face the secrets of his own past—even if doing so will cost him everything.

Two murder investigations, decades apart, threaten to expose a cold case agent’s darkest secrets in a pulse-pounding thriller by the Edgar Award–nominated author of The Taken Ones.The bodies of three teenage girls are found in central Minnesota—each with her mouth fixed in a ghoulish grin, smiling at a deadly joke no one can hear. But authorities eventually close and forget the curious case, dubbed the Laughing Dead.Decades later, cold case agent Evangeline “Van” Reed is called to the scene of a crime where the victim wears that same horror-movie smile. But this time someone seems to be sending a message: Van’s police ID has turned up at the scene, making her the prime suspect. It’s not that outlandish, considering her secrets—ones she’s never even told her partner, forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck.As she feels others closing in, Van reopens the mystery of the Laughing Dead, hoping to find a connection to clear her name. But the search only gets darker. Because the more Van digs backward in time, the closer she comes to a terrible truth: Everything she has spent her life trying to hide is returning to haunt her.

A genius FBI code breaker unravels the mysteries of one of history’s most monumental puzzles in a propulsive thriller by Jess Lourey, the Edgar Award–nominated author of Salem’s Cipher.Working for the FBI, cryptanalyst and agoraphobe Salem Wiley vows never to return to the conspiratorial underworld her mother revealed to her. Until fieldwork draws Salem to an Ireland farm where a curious discovery has been unearthed: a near-perfect replica of Stonehenge in miniature—except for one extra stone engraved with the word mercy.When seven-year-old Mercy Mayfair, a child in Salem’s family’s care, is kidnapped, Salem knows it’s more than an unsettling coincidence. Mercy’s centuries-old lineage holds the key to understanding the greatest Neolithic mystery of the ages. A dangerously patriarchal society, just as ancient, will kill to solve it.As Salem follows a serpentine trail of clues and ciphers, the clock is ticking and her fears are escalating. Because the only way to save Mercy is for Salem to crack the unbreakable code of Stonehenge first.Revised edition: This edition of Mercy's Chase includes editorial revisions.

A waitress turned librarian just wants a new life. What she ends up with is a killer change of pace in a funny, snappy, and suspenseful mystery by Edgar Award–nominated author Jess Lourey.With a cheating boyfriend, a thankless career in waitressing, and her BA in English going to waste, Mira James jumps at the chance for a fresh start in rural Battle Lake, Minnesota.Right away she lands a job as a librarian, snags another as an on-call reporter for the weekly newspaper, and is swept off her feet by Jeff Wilson, a handsome archaeologist unearthing the town’s storied history. Moving here might be the best decision Mira’s ever made. Until she finds Jeff’s body between the library’s reference stacks. It seems Mira didn’t really know her drop-dead gorgeous new lover at all. But someone in Otter Tail County surely did.Behind this quirky town’s polite exterior are decades-old grudges still unsettled, and murderous secrets best kept hidden. Whatever dangers are buried in Battle Lake’s past, now it’s Mira’s turn to start digging.Revised edition: This edition of May Day includes editorial revisions.

A summertime treasure hunt in rural Minnesota leads to murder in this delightful gem of a rom-com mystery by Edgar Award–nominated author Jess Lourey.Summer in Battle Lake kicks off with fireworks and festivities, but it’s a local treasure hunt that’s amping up the tourist trade. It certainly piques the interest of part-time reporter Mira James—both as fodder for a column and because she could use the five grand in prize money.The treasure? A faux diamond hidden at the bottom of Whiskey Lake. When Mira takes a deep dive in search of it, rather than finding the planted jewel, she uncovers a legendary puzzle reaching back nearly seventy years. But fishing for answers puts her face-to-face with a suspicious new arrival: a creeper from her past up to his old menacing ways.When murder turns a hot June night into a scorcher, Mira realizes there are more mysteries hidden in this town than fake gems, and to solve them, she has to stay alive.Revised edition: This edition of June Bug includes editorial revisions.

Independence Day comes with fireworks, a budding romance, and hometown murder in this sharp and witty mystery by Edgar Award–nominated author Jess Lourey.When Fourth of July weekend coincides with Wenonga Days—the annual celebration of a locally famous Ojibwe leader—the town of Battle Lake double-dips on the tourist trade. This year the hullabaloo hasn’t even started and there’s already a story for reporter Mira James.The Chief Wenonga statue has disappeared, leaving behind drops of human blood and a big question for Mira: How and why would anyone steal a twenty-three-foot monument? Things go from curious to worse when a local man is kidnapped. And from worse to downright gruesome when a corpse is found in the lakeside cabin of a horticultural hottie Mira’s been crushing on from afar.Mira has no choice but to trail a statue thief, find a missing person, and clear an earthy dreamboat’s name from a murder charge. Not to mention risk her own life to unmask a cold-blooded killer.Revised edition: This edition of Knee High by the Fourth of July includes editorial revisions.

There’s nothing like a harvest party, a book ban, and a shocking murder to keep a plucky librarian distracted in this funny and suspenseful mystery by Edgar Award–nominated author Jess Lourey.Mira James has had it up to here with Battle Lake, Minnesota. After her latest romantic prospects go bust, she’s ready to move back to the Twin Cities and get a lapful of cats. Funny how murder can stall the best-laid plans.Days before the August Moon Festival, high school cheerleader Lucy Lebowski, Mira’s library assistant and an all-around sweetheart, is murdered. Mira’s investigation begins with the (not so) blessed flock of the New Millennium Bible Camp, its creepy pastor, his secretly wayward daughter, and the congregation of glassy-eyed Stepford wives. They all certainly have it in for Mira and her damnable books. But Lucy, too?If there’s one thing Mira’s learned, it’s that Battle Lake is full of secrets and grudges that somehow always end with a bang. Before she ditches this town for good, Mira is hell-bent on finding justice for Lucy—heaven help her.Revised edition: This edition of August Moon includes editorial revisions.

A festive fairground becomes an unexpected backdrop for a grade A murder in a deliciously funny mystery by Edgar Award–nominated author Jess Lourey.The Minnesota State Fair wows again with 4-H exhibits, rides, a Neil Diamond concert, and deep-fried everything on a stick. Covering it is a breezy assignment as fluffy as cotton candy for reporter Mira James, until the main attraction becomes murder.Ashley Pederson, crowned Milkfed Mary, Queen of the Dairy, is getting her all-American likeness carved in a block of unsalted butter when she drops dead, her face as red as a stoplight. Cause: malicious poisoning. Despite Ashley’s creamy good looks, her reputation was pretty rancid. Still, who’d want to take out the soon-to-be college freshman and Battle Lake resident? Mira’s made a vow to the dairy darling’s grieving mother to find out.Amid queenly competitors, rumors of sordid love affairs and embezzlement scandals, small-town secrets, and big business cover-ups, can Mira find the murderer on the Midway? You bet your corn dog she can.Revised edition: This edition of September Mourn includes editorial revisions.

What’s October without a festive mood, a chill in the air, and a dead body? There’s big trouble brewing in little Battle Lake in this Lefty-nominated mystery from Amazon Charts bestselling author Jess Lourey.Cue the accordions: Battle Lake, Minnesota, is kicking off October Fest with polka, sausage, and cold suds. The big inaugural event? A debate between two congressional hopefuls. One, stultifyingly sincere. The other, a foot-in-mouth tippler.Reporter Mira James is roped into covering their fighting words…and then a murder, when a relentless pit bull of a blogger is found dead at a motor lodge filled to capacity with fellow pundits, campaign entourages, and tourists—all of whom have just become suspects.Mired to her neck in deadly mudslinging, it’s up to Mira to sort through a pile of the candidates’ dirty laundry and expose a killer who’s giving her the pre-Halloween jitters, all while managing mixed messages from local hottie Johnny Leeson. Who knew the political season could be so scary?Revised edition: This edition of October Fest includes editorial revisions.

Going home for the holidays can be murder in a bracing mystery by Amazon Charts bestselling and Edgar Award–nominated author Jess Lourey.After more than a decade away, Mira James isn’t keen on returning to her Minnesota hometown for the holidays. Her childhood memories aren’t particularly jolly. Even less festive is the news of a serial killer on the loose.With only ten shopping days till Christmas, the Candy Cane Killer has been very busy slashing through the snow. Eager to earn her official PI stripes, Mira is anxious to track him down. But when the latest victim is a woman from her high school graduating class, the investigation hits a little too close to home.Even worse? Mira has good reason to fear that she’s next. To stop a killer in his tracks, she may have to start digging into the ghosts of her own Christmas past.Revised edition: This edition of December Dread includes editorial revisions.

The discovery of a frozen stiff reveals old buried secrets in a witty and invigorating mystery from Amazon Charts bestselling and Edgar Award–nominated author Jess Lourey.It may be six below zero, but an ice-skating jaunt gets even more chilling for private investigator in training Mira James. She’s just locked eyes with a frozen corpse floating under a sheet of ice.The man, a curious transient who’s been researching local history, also rescued Mira and her best friend from a mugging the night before. His death is no accident, but it is a mystery. To solve it, Mira follows a trail leading to the alleged haunting of a historic museum and a centuries-old tragedy that has yet to claim its final victim.With a killer on the loose amid a freakish winter thaw, Mira is on thin ice. If she doesn’t watch her back, she could be the next one to go under.Revised edition: This edition of January Thaw includes editorial revisions.

All aboard. It’s murder on the Valentine Train in a heart-racing mystery from Amazon Charts bestselling and Edgar Award–nominated author Jess Lourey.Mira James is heading to Oregon by rail with two of her best friends to attend a PI conference. Even better, she’ll see Johnny, the love of her life, who’s in Portland for an internship. It’ll be scenic, swift, and safe. Until it isn’t.When a winter storm brings the train to a dead stop in the Rockies, Mira discovers that a woman in the next cabin has been murdered, and her husband and child have vanished. Rumors of an escaped convict do nothing to ease the passengers’ frazzled nerves. To Mira, every one of them is a suspect.Trapped in a snowbound train with only two people she can trust, Mira has to solve a baffling disappearance and track down a killer—if she isn’t derailed herself. Permanently.Revised edition: This edition of February Fever includes editorial revisions.

Everybody’s got to have a hobby. But some pastimes hide murder in a delightfully crafty rom-com mystery by Amazon Charts bestselling and Edgar Award–nominated author Jess Lourey.A charitable senior finds her calling making creepily authentic life-size dolls. Call it recreation. But when Mira finds a dead body encased under that painted porcelain, it’s more like murder.It gets even stranger when Mira’s investigation lands her just where the Battle Lake police chief wants her: in jail. Luckily, Team Mira is on the case. They’re a fierce, if unlikely, force to be reckoned with: one flashy lady mayor and Mira’s scrappy nonagenarian best friend.They plan to bust Mira out and clear her name. Bad news, though: a bizarrely motivated killer is still on the loose and can’t wait to see Mira all dolled up—to death.Revised edition: This edition of March of Crimes includes editorial revisions.

Two disappearances and a murder. The mystery couldn’t be more personal in a witty and twisty rom-com caper from Amazon Charts bestselling and Edgar Award–nominated author Jess Lourey.After a year in Battle Lake, Minnesota, aspiring PI Mira James would kill not to stumble over another dead body. Given her latest discovery, though, it isn’t looking good.An ominous note hidden in an old book not only mentions Battle Lake’s former librarian, who vanished into thin air, but also Mira’s own father, who died thirteen years ago. The word “HELP” scrawled at the top is even more unnerving. But who’s in danger? And why?As if the note isn’t mystery enough, a girl’s sudden disappearance adds another case to Mira’s plate. To solve them both, Mira—and all of Battle Lake—must navigate deadly threats and a few surprises she never saw coming.Revised edition: This edition of April Fools includes editorial revisions.

A woman’s secret. A small town with a dark past. A serial killer bent on revenge. Lies kill in a shocking true crime–inspired thriller by the Edgar-nominated author of The Quarry Girls.Tuesday Hendrickson has spent eight years running from memories of that night. Her sister’s screams. Blood on the walls. And Arsen Bauer, a monster known as the Crying Killer, shot down in a barrage of bullets as he fled. Case closed.Intending to build a safe new identity out of the ashes, Tuesday changed her last name and moved away. She’s now a private investigator who guards herself and her daughter, Julia, like their lives depend on it. And maybe they do. Because unless she’s imagining things, Tuesday has seen Arsen on the streets of Saint Paul. She’d know her sister’s killer anywhere.When bodies begin surfacing bearing the Crying Killer’s brutal and unmistakable signature, Tuesday is certain he’s coming for them. Except no one believes that but her. As her paranoia intensifies, she is left with a terrible choice: unearth the shocking secret she buried with her sister, or become the Crying Killer’s next victim.© 2026 by Jess Lourey, all rights reserved.

A terrible family curse threatens four generations of women in a spellbinding novel of haunting secrets, magic, and healing by the Edgar Award–nominated author of The Taken Ones.After her husband’s infidelity, devastated Katrine Blackthorn reluctantly returns to Faith Falls, Minnesota, to her family’s Queen Anne mansion on the hill and the magic that binds them all.Her grandmother Velda charms everyone she meets. Her mother, Ursula, is a brewer of potions who sees a threat around every corner. And there’s her estranged sister, Jasmine, broken by something no one will name. With Katrine’s return, all that the Blackthorns have feared seems to be manifesting. The snakes amassing with the spring thaw and the stranger who’s rolled into town are just the first omens threatening the fragile peace the family is rebuilding.Now Katrine must face the darkest secret of her lineage and rediscover her own magic if the Blackthorn women are to survive.Revised edition: Previously published as The Catalain Book of Secrets, this edition of The Blackthorn Women includes editorial revisions.

THE WALL WAS BUILT TO KEEP THEM SAFE. OR SO THEY THOUGHT. . .Don't miss out on the stunning DELUXE LIMITED EDITION while supplies last. This breathtaking collectible is only available on a limited first print run, a must-have for any book lover. 💀Enter this gripping dystopic world where lies make up the fabric of reality, and the truth will leave you questioning everything. 💀🌳Fans of The Hunger Games, The Grace Year, and The Maze Runner will devour The Verdant Cage —a chilling dystopian thriller about what it takes to rebel when you discover your entire world is a lie.--For as long as seventeen-year-old apothecary Rose Allgood can remember, the towering stone Wall surrounding Noah's Valley has protected her people. No one leaves. No one fights. And no one questions why.But their paradise has been hiding its thorns. When Rose's mother becomes the Valley's first murder victim and her twin brother is swiftly condemned, she alone is searching for the real killer. Determined to find the truth, she follows a trail of hidden messages, forbidden knowledge, and whispers of a past no one dares to remember. The deeper she digs, the more certain Rose becomes that her mother's death was no accident. That the Wall isn't just keeping something out. It's keeping something in.--TROPES:🗡 Chilling Dystopic World🗡 Jaw-Dropping Twists🗡 Rebellion🗡 Forced Proximity🗡 Touch Her and Die

THE WALL WAS BUILT TO KEEP THEM SAFE. OR SO THEY THOUGHT. . .Don't miss out on the stunning DELUXE LIMITED EDITION while supplies last. This breathtaking collectible is only available on a limited first print run, a must-have for any book lover. 💀Enter this gripping dystopic world where lies make up the fabric of reality, and the truth will leave you questioning everything. 💀🌳Fans of The Hunger Games, The Grace Year, and The Maze Runner will devour The Verdant Cage —a chilling dystopian thriller about what it takes to rebel when you discover your entire world is a lie.--For as long as seventeen-year-old apothecary Rose Allgood can remember, the towering stone Wall surrounding Noah's Valley has protected her people. No one leaves. No one fights. And no one questions why.But their paradise has been hiding its thorns. When Rose's mother becomes the Valley's first murder victim and her twin brother is swiftly condemned, she alone is searching for the real killer. Determined to find the truth, she follows a trail of hidden messages, forbidden knowledge, and whispers of a past no one dares to remember. The deeper she digs, the more certain Rose becomes that her mother's death was no accident. That the Wall isn't just keeping something out. It's keeping something in.--TROPES:🗡 Chilling Dystopic World🗡 Jaw-Dropping Twists🗡 Rebellion🗡 Forced Proximity🗡 Touch Her and Die