Kendra Elliot – författare

Hidden is the first book in Bone Secrets, the multimillion-copy bestselling series.

Eleven years ago, the Co-ed Slayer murdered nine female students on the Oregon State University campus. Lacey Campbell barely escaped his attack, but lost her best friend whose remains were never found. As the sole surviving victim, Lacey helped send the sadistic serial killer to prison for life.

Now a forensic odontologist examining teeth and bones for the state Medical Examiner, Lacey is devastated when she arrives at a crime scene and identifies the skeletal remains as her college friend’s.

The remains are discovered on the land of ex-cop Jack Harper. Sparks fly between him and Lacey, even as they realize that the prosecution’s witnesses from a decade ago are now being murdered one by one. All the evidence points to the Co-ed Slayer as the culprit—only, he’s long since dead. So who’s the new killer? And is Lacey next in line to die?

Golden Heart finalist Kendra Elliot combines chilling suspense and steamy romance in a gripping tale, uniting in-depth forensic knowledge with a passion for thrillers. Set in the snowy winter of Oregon, Hidden creates spine-tingling chills.

Chilled is the second book in Bone Secrets, the multimillion-copy bestselling series.

As a forensic nurse on a search and rescue team, Brynn Nealey braves a dangerous blizzard to find the survivors of a plane crash in the Cascade Mountains. Joining her is Alex Kinton, a former US Marshal with self-destructive tendencies. Alex lies his way onto Brynn’s team to find the man who killed his brother—and then return the favor. But once the team members reach the plane’s wreckage, they discover everyone aboard has perished…except for the man Alex is hunting. Alex will do whatever it takes to track his target through the vast, snowy wilderness.

As the temperatures drop, however, so do Alex’s defenses. His contact with the sharp, kindhearted Brynn makes his lust for vengeance difficult to reconcile with his growing feelings for a woman who risks her life to help others. What will happen to Alex’s savage instincts when he finally has the opportunity to confront his brother’s killer?

In Chilled, the next thrilling tale in the Bone Secrets saga, Golden Heart finalist Kendra Elliot weaves an icy tale of cold nights, cold hearts, and cold-blooded killers.

An RT Reviewers’ Choice Award Finalist, Romantic Suspense.

Alone is the fourth book in Bone Secrets, the multimillion-copy bestselling series.

One rainy night in the woods outside of Portland, Dr. Victoria Peres is called to the site of a haunting crime scene. Six beautiful young girls—all in white dresses and arranged in a perfect circle—have been left for dead. Only one girl, fighting for her life at a nearby hospital, has survived the carnage. Things get stranger still when Victoria and the police discover that the disturbing arrangement of the bodies—as meticulous as it is mysterious—is straight from the pages of a decades-old cold case. Victoria is called on to do what she does best, read the bones of the dead for clues…while dealing with the surprise return of her first love, medical examiner Seth Rutledge. Only this time she must figure out how the two cases, fifty years apart, are connected.

In the fourth book in her heart-pounding Bone Secrets series, bestselling author Kendra Elliot sends readers on a dark and thrilling journey as forensic anthropologist Victoria Peres races to solve a horrific new case while confronting the secrets of her past.

From Wall Street Journal bestselling author Kendra Elliot.

When an eleven-year-old is abducted on her way to school, the FBI doesn’t waste a moment, sending agents to scour the area and embedding Special Agent Ava McLane with the distraught family. In the eye of the storm is local detective Mason Callahan, whose life is crumbling to pieces—he’s related to the victim, and his longtime confidential informant has just been murdered.

Both he and Agent McLane hole up in the victim’s family home. Every second counts in a kidnapping case, and the stakes keep rising the longer the girl is missing. As Ava and Mason struggle to hold the family together in their darkest hour, the two investigators find themselves drawn to each other.

2015 Overall Daphne du Maurier Award Winner

A Wall Street Journal bestseller

After a congressman’s tortured body is found dangling from a Portland bridge, the FBI joins the Oregon State Police to investigate the case—and FBI Special Agent Ava McLane, still recovering from a bullet wound, hunts the twisted killer alongside the man who captured her heart, police detective Mason Callahan.

But once a third body appears and all evidence points to a serial killer, the public furiously clamors for answers—and the couple’s relationship grows fractured under the pressure. Ava and Mason search in the past for clues that predict the future. And when Ava’s mentally ill twin spins out of control, the FBI agent who battles monsters every day wonders if she shares her sister’s self-destructive streak…

In the latest thrilling romantic suspense novel from award-winning author Kendra Elliot, the past and the present violently collide…and the fallout can be deadly.

There are no secrets in a small town—until someone has one worth dying for.

Local cop Stevie Taylor and police chief Zane Duncan have startling new proof that a deadly street drug is expanding its poisonous grip on their small town: a skull found on the banks of the Rogue River has two bullet holes in the back. Still caught up in the excitement of their new relationship, Stevie and Zane are determined to track down the drug’s source before more lives in Solitude, Oregon, are lost.

Then one death strikes especially close to home, leading to heartache and confusion for Stevie. As the drug distributers strike hard and the body count in Solitude grows higher, she and Zane must hunt down the deadly killer—but are they the predators, or the prey?

Filled with unexpected twists, Her Grave Secrets is the third exciting Rogue River novella in the romantic suspense series from Kendra Elliot and Melinda Leigh.

In a small town like Solitude, Oregon, keeping a secret can be murder.

Stevie Taylor had left her sleepy Oregon hometown for a more exciting life. But after her police chief father passes away, the LAPD cop returns to Solitude and signs on as a patrol officer, hoping to heal from her loss…and from the horrific things she’s seen in the city.

In Solitude, everyone knows everyone else’s business—and, to Stevie’s dismay, local gossip soon ties her to the new police chief and a man from her past. Tragedy then shakes up the small town when a teenager dies after taking a strange new drug. Now, the seasoned LA cop must hunt down the dealer while investigating the most important case of her life, one that could divide her tranquil town.

The first of four thrilling Rogue River novellas, On Her Father’s Grave launches a new romantic suspense series from Kendra Elliot and Melinda Leigh.

A Wall Street Journal bestseller and Daphne du Maurier Award winner.

FBI Special Agent Ava McLane solves crimes; she doesn’t witness them. When she’s trapped in a mall without her weapon as a shooter picks off victims, she hides with a wounded teen and prays for her survival.

But that’s only the beginning…

An epidemic of mass shootings has swept across Oregon. The young shooters terrify the public, committing random murders before taking their own lives. The task force assembled to solve the case—which includes Ava’s boyfriend, detective Mason Callahan—remains stumped. And on top of this chaos, Ava’s troubled twin sister reappears, throwing Ava’s already-tumultuous life into a tailspin.

An old-fashioned cop with a strong sense of duty, Mason struggles to find the cause of the shootings as workaholic Ava spins ever closer to breaking down. But can one detective save the lives of countless innocents—and prevent the woman he loves from going over the edge?

A Wall Street Journal bestseller.

Known is the fifth book in Bone Secrets, the multimillion-copy bestselling series.

After a brutal snowstorm in the Cascade Mountains, Chris Jacobs discovers two things he never expected to see: the charred shell of a cabin, and Gianna Trask and her sixteen-year-old daughter huddled in an SUV, having barely escaped from their burning vacation rental.

Still scarred from a childhood ordeal, Chris knows there’s something sinister about the scene—it’s the stench of burned flesh.

Forced to wait out the blizzard in their rescuer’s retreat, medical examiner Gianna Trask wonders if her hidden past has finally caught up with her. When a body is found in the destroyed cabin’s ashes and a forest ranger is brutally murdered, both Gianna and Chris must confront their secrets if they want to escape the violent threat lurking outside.

In the fifth book in the Bone Secrets series, Kendra Elliot leads readers on a dangerous, twisting journey of two lives forever changed by a fiery snowstorm in the mountains.

On Christmas morning, Solitude, Oregon, unwraps murder…

This wasn’t how Police Chief Zane Duncan expected to spend his first Christmas with fellow officer and girlfriend Stevie Taylor. But when a local motel calls in the discovery of a dead body, the couple’s holiday takes a grim turn. This is the second murder in Solitude within the week, despite the fact that their primary suspect is already in custody. Together, Zane and Stevie must face a disturbing truth—their small town may be harboring two killers.

As their investigation digs deep into the backgrounds of newcomers and longtime residents alike, Zane and Stevie also struggle to adjust to life under the same roof. Even if the stress of homicides and cohabitation don’t bring an end to the couple, the murderer lying in wait just might.

A Wall Street Journal bestseller

All Detective Mason Callahan wanted was a quiet fishing trip with the guys—a chance to get away and unwind before Halloween.

Until he finds the body of his boss, Denny Schefte, near their remote Oregon cabin. Now all he wants is to catch the sadist who slit Denny’s throat and covered his face with a mask. Mason was the last person to see him alive and will stop at nothing to find his friend’s murderer.

When the FBI learns of the mask left at the scene, they realize they have a serial killer on their hands—one who is targeting cops. They assign the case to Special Agent Ava McLane, despite her engagement to Mason. Barely recovered from her own nearly fatal injury and her sister’s attempted suicide, Ava hopes she is ready to chase another killer.

But as she delves into the increasingly disturbing case, the killer may be closer than expected—dangerously close.

FBI special agent Mercy Kilpatrick has been waiting her whole life for disaster to strike. A prepper since childhood, Mercy grew up living off the land—and off the grid—in rural Eagle’s Nest, Oregon. Until a shocking tragedy tore her family apart and forced her to leave home. Now a predator known as the cave man is targeting the survivalists in her hometown, murdering them in their homes, stealing huge numbers of weapons, and creating federal suspicion of a possible domestic terrorism event. But the crime scene details are eerily familiar to an unsolved mystery from Mercy’s past.

Sent by the FBI to assist local law enforcement, Mercy returns to Eagle’s Nest to face the family who shunned her while maintaining the facade of a law-abiding citizen. There, she meets police chief Truman Daly, whose uncle was the cave man’s latest victim. He sees the survivalist side of her that she desperately tries to hide, but if she lets him get close enough to learn her secret, she might not survive the fallout…

In the first Rogue Vows novella, Zane and Stevie are about to get an unexpected wedding present…and it’s a deadly one.

It should be the happiest weekend of Officer Stevie Taylor’s life. She’s finally going to marry Police Chief Zane Duncan and live happily ever after in Solitude, Oregon. But all wedding plans grind to a halt when a dead body is found at a nearby campground. A vacationing A-list TV actor has been murdered…and all hell is about to break loose.

When it comes to a celebrity murder, everyone has a motive—and everyone wants a piece of the action. As news media and paparazzi swarm their sleepy town, Stevie and Zane must dig deep to untangle a web of lies, dirty little secrets, and betrayals—and uncover the killer. But the closer they get to the truth, the deadlier their investigation becomes. And if they don’t act quickly, ’Til death do us part may come sooner than they thought.

An Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestseller.

Raised by a family of survivalists, FBI agent Mercy Kilpatrick can take on any challenge—even the hostile reception to her homecoming. But she''s not the only one causing chaos in the rural community of Eagle''s Nest, Oregon. At first believed to be teenage pranks, a series of fires takes a deadly turn with the murder of two sheriff''s deputies. Now, along with Police Chief Truman Daly, Mercy is on the hunt for an arsonist turned killer.

Still shunned by her family and members of the community, Mercy must keep her ear close to the ground to pick up any leads. And it''s not long before she hears rumors of the area''s growing antigovernment militia movement. If the arsonist is among their ranks, Mercy is determined to smoke the culprit out. But when her investigation uncovers a shocking secret, will this hunt for a madman turn into her own trial by fire?

A Wall Street Journal bestselling series.

Clues to a hidden treasure. Clues to a family secret. Both lead to murder in a twisting novel of suspense by Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Kendra Elliot.

A national treasure hunt with a $2 million prize has driven obsessed fortune seekers to overrun the small town of Eagle’s Nest, Oregon. The hunt’s cryptic clues and the lure of wealth have exposed the desperate side of human greed: theft, fights, trespassing—and even the motive to kill. Police chief Truman Daly craves peace in his town but has a murder on his hands instead. Now the big prize isn’t the only thing hiding in the pines. So is a killer.

When a young boy walks into the local café and claims his mother and baby sister have been missing for weeks, FBI special agent Mercy Kilpatrick investigates and exposes a disturbing twist in his story. Deep family secrets and lies that started sixty years ago have burst into the present, bringing with them deadly consequences.

Mercy’s and Truman’s investigations lead down a path of murder, revenge, and buried secrets to uncover two intertwined mysteries as dark as an Oregon forest.

In this Wall Street Journal bestseller, a pair of ritual murders could expose Mercy Kilpatrick to something terrifying: her own past…

Raised off the grid by survivalists, Mercy Kilpatrick believed in no greater safeguard than the backwoods of Oregon. Unforgiven by her father for abandoning the fold for the FBI, Mercy still holds to her past convictions. They’re in her blood. They’re her secrets—as guarded as her private survival retreat hidden away in the foothills.

In a cabin near her hideaway, Mercy encounters a young girl whose grandmother is dying from multiple knife wounds. Hundreds of miles away, a body is discovered slashed to death in a similar way. The victims—a city judge and an old woman living in the woods—couldn’t be more different. With the help of police chief Truman Daly, Mercy must find the killer before the body count rises. Mercy knows that the past has an edge on her. So does her family. How can she keep her secrets now…when they’re the only things that can save her?

The breathtaking companion novella to Twisted Truth from Wall Street Journal bestselling author Kendra Elliot.

A torrential two-day storm has cut off the small town of Solitude, Oregon, from the outside world. But for police officers Stevie Duncan and her husband, Zane, the ravages of nature have nothing on the nature of man. In the last forty-eight hours, a child was a mute witness to a double homicide; an unidentified body has washed up on the riverbanks; and now, at the foot of a submerged bridge, two FBI agents have been found shot to death inside their SUV. What’s worse, the young charge they were enlisted to protect has gone missing.

With the only exit out of town washed away, Stevie and Zane know that the murderer is trapped. But whatever’s going on in Solitude is far from over—because as sure as the receding water, the killer is going to resurface.

A Wall Street Journal bestselling series.

The mystery of three missing teens and a traumatizing murder unearths decades of buried secrets in a shocking novel of suspense by a Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestselling author.

Twenty years ago, five teenage campers disappeared. Two eventually turned up, bound and left for dead on the Columbia River’s rocky shore. Only Devin Bonner miraculously survived, but with no memories of what happened in the Oregon forest.

After decades, the cold case generates heat for FBI Special Agent Mercy Kilpatrick and her husband, Police Chief Truman Daly. They’re investigating the murder of a true-crime podcaster found at the river’s edge in the same location, and with the exact same manner of death. With the discovery, Devin’s nightmares return. His only real friend is Ollie Smith, Truman’s orphaned ward, whose own search for the truth sucks Ollie into a mystery far greater and more dangerous than anyone imagined.

Following a trail of fresh blood and an escalating series of murders, Mercy and Truman must work fast to unlock whatever traumas are buried in Devin’s memories before the secrets of the past claim another victim.

A Wall Street Journal bestselling series.

Following a murder and a woman’s sudden disappearance, investigations into old crimes and new collide in an alarming novel of suspense by a Wall Street Journal and Amazon Charts bestselling author.

Detective Evan Bolton is gutted by his latest investigation. His friend and mentor, retired detective Rod McLeod, has been murdered, his body left in the trunk of a junkyard car. When McLeod’s daughter and grandson abruptly vanish, Evan knows it’s not a coincidence. Search and rescue canine specialist Rowan Wolff agrees as she and her dog, Thor, track the missing family.

The two cases converge in a puzzling twist. Evan discovers that McLeod has been reinvestigating old crimes—solved but not forgotten. Evan takes them on, one by one, and a disturbing suspicion forms that someone in law enforcement has something to hide and would do anything to keep those secrets buried.

But Evan and Rowan’s time is slipping away. They have to find the killer now. Before someone else disappears. Before someone else dies.

When two cross-country cases collide, Bree Taggert and Mercy Kilpatrick join forces to catch a serial killer in an addictive novel of suspense by bestselling authors Melinda Leigh and Kendra Elliot.

During a vicious heat wave, a county maintenance worker stumbles upon two suspicious suitcases abandoned by the side of the road. Sheriff Bree Taggert responds to find two bodies stuffed inside the luggage. The press demands action. The community is on edge. Suddenly, Bree is at the center of a media firestorm.

In Oregon, a senator’s daughter goes missing. FBI Special Agent Mercy Kilpatrick agrees to keep the politically sensitive case on the down-low. When she finds a link between the disappearance and a double homicide three thousand miles away, Mercy takes the next plane out—and lands right in the middle of Bree’s double homicide investigation.

To save the missing girl, Bree and Mercy must work together to stop a killer who’s playing deadly games with the press and stirring up public rage. Hungry for notoriety, he dares Bree and Mercy to catch him before he kills again.

When a very personal cold case murder is reopened, a detective’s secrets come to light in a novel of shocking twists and suspense by a Wall Street Journal bestselling author.

Thirteen years ago, Assemblyman Derrick Bell was murdered in his home by an intruder. His wife, Noelle Marshall, was left for dead. The crime was unsolved, but it wasn’t forgotten.

Today the FBI is tackling a fresh perspective on the case and looking to Noelle, now a detective for the Deschutes County sheriff’s office, for new clues. It is reopening everything Noelle thought was behind her. Memories of her escape from a traumatic childhood. A marriage that wasn’t the perfect love story she’d been promised. And a husband whose charm and privilege hid a dark side. But Noelle has been hiding something too: a secret about the night Derrick died that she has never told anyone.

As past and present and leads and misleads collide, one thing is frighteningly clear. Derrick’s murder wasn’t just unsolved. It’s unfinished. And only the truth—no matter the risk—can save the next victim.

When a very personal cold case murder is reopened, a detective’s secrets come to light in a novel of shocking twists and suspense by a Wall Street Journal bestselling author.

Thirteen years ago, Assemblyman Derrick Bell was murdered in his home by an intruder. His wife, Noelle Marshall, was left for dead. The crime was unsolved, but it wasn’t forgotten.

Today the FBI is tackling a fresh perspective on the case and looking to Noelle, now a detective for the Deschutes County sheriff’s office, for new clues. It is reopening everything Noelle thought was behind her. Memories of her escape from a traumatic childhood. A marriage that wasn’t the perfect love story she’d been promised. And a husband whose charm and privilege hid a dark side. But Noelle has been hiding something too: a secret about the night Derrick died that she has never told anyone.

As past and present and leads and misleads collide, one thing is frighteningly clear. Derrick’s murder wasn’t just unsolved. It’s unfinished. And only the truth—no matter the risk—can save the next victim.