JL Collins Publishing LLC
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THE ALIBI WAS PERFECT. THAT’S HOW SHE KNEW THE HOUR WAS A LIE.
A forensic auditor is found strangled inside a sealed, camera-watched vault. Badge logs prove no one entered or left during the only hour she could have died, and the man with a motive was on camera across the city.
Detective Cassandra Vale forgets nothing—and something about the cold is wrong. As she and Ethan Ward pull the thread, the impossible becomes worse: a killer who didn’t hide how he got in, but when.
A fair-play locked-room thriller and Book Five of The Vale & Ward Files.
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About the Book
A forensic auditor is found strangled inside the Halvorsen vault — a sealed, camera-watched, climate-controlled records facility two floors below the street. The badge logs prove no one entered or left during the only hour she could have died. The one man with a reason to want her silenced was on camera across the city the whole time. A murder in a room no one entered, in an hour no suspect could have used.
The city wants to call it impossible and look away. Detective Cassandra Vale won't — because she can't. Cass forgets nothing, and something about the cold in that vault is wrong.
As she and her partner Ethan Ward pull the thread, the impossible dissolves into something worse: a killer who didn't hide how he got in, but when — and a seven-year-old death, filed as an accident, that a murdered woman reopened before she died. To prove it, Cass will have to break an alibi the whole city believes, using the two things a thermostat can never reach: a forensic clock that can't be tampered with, and the one witness who can't be warmed, bought, wiped, or made afraid.
The Cold Hour is the fifth Vale & Ward File — a fair-play, locked-room thriller about time, memory, and the handful of people who refuse to forget. Perfect for readers of Tana French, Anthony Horowitz, and anyone who loves an impossible crime with a solution that plays fair. New readers can start here.
One-click and see if you can beat her to the hour.
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