Books like Stillwater by Melissa Lenhardt

Jack McBride, a former FBI agent, takes on the role of chief of police in Stillwater, Texas, hoping to escape the shame surrounding his wife’s disappearance and to start fresh with his teenage son Ethan. Expecting a quiet tenure in a town with a five‑person police force, Jack quickly discovers that small‑town crime can be anything but simple. Within a week, he is interrogating a staged murder‑suicide, investigating a decades‑old skeleton hidden in the woods, and facing the first significant crime wave in thirty years. With the community’s expectations already tense, Jack turns to Ellie Martin, a respected and powerful figure in town whose own past is far from spotless. Despite questions about his personal life and Ethan’s disapproval, the two are drawn together as they work to untangle the intertwined investigations. As Jack and Ellie delve deeper, they uncover shattering secrets buried in Stillwater’s history. The cases he is pursuing, separated by fifty years, share a surprising connection that threatens to rattle the town to its core.

First publish date: 2015