Alex McKnight

Other than the bullet lodged less than a centimeter from his heart, former Detroit police officer Alex McKnight thought he had put the nightmare of his partner's death and his own near-fatal injury behind him. After all, Maximilian Rose, convicted of the crimes, has been locked in the state pen for years. But in the small town of Paradise, Michigan, where McKnight has traded his badge for a cozy cabin in the woods, a murderer with Rose's unmistakable trademarks appears to be back to his killing ways.

Other than the bullet lodged less than a centimeter from his heart, former Detroit police officer Alex McKnight thought he had put the nightmare of his partner’s death and his own near-fatal injury behind him. After all, Maximilian Rose, convicted of the crimes has been locked in the state pen for years. But in the small town of Paradise, Michigan, where McKnight has traded his badge for a cozy cabin in the woods, a murderer with Rose’s unmistakable trademarks appears to be back to his killing ways.

When a young woman from the Ojibwa tribe asks McKnight for shelter from her violent boyfriend, McKnight agrees. But after letting her stay in one of his cabins, he finds her gone the next morning. His search for her brings on a host of suspects, bruising encounters, and a thickening web of crime, all obscured by the relentless whiplash of brutal snowstorms. From the secret world of the Ojibwa reservation to the Canadian border and deep into the silent woods, someone is out to kill―and McKnight is heading right into the line of fire.

Before he became a private investigator, before he served in the Detroit police, and long before he retreated to the wintry reaches of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Alex McKnight played ball in the minor leagues. He doesn’t spend much time thinking about those days, at least not until a former teammate comes looking for him. The man is here to ask a favor. He wants Alex to help him find the woman with whom he had a brief, passionate affair three decades ago. But as the search deepens, McKnight begins to suspect that he hasn’t been told the full story.

After a game of cards turns into a professional heist, Alex McKnight finds himself lying facedown on the floor with a gun to the back of his head. When the dust settles, McKnight is one of the police chief’s lead suspects. Worse, one of the other card players has the same idea, and he has no qualms about exercising some vigilante justice of his own. Now, Alex knows he is the only one who can uncover the truth. But he’s about to discover how dark this conspiracy truly is―or how close to guilt he actually stands.

Reluctant investigator Alex McKnight finds himself drawn by friendship into a long drive north. The brother of Alex's longtime Ojibwa friend Vinnie LeBlanc works as a hunting guide, serving the rich clients from downstate. It seems that Vinnie's brother and his most recent group of hunters have vanished in northern Ontario, and Vinnie is scared enough to ask Alex to help him find them. Their arrival sets in motion a heart-pounding string of events that leaves Alex and his friend miles from civilization.

Alex McKnight is in love. Even though he met Natalie Reynaud, an officer from the Ontario Provincial Police, under difficult circumstances, they share a common bond of solitude, as well as the same nightmare - they're both cops who buried their partners. It's Alex's first real relationship in years, which in some ways is terrifying. But Natalie has her own fears to deal with - and her own secrets.

On a freezing night in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, a night that wouldn’t feel so unusual if it weren’t the Fourth of July, a boat plows full speed into a line of old railroad pilings in the shallow water of Waishkey Bay. After Alex helps rescue the passengers, he figures he’ll never see them again. He couldn’t be more wrong. The men he saved are connected to a deadly drug-smuggling syndicate, and it’s up to Alex to do damage control―and protect the woman he loves―before the cycle of violence comes around full circle.

On a frozen January night, a young man hangs himself in a lonely corner of the Upper Peninsula, in a place they call Misery Bay. Alex McKnight does not know this young man, and he won’t even hear about the suicide until two months later, when the last person Alex would ever expect comes to him for help. What seems like a simple quest to find a few answers will turn into a nightmare of sudden violence and bloody revenge, and a race against time to catch a ruthless and methodical killer.

Late one night, a plane lands on a deserted airstrip. Five dead bodies are found there the next morning. And now Vinnie LeBlanc is missing. Vinnie is a member of the Ojibwa Indian tribe, and he just might be Alex McKnight’s best friend. So Alex can’t help but be worried when he disappears. There’s a deadly crime war creeping into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and Alex never would have thought that his friend could be involved. But after an unexpected stranger arrives in town, Alex will soon find out that the stakes are higher than he ever could have imagined.

Alex McKnight swore to serve and protect Detroit as a police officer, but a trip to Motown these days is a trip to a past he’d just as soon forget. The city will forever remind him of his partner’s death and of the bullet still lodged in his own chest. Then he gets a call from his old sergeant. A young man Alex helped put away—in the one big case that marked the high point of his career—will be getting out of prison. When the sergeant invites Alex downstate to have a drink for old times’ sake, it’s an offer he would normally refuse.

On the Mediterranean Sea, a vacationer logs on to the security-camera feed from his home in Arizona. He sees an intruder. When he shifts to the bedroom camera, he sees the dead body. Martin T. Livermore is the key suspect in the abduction and murder of at least five women, but he's never been this sloppy before. When the FBI finally catches him in Scottsdale, he declares he'll only talk to one person: a retired police officer from Detroit, now a private investigator living in the tiny town of Paradise, Michigan. A man named Alex McKnight.