Sutton McPhee

Washington News reporter Sutton McPhee is in a funk. She has worked her way up to the big time – covering education for a major metro daily in the nation's capital, but even that job has lost its luster. She is jerked out of her professional doldrums, however, by the devastating news that her younger sister, Cara, has been murdered. Cara worked as a church secretary and was loved by her friends and the congregation. Her death by gunshot in a bank parking lot has left the police – and Sutton – mystified. When the police can't give her answers, Sutton's grief drives her to try to solve Cara's murder herself. The more she learns, the greater her determination to follow every lead until she finds her sister's killer. But that decision will take Sutton into a world where religious faith and power are masks for blackmail, greed, perversion and worse – and where Sutton soon finds her own life is on the line in her search for justice.

A Washington reporter turns sleuth to find her sister's killer in this thrilling mystery series debut. Washington News reporter Sutton McPhee is in a funk. After landing a dream assignment covering education for a major newspaper in the nation's capital, the daily grind quickly lost its luster. But her professional doldrums are nothing compared to the devastating news that her younger sister, Cara, has been murdered. Working as a church secretary, Cara was loved by friends and congregation alike. So her death by gunshot in a bank parking lot has left everyone mystified-especially Sutton. When the police investigation stalls, Sutton decides to solve Cara's murder herself. The more she learns about her sister's life, the more determined she becomes to find the ruthless killer who took it. But as Sutton digs deeper, she soon finds herself in a world where religious faith and power are masks for blackmail, greed, perversion, and worse-and where Sutton soon finds her own life on the line.

A top Senate aide has turned up dead from a drug overdose, her nude body found wrapped in a sheet in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. It doesn't require the reporting acumen of Washington News reporter Sutton McPhee to figure out someone else was involved. But Sutton - who now covers the Fairfax County police, after having risked her own life to solve her sister's murder - is all over it because she knows this new case has all the signs of a Washington scandal in the making. Even as Sutton works her sources, follows her reporter's instincts, and clashes with a new detective assigned to the case, police are called to the scene of another high-profile death: the murder of the wheelchair-bound wife of a Fairfax County Supervisor. It isn't long before Sutton's instincts tell her the two cases are somehow related - and Sutton won't stop until she knows exactly what that connection is. But even Sutton is shocked as she begins to learn just how high and how far the connections go, and just how much power can corrupt.

It's summertime in the nation's capital, and everyone seems to have fled the capital and its suburbs to escape the heat. Washington News reporter Sutton McPhee is struggling to find a decent story on her Fairfax County police beat. Even Sutton isn't prepared, however, when the young police officer who took her on a less-than-exciting ride-along is found shot to death in his apartment. The subsequent discovery of a body in a public park, where they had responded to a public drunkenness call, sets off Sutton's alarms and sends her looking for connections between the two murders. Her search for answers will take her from the corridors of power in Washington to her long-ago life as a reporter and wife in Florida. It also puts Sutton in the killer's crosshairs - someplace she has been before - but this time she isn't there alone. This time police detective Noah Lansing, her new romantic interest, is targeted right along with her, and it's up to Sutton to see to it that his 5-year-old son doesn't become an orphan.