The Deadly Secret

This isn't the first time the Johnson twins have set fire to the shed behind the junkyard, but it's the first time anyone has found a body in it.

It's 1934, the mid-point of the Great Depression, and a year since the Army was called in to put down the furniture strikes in Chaseford. Vagrants wander the countryside, unknown, unkempt men, jobless and homeless, looking for work or a handout. Tensions are high, and nobody knows whom to trust. In times like these, a person could get away with murder.

It's been less than six months since Constable Joel Franklin used his unusual gift to communicate with the dead-or essences, as he prefers to call them-to help apprehend a notorious spree killer in Toronto, but it looks like another multiple murderer is already on the lose, this time closer to home. Much too close.

As the bodies pile up in the ditches and fields around Chaseford, Chief Petrovic, head of the Chaseford Police Force, is finding it harder and harder to control his temper. No matter how many stones they turn over, the killer continues to elude them. Are his emotions getting in the way of his judgment?

But Joel, with the aid of his plucky wife, Georgie, and the dauntless courage of his fellow constables, Peter Herman, Jake Smith, and Jay Jarvis, are determined to catch the bloodthirsty maniac behind the brutal killings. The only question is: can they do it before an angry mob of citizens takes the law into their own hands? The last thing anyone needs is vigilante justice.

The Deadly Secret is the latest installment in the Joel Franklin Mystery series, which began with Lightning at 200 Durham Street. The events of The Deadly Secret take place between the events of Terror on the Way and One Foot Out of the Grave, when Joel was still a young constable in the little town of Chaseford.

This paranormal historical whodunit set in Ontario, Canada, with a cast of recurring characters, harks back to the Golden Age of detective fiction and will appeal to readers of all ages.