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#1 in the Dr. Samantha Owens Series
As a medical examiner, Samantha Owens knows her job is to make sense of death. But since the day the Tennessee floods took her husband and children, she has been pulled into a suffocating grief no amount of workaholic ardor can penetrate—until she receives a peculiar call from Washington, D.C. On the other end of the line is an old boyfriend's mother, asking Sam to do a second autopsy on her son. Eddie Donovan is officially the victim of a vicious carjacking, but under Sam's sharp eye the forensics tell a darker story. The ex-Ranger was murdered, though not for his car. Forced to confront the burning memories and feelings about yet another loved one killed brutally, Sam loses herself in the mystery contained within Donovan's old notes. The tale told between the lines makes it clear that nobody's hands are clean, and that making sense of murder sometimes means putting yourself in the crosshairs of death.
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#2 in the Dr. Samantha Owens Series
Dr. Samantha Owens is starting over: new city, new job, new man, new life. But before she's even unpacked her office at Georgetown University's forensic pathology department, she's called to consult on a case that's rocked the capital and the country. An unknown pathogen released into the Washington Metro has caused nationwide panic. Three people died—just three. Amid the media frenzy and Homeland Security alarm bells, Sam painstakingly dissects the lives of those three victims and makes an unsettling conclusion. This is no textbook terrorist, but an assassin whose motive is deeply personal and far from understandable. Xander Whitfield, a former army ranger and Sam's new boyfriend, knows about seeing the world in shades of gray. About feeling compelled to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. Only his disturbing kinship with a killer can lead Sam to the truth...and once more into the line of fire.
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#3 in the Dr. Samantha Owens Series
Dear Dr. Owens, if you are reading this, I am dead and I would be most grateful if you could solve my murder... Forensic pathologist Dr. Samantha Owens thought life was finally returning to normal. Settling into her new job at Georgetown University, the illusion is shattered when she receives a disturbing letter from a dead man imploring her to solve his murder. There's only one catch. Timothy Savage's death was so obviously a suicide that the case has been closed. When Sam learns Savage left a will requesting she autopsy his body, she feels compelled to look into the case. The postmortem uncovers clear signs that Savage was indeed murdered. And she finds DNA from a kidnapped child whose remains were recovered years earlier. The investigation takes Sam into the shadows of a twenty-year-old mystery that must be solved to determine what really happened to Timothy Savage. Nothing about the case makes sense, but it is clear someone is unwilling to let anyone, especially Samantha Owens, discover the truth.
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#4 in the Dr. Samantha Owens Series
Waking to sirens in the night is hardly unusual for Sam Owens. No longer a medical examiner, she doesn't lose sleep over them, but a routine police investigation in her neighborhood has her curious. When her homicide detective friend, Darren Fletcher, invites her to look over the evidence, she immediately realizes the crime scene has been staged. What would seem to be a clear case of murder/suicide is anything but. The discovery of toxic substances in hidden vials indicates that something much more sinister is at play... As Fletch and Sam try to understand what and who they are dealing with, they are summoned to a meeting at the State Department. High-level officials are interested in what they know and, as the threat of bioterrorism is exposed, seem to be keeping secrets of their own. Unsure who to trust, Sam and Fletch find themselves up against very powerful people at every stage in the investigation. It's Sam's most complex case yet, and the terrifying reality is beyond anything she could have imagined.
