Thornley, Scott: Middlemen

Finalist, Crime Writers of Canada 2024 Awards of Excellence, Best Crime Novel category

When a killing spree threatens Dundurn, MacNeice risks everything to protect his team and put an end to it.

Detective Superintendent MacNeice returns to Dundurn following a month-long suspension and is immediately thrown into the mysterious case of a wounded runner named Jack and a blood trail that spans over forty miles. At the trail's source in a Carolinian forest, MacNeice and DI Fiza Aziz find evidence of two homicides, but no bodies.

Two days later, Mac is called to a torn-up orchard set ablaze by lightning. A body has been found lying next to a stack of burnt fruit trees. There's no evidence to suggest the killings are related, and yet MacNeice suspects they are. Buy why disappear the bodies in the forest and leave the orchard corpse to be discovered?

As the case develops, the team is confronted by the daylight abduction of a Brant University professor-Mac is convinced it's a killing about to happen. Going on the offensive, he employs the provincial alert system, in part, to let the kidnappers know the net is closing.