Down the Darkest Road - Softcover

#1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag returns with the latest entry in her riveting Oak Knoll series.
Deeper Than the Dead introduced Tami Hoag's millions of fans to Oak Knoll, a small California town that, in the mid-eighties, seemed as idyllic as any . . . until the See-No-Evil killer shattered that notion. It took FBI agent Vince Leone and a new technique called "profiling" to put an end to the trauma.
Secrets to the Grave brought Leone's teacher-turned-child- advocate wife, Anne, into a central role. Together with Vince and local sheriff 's deputy Tony Mendez, she solved an Oak Knoll murder with a particularly challenging mystery: The victim never existed.

And now Hoag returns once more to Oak Knoll for the third installment of this bestselling series. Through Leone's pioneering, science-based investigatory skills, Hoag explores the early days of forensic police work. And through the chilling case at the heart of Down the Darkest Road, she hooks ever more readers into the meticulously crafted, all-too-terrifying world of Oak Knoll, where the scariest secrets of all can be found . . . Down the Darkest Road.

Before her daughter, Leslie, then 16, was abducted four years ago, Lauren Lawton had been a lovely woman. But with no assailant or body ever recovered, she has devoted all her energy to trying to keep Leslie’s case in the headlines while simultaneously not neglecting her younger daughter, Leah, now nearly 16 herself. In an apparent attempt to make a clean start, Lauren and Leah leave Santa Barbara and head to the fictional Oak Knoll, a high-end pastoral retreat in the foothills. How is it, though, that Ronald Ballencoa, the monster whom Lauren is convinced took and probably murdered her daughter, also now resides in Oak Knoll? Lauren’s obsession with Ballencoa is well known to and mostly disregarded by law enforcement in many local jurisdictions, but new-on-the-scene Deputy Mendez doesn’t dismiss Lauren’s pleas and hopes to be the one to finally bring some closure to the fractured family. Mendez, a protégé of legendary profiler Vince Leone (star of many Hoag thrillers), teams up with the feisty Danni Tanner, the original detective on the case (sparks fly between these two). Hoag takes obvious pleasure in keeping her setting circa 1990, before DNA technology had advanced to where it is today and before mobile communications rendered many otherwise tense situations easy-breezy. The setting and her consummate skill as a plotter add to plenty of old-school thrills that pack a punch and will leave fans breathless. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Hoag is on a remarkable streak: since 1995, she has written 30 books, and all 30 have appeared on the New York Times best-seller list. Her publisher will be doing everything in their marketing power to ensure that the streak hits 31. --Mary Frances Wilkens