Three and a half years ago former Grant County medical examiner Sara Linton moved to Atlanta, hoping to leave her tragic past behind her. Now working as a doctor in Atlanta's Grady Hospital, she is starting to piece her life together. But when a severely wounded young woman is brought in to the emergency room, she finds herself drawn back into a world of violence and terror.

Martin Riley feels as if the life that should have been his is slowly slipping away. Working as a senior executive accountant at Dixie Toilet Supplies and still living with his mother, he finds himself returning to his childhood love of reading crime fiction. When a co-worker is brutally murdered in the men's locker room, Martin finally sees his chance to shine.

After years in a brutal marriage, Gailyn Campano knows how to accept violence and betrayal. But when she returns home to find an intruder holding her daughter hostage, a ferocious strength emerges within her battered soul - and before she knows it, a man lies dead on her floor.

When the local police make a misjudgement that not only threatens an investigation but places a young girl's life in danger, the case is handed over to Special Agent Will Trent of the Criminal Apprehension Team. He's teamed with detective Faith Mitchell, a woman who resents him from their first meeting. But in the relentless heat of a Georgia summer, Will and Faith realise that they must work together to find the brutal killer - before it's too late.

Martin Reed is thoroughly average in every way. So how has he wound up with such a pathetic existence? Martin has no friends, no lovers, and no respect. Working as a senior accountant at Southern Toilet Supply and still living with his nagging mother, his sole source of excitement is the crime novels he cherishes. So immersed is Martin in these escapes that he fails to notice the crimes going on all around him.

A walk in the woods takes a sinister turn for police chief Jeffrey Tolliver and medical examiner Sara Linton when they stumble across the body of a young girl.

The sleepy town of Heartsdale, Georgia, is jolted into panic when Sara Linton, paediatrician and medical examiner, finds Sibyl Adams dead in the local diner. As well as being viciously raped, Sibyl has been cut: two deep knife wounds form a lethal cross over her stomach. But it's only once Sara starts to perform the post-mortem that the full extent of the killer's brutality becomes clear.

Sara Linton, medical examiner in the small town of Heartsdale, is called out to an apparent suicide on the local college campus. The mutilated body provides little in the way of clues - and the college authorities are keen to avoid a scandal - but for Sara and police chief Jeffrey Tolliver, things don't add up.

When a teenage quarrel in the small town of Heartsdale explodes into a deadly shoot-out, Sara Linton - paediatrician and medical examiner - finds herself entangled in a horrific tragedy. And what seems at first to be a terrible but individual catastrophe proves to have wider implications when the autopsy reveals evidence of long-term abuse and ritualistic self-mutilation.

Detective Lena Adams is the only suspect in a murder in Georgia. One hundred miles away, Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver finds out that his young detective has been arrested. Jeffrey's wife Sara has no patience for Lena or her dramas. Fighting a malpractice suit, the last thing Sara needs is to see Jeffrey playing Lena's knight in shining armor. Lena has leapt into an underground world of bigotry and rage.