Jake Cashen Crime Thriller Series

Rumors have swirled around Jake Cashen his whole life. Is he crazy like his father? Is it true they booted him out of the F.B.I. right after he cracked a career-making RICO case? Was he dirty? Only Jake knows, and he’s not telling. He came back to his tiny hometown at the foot of Ohio’s Blackhand Hills to serve as a deputy sheriff. He hopes to punch a clock and keep his head down until retirement. It was a solid plan—until someone put a bullet in the head of a revered county judge.

A skilled hunter is found dead in the first few moments of opening day for deer season. Everyone assumes it was an accident. When Jake learns the victim is his best friend, Ben Wayne, he must push past his crushing grief and process the scene. Two things become horrifyingly clear. Ben was shot through the head with a high-powered rifle. And this was no accident; it was an execution. As the town grieves, Jake discovers there has been a series of similar killings throughout southern Ohio.

Worthington County's coldest case heats up when ground-breaking on a new luxury subdivision comes with a grisly surprise. In full view of the media and half the town, a local politician uncovers the remains of a young girl, gone missing for decades. The victim’s bones speak from the grave, telling a horrifying tale of her last moments on earth. Her death was no accident. She did not die peacefully. And she had a secret not even those closest to her knew. But was it worth killing for?

A local businessman is found tortured to death at the foot of Ohio's infamous Red Sky Hill. No one heard his screams. No one came to help. Detective Jake Cashen catches the case that terrifies his small town. In his fifteen years as an investigator, Jake's never seen a more gruesome crime scene. The victim, Craig Albright, has no known enemies, but the site of his murder has been shrouded in secrets and myths for generations.

As she draws her last breath, Detective Mary Rathburn leaves a cryptic message to Jake written in her own blood. It's a clue to her killer's identity she knew only he would understand. It sets him on a dangerous path that could change him forever. Jake faces mounting pressure to solve this case from his fellow cops, Mary's grieving family, and his sense of duty to his fallen sister in blue. His investigation reveals disturbing secrets about Mary's personal life that send shockwaves through Blackhand Hills. But did her secrets lead to murder?

Detective Jake Cashen is called in to investigate the chilling deaths of a young couple in the heart of Ohio's Blackhand Hills. What he uncovers threatens to turn a thriving rustic tourist haven into a breeding ground for fear and suspicion. With a statewide political convention in town, the spotlight on Worthington County has never been brighter. The sheriff needs these murders solved quickly and quietly. But as Jake digs deeper, he finds a sinister connection between a prominent figure in Blackhand Hills and the two victims.

Jake is poised to reopen a chilling murder case once thought closed. In just six weeks, Wesley Wayne Hall will be executed for the heinous murder of Ruby Ingall, a beloved member of the Blackhand Hills farming community. Ruby's murder tore her family apart, and it took them fifteen years to pick up the pieces. But Hall swears he's innocent and reaches out to Jake with proof he can't ignore. Against his better judgment, Jake digs into the case.

Born to the secretive, prepper enclave on the other side of Red Sky Hill, Adah Lee has no birth certificate, no social security number, and no school records. To the outside world, she simply doesn't exist. So when she's kidnapped on her seventeenth birthday, it might just be the perfect crime. Only this girl means something to someone dangerous.

Detective Jake Cashen is called to a cul-de-sac on the edge of Blackhand Hills, where a teenage girl has discovered the victims of a murder-suicide. Newlyweds, shot in their own home. It looks open-and-shut. But something about the scene feels wrong—and Jake can't shake the parallels to his past. The case dredges up memories of his own parents' deaths under the same circumstances. His father snapped. His mother paid with her life. End of story. But as Jake digs deeper into the present-day investigation, he finds unsettling threads that lead straight to the tragedy that defined his childhood.