"Joe Burgess is the most realistically drawn and memorable police detective I've encountered in years. This is as much a moral fable as it is a whodunit." ~Edward Morris, Verified Reviewer
On an icy February night, the body of Steven Pleasant, a prominent Portland, Maine physician, grows cold in his parked Mercedes. All signs point to a john killed by a disgruntled hooker: his pants are unzipped, wallet is gone, and the good doctor has a reputation for entertaining girls in his car.
But the deeper Detective Sergeant Joe Burgess digs, the muddier the case becomes. While juggling hookers, wives, ex-wives, fathers, stepfathers, dealers and doctors, a nurse on Pleasant's staff suggests another angle-disgruntled patients.
Now, ensconced in the darkness of a sleeping hospital, Burgess comes face-to-face with ghosts from his past and must decide what being a detective really means.
"If Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch lived in Maine, he'd be Joe Burgess." ~Verified Reviewer
"It was the emotion that gripped me as a reader and as a person. Kate Flora has accomplished what very few authors are able to do, she made me believe." ~Michael S., Verified Reviewer
THE JOE BURGESS MYSTERIES
Playing God
The Angel of Knowlton Park
Redemption
And Grant You Peace
Led Astray
A Child Shall Lead Them
A World of Deceit

Kate Flora's fascination with people's criminal tendencies began in the Maine attorney general's office. Deadbeat dads, people who hurt their kids, and employers' discrimination aroused her curiosity about human behavior. The author of nineteen books and more than twenty short stories, Flora's been a finalist for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Derringer awards. She won the Public Safety Writers Association award for nonfiction and twice won the Maine Literary Award for crime fiction. Her latest fiction is Schooled in Death, her 9th Thea Kozak mystery. Her latest nonfiction is Shots Fired: The misconceptions, misunderstandings, and myths about police shootings with retired Portland Assistant Chief Joseph K. Loughlin. Flora divides her time between Massachusetts and Maine, and between cooking and gardening and obsessive writing.