Silent dolls

The mountains hide death. The first instalment of the action thriller series.

When Penny Matthews, a seven-year-old girl with blonde curls and a gap between her teeth, disappears in the Appalachian Mountains, Detective Ellie Reeves is immediately called to the case. According to her parents, the little girl vanished during a picnic by a stream. The only thing left behind is a pink bracelet with the name “Penny” on it.

Ellie knows all too well that the endless kilometres of dark mountain forests and winding rivers provide a criminal with many places to hide. She desperately searches for Penny as a brutal winter storm looms on the horizon.

Special Agent Derrick Fox decides to join the search. His younger sister Kim disappeared in the same area twenty-five years ago—on the very day he was supposed to be watching her. Derrick is convinced the cases are connected and that almost a dozen girls have gone missing in this area over the past two-plus decades. Ellie refuses to believe that a dangerous madman could be living in their tight-knit mountain community, but even she cannot deny the similarities between the cases. And when she discovers the remains of a small body buried with a carved wooden doll, it becomes clear they are facing a deadly serial killer who preys on innocent little girls.

When Ellie spots small footprints near a remote cave, she is convinced they belong to Penny. But her life is hanging by a thread, as most people who disappear in the woods are never found again. To save the little girl, she must confront her own demons. Can she and Derrick overcome the obstacles and uncover the truth about all the missing girls? Or will the mountains and the twisted killer claim another victim?