Forty years ago, on a sweltering summer evening in southern Ohio, seven-year-old Michael Adkins vanished into thin air.

Two years later, in the dead of winter, his case long gone cold, Michael's remains were found in a well-searched area, just one hundred yards from where he disappeared. The discovery provided no answers, only more questions.

Last week, Michael's now elderly mother walked into Detective Jake Cashen's office with a tantalizing clue that just arrived on her doorstep. A handwritten letter filled with chilling details only someone close to the decades-old crime could know. Jake knows it's false hope. A cruel prank likely perpetrated by some heartless internet troll. He's seen things like this before. But he promises Michael's still grieving mother to look into it one last time.

When Jake traces the letter to its source, what he finds blows the case wide open and exposes a web of secrets and shocking truths buried beneath the coldest ground.

The Coldest Ground is book ten in the Jake Cashen Crime Thriller Series, perfect for fans of Michael Connelly, C.J. Box, and Craig Johnson. This dark, small-town murder mystery weaves together a decades-old cold case, conspiracy, corruption, and a child's disappearance into a gripping, atmospheric listen.