Downhill (2022)

Book Three of the Sean Colbeth Investigates Series and a featured selection at the 2023 Tucson Festival of Books.

Downhill (Book 3)

It’s the season of miracles.

At least, that’s what Windeport Police Chief Sean Colbeth is hoping for when he invites his estranged best friend to Windeport for the Christmas holiday.  Miracle number one was Vasily Korsokovach picking up the phone months after abruptly exiting Sean’s life a second time; miracle number two was having him agree to leave the warm Southern California coast he nows calls home to spend ten days in the cold.  If he’s truly lucky, miracle number three will see Sean finally mending a relationship he’d once held dear – without accidentally opening any old wounds.

Of course, the universe had other ideas.

What begins as a cozy, snowed-in Christmas holiday with friends and family becomes anything but when a tourist is found dead at the bottom of the roughest ski trail the county has to offer.  And when that body unexpectedly turns out to be a college acquaintance from Dr. Suzanne Kellerman’s past, personal secrets long thought buried are rather abruptly yanked out into the open, upending any and all holiday plans.  Thrust into an investigation neither wanted, Sean and Vasily are forced to work out their differences under less than ideal circumstances as they race to make sense of the senseless.  For much like the Christmas Day Nor’easter, the duo are the only thing standing between a vengeful killer and their escape from justice.

Released April 5, 2022