Guilty Ones

When a prostitute is shot, stabbed, dumped on Georgia's Shelter Island and finally identified as Shannon Randall, a woman murdered more than twenty-four years before, FBI agent, Dorsey Collins, is horrified. The person accused of killing Shannon so many years ago was convicted and executed. Fact is: for nineteen-year-old Eric Louis Beale, there's no justice. It's too late.

Worse still, Collins' father was the agent assigned to the case. What happened so long ago? Dorsey Collins, a highly respected special FBI agent, is compelled to find out what role her father played in this botched case. But she can't take on the investigation due to conflict of interest. When the case is given to FBI special agent Andrew Shields, Collins is permitted to shadow Shields.

In her newest thriller, Last Look, bestselling author Mariah Stewart says, "There's so much in the news about people getting exonerated with DNA testing, I wanted to explore what happens to someone for whom this testing comes too late."

The plot appealed to her because it was complex, says Stewart, and deals with two murders, one in the past and one that just happened. She also wanted to look at how family ties and mysteries complicate matters. "How could a member of your family, someone you know so well, someone you grew up with-how could that person be a monster, a murderer, and how could you not know?"

Hoping to redeem her father's reputation, Collins and Shields untangle a web of mysteries that shatters one family and upends an entire town.

Mariah Stewart has written more than 20 novels and is New York Times and USA Today bestselling author. At home in Pennsylannia, Stewart says she doesn't run marathons, knit, or cultivate other hobbies. She found her calling writing about murder and mayhem couldn't be happier. Last Look is the first of three novels in this new series.