BOLO: The Jake Cashen Series by Declan James

Only Jake knows and he’s not telling.

One small town’s dark secrets lay hidden in the hollows…

Rumors have swirled around Jake Cashen his whole life. Is he crazy like his father? Is it true they booted him out of the F.B.I. right after he cracked a career-making RICO case? Was he dirty?

He came back to his tiny hometown at the foot of Ohio’s Blackhand Hills to serve as a deputy sheriff. He hopes to punch a clock and keep his head down until retirement.

It was a solid plan. Until someone put a bullet in the head of a revered county judge.

There’s a killer on the loose deep in the backwoods of Blackhand Hills. When someone close to Detective Jake Cashen falls prey, the line between justice and vengeance becomes razor thin.

A skilled hunter is found dead in the first few moments of Opening Day for deer season. Everyone assumes it was an accident. When Jake learns the victim is his best friend, Ben Wayne, he must push past his crushing grief and process the scene. Two things become horrifyingly clear. Ben was shot through the head with a high-powered rifle, and this was no accident. It was an execution.

As the town grieves, Jake discovers there have been a series of similar killings throughout southern Ohio. The victims were the strongest of men. Hunters. Outdoorsmen. Athletes. Each of them picked off by an unseen killer who lies in wait.

When Jake moves to reopen the other cases, he’s blocked at every turn. No one wants to believe there’s a serial killer on the loose or take the blame for missing the signs. Jake’s on his own as he races to unravel the clues and face down a ruthless murderer.

It’s hunting season in Blackhand Hills. And the ultimate predator is poised to strike again.

The discovery of human bones on the idyllic shores of Echo Lake forces Detective Jake Cashen to expose long buried truths.

Worthington County’s coldest case heats up when ground-breaking on a new luxury subdivision comes with a grisly surprise. In full view of the media and half the town, a local politician uncovers the remains of a young girl, gone missing for decades.

The victim’s bones speak from the grave, telling a horrifying tale of her last moments on earth. Her death was no accident. She did not die peacefully. And she had a secret not even those closest to her knew. But was it worth killing for?

Jake zones in on a prime suspect with ties to a woman he cares about. Revealing the truth will destroy her. The case becomes personal and those in power think Jake should step aside. Are they right? Or is a conspiracy brewing that could allow a murderer to go free?

A local businessman is found tortured to death at the foot of Ohio’s infamous Red Sky Hill. No one heard his screams. No one came to help.

Detective Jake Cashen catches the case that terrifies his small town. In his fifteen years as an investigator, Jake’s never seen a more gruesome crime scene. The victim, Craig Albright has no known enemies but the site of his murder has been shrouded in secrets and myths for generations.

On the other side of Red Sky Hill lies a secretive settlement known to locals as “the Hill People.” Many fear there are untold numbers in the cloistered community and that they’re armed to the teeth. Census takers and tax collectors have been run off for years. Suspicion in town runs rampant and Jake fears vigilante justice will take hold before he can solve the crime. But he knows the key to unraveling the truth and stopping a ruthless killer will force him to go up that hill once and for all. Alone.

What he finds when he gets there shakes him to his core.

When Detective Jake Cashen’s new partner is found brutally slain, Jake must choose between justice and revenge in the hunt for a cold-blooded killer.

As she draws her last breath, Detective Mary Rathburn leaves a cryptic message to Jake written in her own blood. It’s a clue to her killer’s identity she knew only he would understand. It sets him on a dangerous path that could change him forever.

Jake faces mounting pressure to solve this case from his fellow cops, Mary’s grieving family, and his own sense of duty to his fallen sister in blue. His investigation reveals disturbing secrets about Mary’s personal life that send shockwaves through Blackhand Hills. But did her secrets lead to murder?

The closer Jake gets to the truth, the more his own demons boil to the surface. To catch a killer, he’ll have to think like one. When he crosses that line, there’s no coming back and all the dark rumors about his birthright might finally come true.

A vacation getaway at a remote cabin becomes the scene of a gruesome double murder. One victim was ambushed. The other hunted down in a merciless chase.

Detective Jake Cashen is called in to investigate the chilling deaths of a young couple in the heart of Ohio’s Blackhand Hills. What he uncovers threatens to turn a thriving rustic tourist haven into a breeding ground for fear and suspicion.

With a statewide political convention in town, the spotlight on Worthington County has never been brighter. The Sheriff needs these murders solved quickly and quietly. But as Jake digs deeper, he finds a sinister connection between a prominent figure in Blackhand Hills and the two victims. Their business in town may not be as innocent as it first appeared. Exposing their secrets could shatter the peace of Jake’s small town and cost a beloved Sheriff an election.

Can Jake expose the murderer before the tranquil waters of Blackhand Creek run blood red again?

Secrets of Blackhand Creek is the spellbinding sixth book in the Detective Jake Cashen thriller series.

A cryptic letter from a prison inmate pulls Detective Jake Cashen back into one of the darkest chapters in the history of Blackhand Hills.

Jake is poised to reopen a chilling murder case once thought closed. In just six weeks, Wesley Wayne Hall will be executed for the heinous murder of Ruby Ingall, a beloved member of the Blackhand Hills farming community. Ruby’s murder tore her family apart and took them fifteen years to pick up the pieces. But Hall swears he’s innocent and reaches out to Jake with proof he can’t ignore.

Against his better judgment, Jake digs into the case. He discovers, at best, a botched investigation…at worst, a criminal cover-up. Only now, the original detective in the case is about to be elected Sheriff and become Jake’s new boss. Exposing the truth could ruin his career. But if Jake does nothing, an innocent man might die, and a killer could still be out there.

Some stones are meant to be left unturned. What crawls out from under this one could upend the entire Worthington County criminal justice system.

Lethal Harvest is the hair-raising seventh book in the Detective Jake Cashen Crime Thriller series.

How do you find a missing girl who doesn’t exist?

Born to the secretive, prepper enclave on the other side of Red Sky Hill, Adah Lee has no birth certificate, no social security number, no school records. To the outside world, she simply doesn’t exist. So when she’s kidnapped on her 17th birthday, it might just be the perfect crime.

Only this girl means something to someone dangerous.

When an old adversary reaches out to Detective Jake Cashen for help in finding the girl, he knows the odds are stacked against him. Adah’s community doesn’t trust him. No one wants him there.

But Detective Cashen is her only chance at justice…or revenge.

The investigation leads him down a treacherous path, forcing him to trust a woman he knows he shouldn’t. Those closest to him question his instincts, including the Sheriff. If Jake’s wrong, it could cost him his badge and let a predator roam free to strike again.

The Whisper Girl is the engrossing eighth book in the Detective Jake Cashen thriller series.

A young couple dead. A haunting echo of one boy’s darkest day. A detective who can’t walk away—even if it costs him everything.

Detective Jake Cashen is called to a quiet cul-de-sac on the edge of Blackhand Hills, where a teenage girl has discovered the victims of a brutal murder-suicide. Newlyweds, shot in their own home. It looks open-and-shut. But something about the scene feels wrong—and Jake can’t shake the eerie parallels to his past.

The case dredges up memories of his own parents’ deaths under the same circumstances. His father snapped. His mother paid with her life. End of story. But as Jake digs deeper into the present-day investigation, he finds unsettling threads that lead straight to the tragedy that defined his childhood. And when he pulls the long-buried file from his parents’ case, he discovers details no one ever told him—details that make him question everything.

Jake’s relentless search for the truth in both cases, puts him at odds with his boss, his new partner, and the only family he has left. But someone out there knows the real story. And they’ll kill to keep it buried.

Their Deadly Truth is the heart-pounding ninth installment in the Detective Jake Cashen Crime Thriller Series. 

Forty years ago, on a frigid, wintery morning in southern Ohio, seven-year-old Michael Adkins vanished into thin air.

Two years later, 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.