The Big Secret

Federal Chief Investigator Nick LeRue is an expert on unraveling a crime; he's brought down some of the smoothest operators on Capitol Hill and uncovered dangerous secrets in politicians' pasts. But when word that his ex-girlfriend, investigative journalist Heather Cole, is missing, Nick is about to learn that nothing is ever what it seems. Turning to Heather's twin sister, Melanie, she tells Nick of visions she's had of her sister being held captive by an unseen man, and as these images are quickly becoming darker and more frightening. Though skeptical of the sisters' psychic connection, Nick follows Heather's trail all the way to Pushmataha, Mississippi. And it appears that Heather may have been close to uncovering this town's darkest and bloodiest secret, but the town's residents will do anything to keep this secret from getting out.

Pete Earley is a former Washington Post reporter and winner of the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar for Best Fact Crime Book in 1996 for Circumstantial Evidence: Death, Life, and Justice in a Southern Town. His book, which also won the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, helped free an innocent man from Alabama's death row. Earley's account of the John Walker spy ring, Family of Spies, was a New York Times bestseller and CBS mini-series. The Hot House: Life Inside Leavenworth Prison was a national bestseller and was based on a year that Earley spent inside a maximum security federal prison as an author.

Born in Arizona, Earley was reared in Colorado and worked for newspapers in Kansas and Oklahoma before moving to the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C., where he lives with his wife, Patti. They have seven children.