Book Feature - Chalk Valley - D. L. Johnstone

Synopsis

In a remote mountain valley in British Columbia, a human monster preys on innocent lives.  After teenagers discover the body of a missing girl in Chalk Valley, searchers find the remains of two more victims secreted deep in the woods.  A serial killer is at work.

Chalk Valley police detective John McCarty is picked to lead a task force to find the murderer. But inexperience, politics and McCarty’s own inner demons quickly overwhelm him and the investigation falters.

Meanwhile, on a dark, lonely highway many miles from Chalk Valley, RCMP Sergeant Dave Kreaver comes across a van crashed at the side of the road. The driver is anxious to leave the scene. But Kreaver discovers an unconscious teenaged girl in the van. Kreaver feels in his gut that the driver could be the serial killer everyone’s looking for, but his inquiries are ignored. The task force is in well over its head, buried by thousands of leads and potential suspects. His supervisors tell him to back off and let the task force do its job.

Kreaver is in a deadly cat and mouse game with a murderous psychopath, a race against time with innocent victims in play. Operating alone and without official sanction, can he stop the Chalk Valley Killer before he claims more lives?

Based on extensive research with world class authorities on the workings of modern serial murder investigation, CHALK VALLEY explores the challenges, the terror and the human crises that affects all those caught in the killer’s web  – the investigators, the victims and the families.

Praise for this work:

“CHALK VALLEY captures the essence of the ‘serial murder’ investigation through a combination of police techniques and behavioural sciences …  Johnstone did an excellent job in portraying this from both the killer’s and police point of view.” - Detective Staff Sergeant Richard Pellarin, OPP Behavioural Sciences Section

Author Biography

D.L.Johnstone lives in the Toronto area with his wife, four kids and a half-dog/half-sasquatch named Charlie. He’s co-author of several medical research publications and is a semi-dedicated fitness freak with a second degree black belt in Taekwondo. CHALK VALLEY is his first novel.

If you’d like to contact him, please drop him an email at: dljohnstonewriter@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @DLJohnstone1. He comments on thrillers, “indie” publishing and other miscellany at his blog: www.dljohnstone.com.