Mourning Gloria: A Leah Hudson Thriller (Leah Hudson Thrillers Book 1)

The investigation into Gloria Stone's disappearance went cold years ago. When Agent Leah Hudson takes the case, she finds little to work with. Gloria, an affluent wine heiress, survived a brutal attack on her twenty-first birthday before vanishing shortly after, leaving behind an abandoned car and a town eager to move on. Hudson is a rising agent assigned to this dead-end case after a botched indictment allowed a killer to escape. As she retraces the failed investigation, she discovers Gloria was not simply a tragedy—she was targeted. A predator is hunting the Central Valley, selecting a specific type of victim: women already broken by the world. Hudson alone recognizes the pattern, but her discovery comes with a cost. The hunter is no longer distant; he walks among the prey, concealed behind an unexpected mask. The case that seemed long dead proves far more dangerous than anyone realized.