The Frank Yakabuski mystery series
Gruesome murders, a northern secret, and a buried past
While working one afternoon on the Northern Divide, a young tree-marker makes a grisly discovery: in a squatter’s cabin near an old mill town, a family has been murdered.
An army vet coming off a successful turn leading a task force that took down infamous biker criminals, Detective Frank Yakabuski arrives in Ragged Lake, a nearly abandoned village, to solve the family’s murder. But no one is willing to talk. With a winter storm coming, Yakabuski sequesters the locals in a fishing lodge as he investigates the area with his two junior officers. Before long, he is fighting not only to solve the crime but also to stay alive and protect the few innocents left living in the desolate woods.
A richly atmospheric mystery with sweeping backdrops, explosive action, and memorable villains, Ragged Lake will keep you guessing — about the violent crime, the nature of family, and secret deeds done long ago on abandoned frontiers.
Cape Diamond, the second book in the Frank Yakabuski Mystery series, is atmospheric and action-packed. Set near the Northern Divide — as was the first installment, Edgar Award nominee (Best Paperback Original), Ragged Lake — the book opens with Yakabuski called to investigate a gruesome crime scene. A body has been left hanging from a schoolyard fence. On closer inspection, Yak finds a large diamond in the murder victim’s mouth.
Two criminal gangs — the Shiners and the Travellers — are fighting with each other, and Yakabuski turns to his father, a now-retired detective who has a long history with the gangs, for advice in the interrogation. Is the conflict over the murder of two men? The kidnapping of a little girl? Or, possibly, the diamond found in Augustus Morrissey’s mouth? As if this weren’t enough for one detective, a serial killer is taking a deadly road trip through the United States, heading towards the Northern Divide.
Ron Corbett weaves the various strands together with ingenuity, making Cape Diamond a brooding, suspense-filled story of hubris, betrayal, and evil deeds; his writing is sparse and taut, compelling the reader to follow the action and gang conflict to a surprise ending.
From the Edgar Award– and Arthur Ellis Award-nominated author of Ragged Lake comes the third installment in the Frank Yakabuski series
In the final scene of Cape Diamond, millions of dollars’ worth of diamonds went missing, which is where Ron Corbett’s latest novel begins. When rumors spread that they were buried on Mission Road, an old logging trail outside the town, people swarm to the area, setting up temporary camps and searching for fortune. But when a known murderer shows up, the real mystery begins.
Detective Frank Yakabuski must juggle a 21st-century diamond rush, killers on the run, and his ex-cop dad, in this third book in the series.
Frank Yakabuski Mystery Series Book 6 by Edgar®-nominated author Ron Corbett.
Have you ever looked into the eyes of a cold-blooded killer?
In this throw-back mystery, Frank Yakabuski is on his first case. High on the Northern Divide, in the mill town of Muskie Falls, a man loved by no one has been murdered behind a run-down hotel. The cops soon have four good suspects, men who were with the murdered man the night he was beaten to death, and likely know what happened.
But to the cop’s surprise, and growing frustration, none of the men will talk. Threats, promises, old-fashioned police grilling by a seasoned inspector, nothing gets the men to tell what they know.
As the investigation stalls, a killer with a vendetta against Yakabuski is on his way to Muskie Falls. He’s the one who started the investigation, the one who brought the young Yakabuski to the attention of the inspector. And he’s the deadly predator who will end the investigation, in a shocking confrontation that will leave the murder unsolved.
For twenty-one years. Until the reason the four good suspects never talked is finally revealed, in a final, heart-breaking plot twist that will leave you thinking and wondering about a place called Muskie Falls for days to come.
Take a return trip to the Northern Divide, where the villains are as out-of-scale as the rivers and the fish, and tough men always seem to find a way to surprise you. A classic noir tale that will keep you guessing to the final page. Yak is back.
Get MUSKIE FALLS, the fourth book in the FRANK YAKABAKUSKI MYSTERY SERIES, a dark northern noir thriller that will have you on the edge of your seat from cover to cover.