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Learn more“You’re safe, Stride. I found the body at the Deeps. I buried him.”
Jonathan Stride’s best friend, Steve Garske, makes a shocking deathbed confession: he protected Stride by covering up a murder. Hours later, the police dig up Steve’s yard and find a body with a bullet hole in its skull.
Stride is pretty sure he knows who it is. Seven years ago, an out-of-town reporter disappeared while investigating anonymous allegations of rape against a prominent politician. Back then, the police believed that the reporter drowned at a dangerous swimming hole called the Deeps … but the discovery of the body changes everything. Now Stride’s partner, Maggie Bei, is forced to ask Stride an uncomfortable question: Did you kill him?
Stride is obviously hiding things. He was the last person to see the reporter alive. And he admits lying to Maggie about that meeting, but won’t tell her why. With suspicion in the murder pointing at him, Stride finds himself off the case and on leave from the Duluth Police.
His only ally in clearing his name is his wife, Serena, who retraces the reporter’s investigation into the explosive allegations. The clues all point to a hot Duluth summer years earlier that everyone in town would prefer to forget.
Someone was willing to kill rather than let those long-ago secrets come out, and the suspect with the strongest motive … is Stride.
Brian Freeman is a New York Times bestselling author of psychological suspense novels including Spilled Blood, winner of the ITW Thriller Award for best novel.
Joe Barrett began his acting career at the age of five in the basement of his family's home in upstate New York. He has gone on to play many stage roles, both on and off-Broadway, and in regional theaters from Los Angeles, Houston, and St. Louis to Washington DC, San Francisco, and Portland, Maine. He has appeared in films and television, both prime time and late night, and in hundreds of television and radio commercials. Joe has narrated over two hundred audiobooks. He has been an Audie Award finalist eight times, and his narration of Gun Church by Reed Farrel Coleman won the 2013 Audie Award for Original Work. AudioFile magazine has granted Joe fourteen Earphones Awards, including for James Salter's All That Is and Donald Katz's Home Fires. Regarding Joe's narration of John Irving's A Prayer For Owen Meany, AudioFile said, "This moving book comes across like a concerto . . . with a soloist-Owen's voice-rising from the background of an orchestral narration." Joe is married to actor Andrea Wright, and together they have four very grown children.
Reviews
“[Stride] is in the company of Bosch, Thorne, Tennison, and Skinner, some of my other favorite detectives time has not mellowed.”
“Excellent…A cleverly constructed, page-turning plot and fleshed-out primary and secondary characters make this a winner.”
“Brian Freeman proves once again he’s a master of psychological suspense.”
“This guy can tell a story.”
“Brian Freeman is a first-rate storyteller. Stalked is scary, fast-paced, and refreshingly well written. The characters are so sharply drawn and interesting, we can’t wait to meet the next one in the story.”
“My discovery this year has been crime writer Brian Freeman…Fleshed-out characters, high tension, and terrifying twists put him up there with Harlan Coben in the psychological crime stratosphere.”
“Freeman skillfully weaves together diverse story lines…with twists that build suspense, in this fine, character-driven addition to a strong series.”
“If there is a way to say ‘higher’ than ‘highly recommended,’ I wish I knew it. Because this is one of those thrillers that go above and beyond.”
“A fast-paced and riveting drama that I could not put down until the last sentence was read…The best book in this grippingly thrilling series.”
“The most literate and stylish writing you’ll find anywhere today.”
“Deftly plotted…Fans of grittier crime novels should be satisfied.”
“I would compare [Brian Freeman] easily with Michael Connelly…A true master of storytelling, this novelist has now become one of my go-to authors when I’m looking for an engaging, world-stopping distraction in book form.”
“Funeral for a Friend is by far Brian Freeman’s most emotional novel, and to say that the ending is a wild one would be a gross understatement. Jonathan Stride is one of the more complex and therefore likable characters in crime fiction, and this latest entry in the series is a clear standout.”
“Brian Freeman writes the best kind of psychological procedurals. His characters struggle with the moral consequences of the crimes they investigate, and his plots are as twisty and fast-moving as Lake Superior’s undertow.”
“Funeral for a Friend traverses a literary tightrope that few authors can manage: the novel works equally well as a stand-alone for a first-time reader, or as part of the fuller Stride canon for his longtime fans…As always, Freeman’s characters here are as developed as his plot, and even if this is your first foray into the Stride universe you’ll come to know Serena, Stride, Cat, Maggie and others as family.”
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