The Reckoning

SHE KILLED A MAN.

First in an explosive new thriller series set in the eighties from the author of the critically acclaimed Miranda Corbie series introduces the fierce feminist Renata Drake–on the run from the FBI for the execution-style murder of her little sister’s killer.

“Vivid and haunting. I’m eager to hear more from the tenacious and resourceful Renata Drake” Meg Gardiner, #1 New York Times bestselling author

California, Southern Humboldt County, 1985.
Renata Drake steps off a Greyhound bus and into small-town Garberville, hoping to disappear. She checks the papers. She’s not headline news. Not yet.

But she’s made a mistake. The FBI have the cannabis-producing “Emerald Triangle” town– and its corrupt residents–in their sights. Even worse, a teenage girl is missing, and when she turns up dead, the third in three years, it’s clear a serial killer is living among them.

Renata knows about murdered girls and the burning desire for justice–and for revenge. Her younger sister Josie is gone, and now, so is the man who killed her. Renata didn’t stay in Washington, D.C. to be arrested for executing a murderer, and she shouldn’t stay here either. But Renata decides to investigate, and what she uncovers will trigger a final reckoning: For herself, for a killer, and for all of Southern Humboldt.

This powerful, page-turning thriller explores the human cost of corruption and the psychological toll that violence takes on women.

Author: Kelli Stanley
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 01/06/2026
Series: Renata Drake Thriller #1
Pages: 336
Weight: 1.06lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.51w x 1.34d
ISBN: 9781448317547
Language: English