Unidentified

By R.C. Johansen

Detective Manny Ortiz has caught his first solo murder investigation. The case is a straight-up who-done-it with an unidentified victim to boot. Can Detective Ortiz ID his Jane Doe, or will he uncover something much more sinister? A prequel to the thrilling novel The Skeleton Friend, to be released January 2016, as well as to the second book in the series, The Skeleton Girls, which is coming soon!

• Language: English
• Publisher: R.C. Johansen
• Release date: Apr 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533769046

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Other Books by R.C. Johansen

The Skeleton Friend

Unidentified

A Skeleton Friend Prequel

By R. C. Johansen

The stench of blood permeated the air surrounding Detective Manny Ortiz, a novice to the city homicide division. The scent wasn’t unfamiliar—far from it. Ten years on the force as a uniformed officer had acclimated Ortiz to the horrors of the world around him. His first six months as a homicide cop, the only kind of cop he ever wanted to be, had tested his hardened exterior nearly every day. He’d ridden shotgun on twenty investigations thus far, following the movements of senior detectives, working hard to mimic their cool, their patience, their cunning. Number twenty-one would see Ortiz taking the wheel. All week he’d prepared himself for the call, he’d readied his mind to be objective and scrupulous. Today, the phone rang.

Detective Ortiz didn’t grow up dreaming of murder. He didn’t spend his time imaging how it was done, but instead dreamt of catching the who that had done it. He was the youngest of seven. The baby in a traditional Roman Catholic family from Puerto Rico. His parents came to the States when they were first married, his father following a lifelong dream to break into American politics. A seasoned lawyer by the time Manny came into the world, he settled for a tenured position at a city law school and preached justice, freedom, and the American Dream to his children at the dinner table. Ortiz grew up with an innate understanding of Right and Wrong; that men were born Good or Evil; and that as a man born Good, it was his duty to destroy the Evil in the world. With the naive certainty of an eighteen-year-old, high school diploma in hand, Manny Ortiz dedicated his life to the badge and became an officer of the law.

The decade that passed aged Ortiz in ways he would never have expected or tried to understand. Husbands beating wives to near death, wives breaking glass over the heads of their husbands. Babies submerged in scalding water; shaken until they could no longer breathe; high from god-knows-what, just being in contact with their mothers. Children—runaways, kids abandoned—turning tricks on street corners and playing house on dilapidated mattresses strewn about warehouses long condemned. Every shift had both broken Ortiz and added a chink to his armor. Every moment was leading to this.

The walls of