The Dark Circle: A Jake Cantrell Mystery

Award-winning author Robert J. Mrazek’s ex-army officer Jake Cantrell embarks on a harrowing journey, unraveling the conspiracy behind an opioid epidemic and strange disappearances in upstate New York.

Jake Cantrell tried to put his past behind him and settle down after suffering an unjust disgrace as an army officer. He works as a campus security officer at a small college in upstate New York. But things aren’t so placid in his leafy new environs. A mass opioid crisis threatens to devastate the campus. When two football players on the new drug attack Jake with bats, Jake is fired for the excessive force he has to use to subdue them.

Newly unemployed, Jake is retained by Lauren Kennsiton, the editor of the Groton Journal, to find missing college student Deborah Chapman, a gifted young jazz vocalist who has performed at Carnegie Hall.

Along with Bug, the eighteen-year-old wolfhound he saved in Afghanistan, Jake sets out on the search. Battling street gangs, nefarious secrets, and an enigmatic group called the Knights, Jake is set for a brutal showdown that could mean Deborah’s rescue—or Jake’s demise.

Fans of Robert J. Mrazek’s award-winning thrillers are in for a non-stop ride into the abyss with the second installment in his critically acclaimed series.