Coldwater Confession

Thousands of shoulder-fired missiles vanished from U.S. military bases in the early 1990’s. Most ended up in the hands of the Mujahideen fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, while military investigators were bluntly told to look the other way.

But at an army base near Coldwater, New York, scores of missiles were diverted, cached and sold to the highest bidder.

When Coldwater’s sole law enforcement officer stumbles onto a clandestine delivery to a domestic terrorist group, he is brutally murdered. 

In this second book in the Coldwater mystery series the Morgan brothers again combine skills to investigate a trio of mysterious local deaths, including the unsolved murder of their sheriff father.

In doing so, they confront difficult moral choices when suspects include family, each other and the newest teacher at Our Lady Of The Lake Elementary School for whom both brothers develop a troubling attraction.

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Praise

“Like the lake from which it takes its title, Coldwater Confession will settle into your bones and hold there. Long after finishing the novel, you’ll find yourself thinking about its setting and its characters, imagining the places that are critical to its plot: the high rocks of Pocket Island, a partially destroyed Frank Lloyd Wright house, underwater caverns, a boggy marsh that harbors secrets in its muck. James Ross has created a splendidly suspenseful story where the relationships among characters are as mysterious and intriguing as its thrilling plot. The novel’s protagonists, the Morgan brothers, are extraordinarily well-written, well-conceived characters, both brilliant in differing ways, both unsettled, often contentious, yet ultimately dedicated to discovering the truth underneath what has swept into their lives. As the lives and deaths of near strangers require the brothers to put aside their differences in order to bring answers to their small lakeside community, they must also face the intersection of current events with their own family’s mysterious history. As much as readers will enjoy the novel, they will exit eagerly wanting a third installment in Ross’s Coldwater series.”
— Mark Leichliter, author of THE OTHER SIDE

“With an explosive cast of often tragic, dysfunctional characters in this small upstate New York town, James A. Ross masterfully weaves a tale fueled by decades of deceit, delusions and missed chances in this action-packed thriller.”
— Mim Eichman, author of A SPARROW ALONE and MUSKRAT RAMBLE

“Need compelling characters and atmospheric setting?  Look no further than the latest of James A. Ross’s Coldwater mystery series, Coldwater Confession. I envy Ross’s ability to create people and places that really stick!”
— Robert Juckett, author of ALFAJIRI, a novel of the Congo