[A young couple accidentally kills a crooked cop and goes on the run in Shadow Valley, a taut, gritty page turner, masterfully plotted, and highly addictive.] It's 1988 and Heath Walker, who spent most of his life in group homes, bartends and sells weed to keep the lights on for his ailing foster mom. When Heath meets and quickly falls for the brazen and beautiful Rori Burke at his bar, he kicks off a series of events that leave both his mother and a cop dead, and Rori's father-a crooked small-town police chief-on their trail. As the young couple tears away on their journey from Santa Cruz communes to cartel territory in Baja, Heath carries with him a ring that may hold the answers to what he's been searching for his whole life: the identity of his real parents: a retired Mercenary and AWOL CIA Agent. As Heath and Rori's journey grows ever more perilous, Heath not only has to stay one step ahead of Burke and the cartel, but begins to question why he is so surprisingly good at hurting the dangerous people who cross his path, and whether he is really any different than the men hunting him. Finally, south of the border, all of Heath and Rori's past and present demons converge, bringing Heath closer than he'll ever know to the Angel of Death who wears his same ring.