Christopher Valen: 7 books

When a prominent leader of St. Paul's close-knit Hispanic community is murdered, Detective John Santana promises the widow he will bring down the killer. Despite the snow and bitter cold, the case heats up quickly-suspects are killed before they can be questioned; his alcoholic partner's trigger finger...

The brutal murders of two young women in the caves along the Mississippi River pull St. Paul Homicide Detective John Santana into a case with all the telltale signs of a serial killer. Except that one of the victims doesn’t fit. Santana’s search for answers unearths connections between...

When St. Paul Homicide Detective John Santana is assigned a cold case involving the murder of an environmental engineer, he begins to see connections to a case he investigated two years before––the murder of a young Native American woman. But in seeking justice for the victims, it soon...

The bodies of young men have been turning up in the Mississippi River for years, their deaths attributed to excessive drinking. But when an Iraq war vet suffering from PTSD is found in the river, St. Paul Homicide Detective John Santana must decide if the young man’s death was accidental or the...

The death of a beautiful escort in a downtown hotel room appears to be a case of auto-erotic asphyxiation gone wrong. But when a woman brings her young daughter to the police department with a strange story about a similar death six years before, Homicide Detective John Santana is drawn into a dangerous...

When the body of a young, Hmong woman is found on Harriet Island near the Mississippi River, it appears to be a simple case of murder and revenge. But what begins as a routine investigation soon becomes something far more sinister. Paired with a Hmong partner he’s not sure he can trust, and attracted...

When a blood spattered Mercedes belonging to the daughter of a prominent psychologist is found abandoned, there are few clues to her whereabouts but a million dollars’ worth of reasons why someone might want her dead. Confronted with a list of suspects––a philandering boyfriend with a...