Barbara Howard

When a veteran investigative reporter is found dead in an ice-coated parking garage, the only way to prove it was murder is to read the weather. Cleveland's chief meteorologist Brooke Wilde knows the December derecho's minute-by-minute temperature drop better than anyone - she broadcast it live. So when FBI Special Agent Ryan Wilde, her estranged husband, asks her to decode the dead man's weather-timestamped surveillance photos, Brooke realizes the flash freeze didn't kill Warren Briggs.
It preserved the evidence that someone else did. As Brooke and Ryan follow the money trail from a corrupted renovation project to a powerful name hiding behind Cleveland's cultural renaissance, someone reaches into Brooke's broadcast systems with a chilling message: I'm watching. The same financial network that killed her makeup artist ten months ago has claimed another colleague - and Brooke may be next.
With hurricane-force winds, a killer who uses weather forecasts to plan murder, and a couples therapy session that finally cracks open the wound at the heart of their marriage, Brooke and Ryan must navigate the most dangerous storm of all: the truth they've been avoiding since the night she lost their baby and he wasn't there. Storm Cell is the second novel in the Winterkill: Cleveland Murder Mysteries series - a gripping blend of romantic suspense, atmospheric thriller, and emotional reckoning set against the brutal beauty of a Cleveland winter.
Storm Cell is the second novel in the Winterkill: Cleveland Murder Mysteries series. While it can be enjoyed as a standalone thriller, readers will find deeper resonance following Brooke and Frank's journey from the beginning with The Coldest Valentine (Book 1). Content warning: Storm Cell contains mature themes including pregnancy loss, grief, addiction recovery, and on-page intimacy. Reader discretion is advised. WINTERKILL: A Cleveland Crime SeriesBook 1: The Coldest ValentineBook 2: Storm CellBook 3: Ice LineBook 4 Lake Effect LiesBook 5: Dead Calm