A 1989 cold case. A preserved DNA sample.
The same technique that caught the Golden State Killer.
In September 1989, Laura Hennessey was found on a Vermont hiking trail. She was twenty-two years old. The case went cold. For thirty-seven years, no one was charged.
Now Vermont State Police has uploaded the killer's DNA to GEDmatch PRO and FamilyTreeDNA. They have matches. What they don't have is someone who can build the family tree and find the name at the end of it.
They have genealogist Maggie Penhallow.
Using the investigative genetic genealogy methodology that solved the Golden State Killer case, Maggie must build a family tree forward from a third-cousin DNA match ? narrowing a pool of millions to one person, in one town, who has been hiding in plain sight for thirty-seven years.
The killer is someone Millbrook knows. Someone who has been watching Maggie work since she arrived. And someone who is about to discover that a spit kit and a Tuesday afternoon were all it took.
Cold Case, Warm Cousins is the fifth book in the Millbrook Genealogy Mystery series ? the book where the genealogy goes forensic. The methodology is real. The databases are real. The ethics are real and do not resolve neatly. And the answer has been in Millbrook all along.
For fans of Richard Osman, Louise Penny, and everyone who has ever listened to a true crime podcast and wondered: how do they actually find them?
The Millbrook Genealogy Mystery Series
Book 1: The Buried Branch ? The 1900 census solves a murder. Available now.
Book 2: Not the Parent Expected ? A DNA surprise becomes a death sentence. Available now.
Book 3: A Grave Inheritance ? A Quebec marriage and a dit name that changes everything. Available now.
Book 4: The Last Letter Home ? Maggie's grandmother's name on a 1908 ship manifest. Available now.
Book 5: Cold Case, Warm Cousins ? IGG. A 1989 murder. The name at the end of the tree. You are here.
Book 6: Bones, Books, and Bloodlines ? The final book. The answer to everything. Coming soon.
Clean read. No graphic violence. Slow-burn romance at its peak. Real forensic genealogy methodology explained in Maggie's Research Notes at the back of the book.
