(Death was his art. She would be his masterpiece. They cal...)
Death was his art. She would be his masterpiece. They called him Leonardo - a master skilled in the art of murder. One year ago, Cincinnati was his canvas. A scalpel was his tool. And women were his works-in-progress. FBI profiler Casey McKinley was one of them, a victim of Leonardo's twisted genius. She has the scars - and the nightmares - to prove it. For Casey, a new city means a life far from the one she left behind in Cincinnati. In San Francisco, she finally feels safe. Until a series of eerily familiar slayings plunges her back into Leonardo's game. Now she must catch this clever killer before he can unveil his ultimate masterpiece.
(Rookie cop Alex Kincaid wakes up in a nightmare. The wet ...)
Rookie cop Alex Kincaid wakes up in a nightmare. The wet sheet slipped slowly from her face and she began to count. There were eleven, in all. She was last in line, but he was getting closer. He'd be to her soon. "Chilling…" She wakes, parked on an unfamiliar street, outside an unfamiliar home with no recollection of how she got there...no memory of the night before.
(A widow and ex-FBI agent of hard-earned courage, Cody O'B...)
A widow and ex-FBI agent of hard-earned courage, Cody O'Brien is finally enjoying the quiet life, providing a good home for herself and her eight-year-old son, Ryan. Then Ryan is kidnapped in broad daylight. And Cody knows why. Her life is a dangerous lie, easily exposed by the killers responsible for her husband's murder.
(A tough special-agent with the Department of Justice, and...)
A tough special-agent with the Department of Justice, and a dedicated single mother to her orphaned nephews, Samantha Chase is unbreakable. Until two women, both from the shadows of Sam's past, are discovered strangled.
(For San Francisco Sex Crimes Inspector Jamie Vail, no cas...)
For San Francisco Sex Crimes Inspector Jamie Vail, no case has ever hit closer to home. The brutalized women are her colleagues. Her friends. Her job is everything. Divorced and alone, Jamie vows to end the violence and capture this deranged criminal. Nothing else matters. Within days of the latest attack, a female police officer is murdered and Jamie's ex-husband is the primary suspect. She shouldn't care. She tells herself she doesn't...until she learns that the details of the murder are eerily similar to the case she is working. Jamie realizes the killer and her predator may be one and the same. Now, Jamie must confront her past and solve the murder of her ex-husband's lover to stop a serial rapist.
(Dr. Annabelle Schwartzman has finally found a place to be...)
Dr. Annabelle Schwartzman has finally found a place to belong. As the medical examiner for the San Francisco Police Department, working alongside homicide detective Hal Harris, she uncovers the tales the dead can't tell about their final moments. It is a job that gives her purpose - and a safe haven from her former life at the hands of an abusive husband. Although it's been seven years since she escaped that ordeal, she still checks over her shoulder to make sure no one is behind her. Schwartzman's latest case is deeply troubling: the victim bears an eerie resemblance to herself.
(Medical examiner Dr. Annabelle Schwartzman was not meant ...)
Medical examiner Dr. Annabelle Schwartzman was not meant to be idle, which is why she's back at a murder scene even while reeling from recent chemotherapy treatments. Having undergone a double mastectomy, all she wants to do is dive back into her medical examiner's job. It's a gruesome world, yet Schwartzman takes comfort in its science and precision. But the crime she's dealing with brings her right back to the cancer ward: the victim is her own oncologist, dead from ingesting the very chemical used to fight her disease. Now, Schwartzman and homicide inspector Hal Harris must figure out why and stop the culprit before he can act again.
(With her vindictive ex-husband out of prison, San Francis...)
With her vindictive ex-husband out of prison, San Francisco medical examiner Annabelle Schwartzman is trying harder than ever to move on with her life - by focusing on her job to speak for the victims who can't. Summoned to a homicide in Golden Gate Park, she realizes that she'd seen the victim just hours before, alive and well in a parked Jeep with a small boy. Now, the woman has been stabbed to death and stripped of her burka, and the child is nowhere to be found. When an African American student is found dead, bearing knife wounds identical to those of the woman in the park, the press jumps on them as hate crimes. If only they were so easy to explain. There is a connection - but Schwartzman believes it's something even worse.
(San Francisco medical examiner Annabelle Schwartzman has ...)
San Francisco medical examiner Annabelle Schwartzman has spent eight years looking over her shoulder. Stalked by her vengeful ex-husband, Spencer, she's always known they'd meet again. Has her nightmare come true? Abducted, blindfolded, yoked, and tethered, she's being held prisoner in an isolated cabin in Idaho. But it's the unknown that terrifies Annabelle now. Because the man's voice in the dark, though eerily familiar, is not Spencer's. Annabelle's partner and lover, Inspector Hal Harris, knows in his gut that Annabelle's disappearance is tied to the past. Except Spencer is fifteen hundred miles away. To save Annabelle, Hal is tracking every move Spencer makes.
(After surviving a car accident on an icy road in Hagen, N...)
After surviving a car accident on an icy road in Hagen, North Dakota, Lily Baker regains consciousness with no idea where or who she is. Scattered Bible verses and the image of a man lying in a pool of blood haunt her memory. The same night of the accident, a young woman is murdered and tossed in a dumpster. Kylie Milliard, Hagen's only detective, doesn't immediately recognize the victim, but Kylie soon discovers that Lily and the dead woman share a dark past…if only Lily could remember what it was.
Danielle Girard is a United States writer and author of dark thrillers and police procedural novels. She is the USA Today and Amazon #1 bestselling author of thirteen novels.
Background
Danielle Girard was born in 1970, in Palo Alto, California, United States. She is a daughter of a physician. As a child, she never really dreamed of writing books. Her father was a physician, and her mother graduated from Stanford Business School, so neither of their jobs were lending themselves towards promoting artistic talent in their daughter. As a firstborn, she had her path laid down before her: business or medicine, but not art.
Education
In 1988-1992, Danielle Girard studied at Cornell University and received a Bachelor of Arts. In 2006-2008, she studied at Queens University of Charlotte and received a Master of Fine Arts.
After college, Danielle Girard went to work for a financial institution. She stayed in the financial business for 10 years. In 1996-2003, she worked as a project manager at Barclays Global Investors. Right until she was in her early twenties, she never even thought of writing books at all. She once met a romance novelist while she was working in finance in Cincinnati, Ohio, who told her to try her hands at writing something, which she did. When after the first few pages one of the characters died, she realized that romance writing is not what she is destined to do. Before finally getting published, Danielle Girard wrote three novels that got rejected. The fourth book, which became her debut novel, finally made it past the gatekeepers. She wrote her first seven books (the three unpublished ones and the first four standalone novels she got published) while she was working in the finance sector. When she started her Rookie Club series, she was working as a marketing writer and freelancer. She became a full-time author in 2016 when she spent the majority of her time writing books rather than doing other types of work.
The standalone Danielle Girard books have been published by Penguin, and when she started the first book in the Rookie Club series, she didn't see eye to eye with the publisher, who wanted it a standalone novel as well, given the previous books' success. So Danielle wrote that book, and initially titled it The Rookie Club. Then, she wrote the next four books in the series and self-published them on Amazon. She also changed the first book's title to Dead Center. With Dr. Schwartzman, she is now publishing through Thomas & Mercer. The last book in The Rookie Club series, Everything to Lose features Annabelle Schwartzman, who eventually got her own time in the limelight in her series that started in 2016 and spanned four books with the latest one, Expire, published in 2019. In 2020, Danielle Girard started a new series titled Badlands Thrillers, with a first book, White Out, released midyear, featuring Kylie Milliard, Hagen's only detective. The author is trying to write around 1000 words every day, including weekends, to get as much writing down as possible to publish at least one book or more per year, especially now that she is a full-time writer. To write her books, she does extensive research. She does, however, speak with a lot of relevant people in those fields, especially medicine and law enforcement, who can help her with details about those jobs.
Girard's novels are similar in the fact that they all revolve around strong-willed female protagonists. For instance, in her first novel, "Savage Art," central character Casey McKinley, a former FBI agent, must track the same serial killer who once maimed her so badly, she had to quit the bureau. In "Ruthless Game," the female protagonist is Alex Kincaid, a rookie police officer in Berkeley, California. The book begins when Kincaid awakens from a sleep, only to find herself mysteriously in her car, parked away from her home.
With "Chasing Darkness," Girard creates another critically lauded detective story. This time she also decides to tackle a serious social issue, as much of the book deals with the problems of child abuse. The book’s female protagonist, Sam Chase, is a former homicide detective who chose to transfer to California's Department of Justice because she could no longer deal with being around death all the time. With her new job, Sam mainly works to apprehend child abusers. Sam's life takes another turn when she becomes the guardian of her twin eight-year-old nephews after their parents are killed. The main theme of child abuse first becomes evident when Sam must work on one of her old cases involving the mother of a child-abuse victim who is found murdered.
Since 2011, Danielle Girard is also a freelance technical writer. In 2011-2012, she worked for RightNow company.