The Fractured Investigator

Previously published as The Fractured Investigator by C.W. Haldon.A child drops a school project. A routine shifts by seconds. And Mara Venn steps into the place where someone else was expected to be.Investigator Adrian Vale sees more than a violent attack gone wrong. The timing is too precise. The location is too carefully chosen. Someone has learned to weaponize the ordinary patterns of human behavior-where people stand, how they move, and what they can be trusted to do next.To uncover the truth, Vale must reconstruct the crime through space, habit, and observation. But the deeper he follows the pattern, the more he recognizes the methods behind it-and the troubling connection between the system he is pursuing and the instincts he relies upon to pursue it.A speculative investigative thriller about prediction, control, and what happens when human behavior becomes evidence.