Fractured Oak

A tree is the only one who saw the crime, and it cannot tell anyone. In 1853, Catherine Miller was killed for trying to practice medicine in a world run by men. A fusion of death and regrowth then turned her into a Northern Red Oak. A century and a half and more later, she is still a silent but fully aware tree, rooted beside a remote house in northeast Ohio.

She has watched the house's newest owner kill one of his doctoral students, and she is determined, somehow, to make sure he answers for it. Her one possible ally is Lani Whitaker, a fourth-generation detective who is weeks away from mandatory retirement and tired of being written off as outdated by her young police chief. When the doctoral student's body is discovered in the woods, Lani sets out to solve the case and leave the force on a high note.

The novel follows two women separated by generations and joined by murder. Its central question is whether investigating a modern killing can reveal the truth about a nineteenth-century one.