Palmetto Publishing Releases George Kerpi's Debut Crime Novel About a Cold Case That Refuses to Stay Buried

The novel opens when a hunting party walks into the Oak Ridge sheriff's office carrying a severed finger bearing a gold ring. Detective Aaron Chase identifies it as belonging to Dr. Natalie Brooks, a physician who had said her goodbyes three days earlier and driven away from the mountain resort where she had worked for four years. Everyone believed she had simply moved on. Chase and his partner begin pulling at the threads of her disappearance, encountering an unsent letter, an ex-husband who surfaced the day she vanished, and a geologist carrying a debt he could neither repay nor acknowledge.

What initially appears to be a crime of passion reveals ties to something far more organized, patient, and dangerous. The investigation builds toward an arrest, a confession, and a verdict the community accepts. But the ground beneath that resolution is unstable. Eleven years later, a woman arrives in Oak Ridge with a cold case file, determined to find out how much was left buried. The dual timeline structure forces questions about institutional failure, personal complicity, and whether the people closest to the truth chose not to see it.

Treacherous Path enters a crime fiction landscape shaped by the atmospheric, character-driven work of authors such as Tana French and Jane Harper. The novel is positioned for readers aged thirty to sixty who gravitate toward procedurals set in insular communities where moral ambiguity matters more than plot twists. Its focus on silence, complicity, and the cost of looking away speaks directly to a cultural moment in which questions about institutional accountability remain urgent and unresolved.

Treacherous Path is available for purchase online at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. For more information about the author, please visit any of their social media platforms.
Facebook: George Kerpi - Author
Instagram: georgekerpiauthor

About the Author: George Kerpi brings firsthand insight into the world of law and justice to his crime fiction. Raised in a household of government lawyers who held institutions accountable for their actions, he was immersed in questions of right and wrong, legality and lawlessness, long before he could fully understand them. That foundation gives his writing an authenticity that readers can feel on every page.

Kerpi's debut novel, Treacherous Path, was born from a desire to explore crime fiction that resists easy moral categories. Drawn to stories where characters cannot be defined simply as good or bad, he set out to write a mystery that is equal parts dark suspense and human drama. The result is a novel about a violent crime that unravels into something far more complex: a crime of passion entangled with betrayal, organized crime, and the slow erosion of humanity. For Kerpi, the story is not merely imagined; it is a genuine, immersive, reflective experience meant to challenge readers and stay with them long after the final page.

When he is not writing, Kerpi draws inspiration from the tension between the ordinary and the extraordinary in everyday life. He believes that childhood and environment leave a tremendous mark on character, and that belief fuels his commitment to crafting layered, psychologically rich fiction. Follow George for updates on new releases.

About the Book:

Title: Treacherous Path
Author: George Kerpi

Publisher: Palmetto Publishing
Publication date: 08/11/2026
ISBN-13: 9798318845024, 9798318846069

SOURCE Palmetto Publishing