Chasing the Dead (A David Raker Mystery, Bk. 1)

Missing persons investigator David Raker’s heartstopping hunt for a mother’s vanished son—book one of Tim Weaver’s international bestselling mystery series

One year ago, Alex Towne’s body was found. One month ago, his mother saw him on the street. One week ago, David Raker agreed to look for him. Now he wishes he hadn’t.
 
Mary Towne’s son, Alex, went missing six years ago. Five years later he finally turned up—as a corpse in a car wreck. Missing persons investigator David Raker doesn’t want the work: it’s clearly a sad but hopeless case of mistaken identity brought to him by a woman unable to let go of her son. But haunted by a loss of his own, he reluctantly agrees.
 
As Raker digs deeper, he discovers that Alex’s life was not the innocent one his mother believed. Buried in his past are secrets that were never meant to be found—and dark, dangerous men willing to kill to protect them.

Tim Weaver is the international bestselling author of the mystery series featuring private investigator David Raker. He made his American debut with Never Coming Back, which was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club and nominated for a National Book Award in the UK, and in 2015 he was longlisted for the prestigious Dagger in the Library Award from the Crime Writers’ Association. Weaver is also the host of the popular podcast Missing, about how people disappear and how investigators search for them. A former journalist and magazine editor, he now writes fiction full time and lives with his wife and daughter in Bath, England.