Empty Boxes (A Rita Locke Mystery)

“From the first page to the last, this thriller is rock solid. Great story, with amped up characters.” 
— Robert Dugoni, New York Times bestselling author of the Tracy Crosswhite Series

“With Empty Boxes, Robin Acton offers the reader a macabre and gripping page-turner with a new twist around every corner. Intense and spine-tingling.”
 —Annette Dashofy, USA Today bestselling author of the Zoe Chambers Mysteries

It’s only when she ends up in a box herself, struggling to breathe, that she finally discovers the truth about a sophisticated scheme — but will she live to write about it?"

Pittsburgh crime reporter Rita Locke is investigating the murder of a funeral director when she learns he’d been burying empty coffins. Delving into his secrets, she uncovers a sinister plot of international proportions that takes her from western Pennsylvania to an offshore Caribbean medical school, where she becomes entangled in a web of deception that leaves her fighting for her life.

“Like nothing I witnessed in medical school. A gripping, unnervingly plausible page-turner that is creepy, sharp, and disturbingly real.” 
—Shira Shiloah, MD, author of Emergence

Award winning journalist Robin Acton has interviewed everyone from presidential candidates to convicted murderers during her career writing for several Pennsylvania newspapers. She has written extensively about crime, politics, government bureaucracy, and terrorism. Acton's debut novel, The Taker, was a finalist for Best Mystery in the Silver Falchion Award competition sponsored by the Killer Nashville International Writers' Conference. She and her husband, a Marine combat vet, share a blended family of a daughter and three sons, five grandchildren, and an extremely spoiled bichon/poodle mix.