A missing daughter. A dead woman. A hurricane closing in.

Malevolent Intent is a Charleston-set suspense thriller about betrayal, vengeance, and a desperate fight to save a child.

After a disastrous fourth tour overseas, Army Colonel Vernon Matheson returns to civilian life hoping to rebuild. Instead, he finds his house trashed, a dead woman on his bedroom floor, and his wife and five-year-old daughter missing.

Every attempt to find answers brings more resistance. His grandparents are evasive, the lead investigator seems determined to frame him, and each false lead costs precious time.

Attorney Lee Danforth is assigned to his case, but Vern wants no one digging through his shattered life. As their uneasy alliance deepens, they uncover his wife Angela's double life and a trail of misery, secrets, and betrayal. Behind it all lurks a calculating killer who has been stalking the family for months.

With a hurricane bearing down on the South Carolina coast, Lee and Vern must find his daughter, Katie, before the storm, and the man hunting them, bring everything crashing down.

For readers drawn to missing-person mysteries, dangerous family secrets, and suspense novels with relentless investigations and high personal stakes.

A Note on Legal Realism
The author draws on an attorney background to shape how Lee Danforth navigates the system — the friction of caseloads, the procedural rhythms of life as an attorney, and the bureaucratic walls that slow an investigation are grounded in professional experience. Some courtroom sequences and investigative timelines have been compressed or dramatized to serve the pace of the story. Readers looking for a legal thriller with an authentic practitioner's perspective will find it here; readers expecting a procedural manual will find the story comes first.