Patterns of Violence
Officer Ryder Dallas notices things other people miss.
A misplaced object. A witness remembering the wrong detail. A pattern created not by what is present-but by what is missing.
It is the kind of mind that makes her an exceptional patrol officer.
It may also make her the perfect target.
When Ryder and her longtime partner, Jimmy Johnson, stumble into a brutal homicide investigation, the evidence points toward a serial killer already known for one unsettling signature: a quarter left behind beside the words SORRY YOU LOST.
The press calls him the Coin Flip Killer.
But Ryder begins to suspect the coin is only part of the performance.
As the bodies accumulate, the killer starts changing the rules. Crime scenes become lessons. Victims become examples. Ordinary places-parks, restaurants, schools, libraries, transit stops-become carefully constructed puzzles designed to test what investigators notice, what they assume, and how easily trust can be manipulated.
And Ryder keeps answering.
Working alongside Detective Mel Lee and an increasingly invested task force, Ryder begins uncovering a history far larger than anyone expected. The killer has spent years studying people: how children trust adults, how witnesses remember strangers, how communities decide who belongs, and how police investigations can be quietly steered by the questions no one thinks to ask.
The more Ryder understands him, the more interested he becomes in her.
Soon, the investigation is no longer simply about catching a murderer.
It is about stopping a man who believes he is teaching Ryder how to see the world.
But Ryder is learning something he never intended to teach her:
Patterns can reveal the truth.
They can also hide it.
Dark, intelligent, character-driven, and threaded with dry humor, Patterns of Violence is the first novel in The Dallas Files, a psychological crime-thriller series about an investigator whose greatest strength is not finding answers.
It is knowing when everyone is asking the wrong question.
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