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Dead Certainty: Wren Mallory Genealogy Mystery Book Five
From Chapter The phone rang at 9:47 AM, which was a problem because Wren was asleep.
The screen Nora Clement. Wren did not take phone calls willingly — email for client communication, text for urgent scheduling, calls only when the information required real-time exchange. Nora Clement had been an email client for the entirety of their professional relationship. She had never called.
Wren answered.
"Ms. Mallory." Nora's voice was shaking — not dramatically, but with the fine tremor of a person whose body was processing information faster than her speech could manage. "I'm sorry to call. I know you said email is better. I'm sorry."
"It's all right," Wren said. "What happened?"
"Dale Kovacs is dead."
In the small town of Harlow, Indiana, genetic genealogist Wren Mallory works alone in a converted carriage house at hours when most of the world is asleep. Her tools are census records, DNA segment maps, and a basset hound named Sanger who has strong opinions about counter crackers. Her cases are quiet. Her life is, by careful design, the same.
Until a 1,453-centimorgan DNA match cracks open an $8.2 million Michigan estate — and the man who could have explained it is suddenly, conveniently, found dead in his downtown office.
Nora Clement only wanted to know who her father was. The answer is buried in a 1954 adoption, a sealed will, and a Grand Rapids family who has every reason to make the question disappear. As Wren follows the centimorgans backward through three generations, the threats stop being veiled. Witnesses go silent. A probate hearing turns into a courtroom showdown. And the careful boundaries Wren has kept around her work — and around herself — begin to fall away.
For the first time in her career, Wren is the expert witness. For the first time in four years, she's leaving the carriage house. And for the first time, the evidence she uncovers may put her in the path of someone willing to kill to keep a name out of a will.
Across the fence, her neighbor Dotty tends her tomatoes and waits. Under the desk, Sanger sleeps. And somewhere between Harlow and Grand Rapids, a pattern is forming that only Wren Mallory can read.
Perfect for fans
Cozy mysteries with an amateur female sleuthGenetic genealogy and DNA mystery puzzlesSmall-town settings with quirky, observant neighborsDog-companion cozy mysteries (basset hound sidekick)Slow-burn mysteries with methodical, neurodivergent-coded protagonistsProbate, estate, and inheritance mystery plotsClean reads — no graphic violence, no on-page intimacySeries readers who love watching a protagonist's world quietly expand The Wren Mallory Genealogy Mystery series — where every family tree has a buried root, and every centimorgan tells the truth.
The screen Nora Clement. Wren did not take phone calls willingly — email for client communication, text for urgent scheduling, calls only when the information required real-time exchange. Nora Clement had been an email client for the entirety of their professional relationship. She had never called.
Wren answered.
"Ms. Mallory." Nora's voice was shaking — not dramatically, but with the fine tremor of a person whose body was processing information faster than her speech could manage. "I'm sorry to call. I know you said email is better. I'm sorry."
"It's all right," Wren said. "What happened?"
"Dale Kovacs is dead."
In the small town of Harlow, Indiana, genetic genealogist Wren Mallory works alone in a converted carriage house at hours when most of the world is asleep. Her tools are census records, DNA segment maps, and a basset hound named Sanger who has strong opinions about counter crackers. Her cases are quiet. Her life is, by careful design, the same.
Until a 1,453-centimorgan DNA match cracks open an $8.2 million Michigan estate — and the man who could have explained it is suddenly, conveniently, found dead in his downtown office.
Nora Clement only wanted to know who her father was. The answer is buried in a 1954 adoption, a sealed will, and a Grand Rapids family who has every reason to make the question disappear. As Wren follows the centimorgans backward through three generations, the threats stop being veiled. Witnesses go silent. A probate hearing turns into a courtroom showdown. And the careful boundaries Wren has kept around her work — and around herself — begin to fall away.
For the first time in her career, Wren is the expert witness. For the first time in four years, she's leaving the carriage house. And for the first time, the evidence she uncovers may put her in the path of someone willing to kill to keep a name out of a will.
Across the fence, her neighbor Dotty tends her tomatoes and waits. Under the desk, Sanger sleeps. And somewhere between Harlow and Grand Rapids, a pattern is forming that only Wren Mallory can read.
Perfect for fans
Cozy mysteries with an amateur female sleuthGenetic genealogy and DNA mystery puzzlesSmall-town settings with quirky, observant neighborsDog-companion cozy mysteries (basset hound sidekick)Slow-burn mysteries with methodical, neurodivergent-coded protagonistsProbate, estate, and inheritance mystery plotsClean reads — no graphic violence, no on-page intimacySeries readers who love watching a protagonist's world quietly expand The Wren Mallory Genealogy Mystery series — where every family tree has a buried root, and every centimorgan tells the truth.
301 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 16, 2026
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 29, 2026
Inconsistent timeline is jarring.
I do enjoy these stories, but some discrepancies shake my concentration. In one place Sanger was left at the carriage house by former neighbors; in another When has known him for 11 years. In an early book she went to the detectives house to work a case but in this book she has never been to his house! And what is the point of all the random question marks? Made the reading difficult.
I do enjoy these stories, but some discrepancies shake my concentration. In one place Sanger was left at the carriage house by former neighbors; in another When has known him for 11 years. In an early book she went to the detectives house to work a case but in this book she has never been to his house! And what is the point of all the random question marks? Made the reading difficult.
Displaying 1 of 1 review