Mary Burton

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About Mary Burton
Mary Burton loves writing suspense, researching law enforcement and forensic procedures, morning walks, baking, books, and tiny dachshunds. She also enjoys hunting down serial killers, which she does in her New York Times and USA Today bestselling novels of suspense and romance. Library Journal has compared her work to that of Lisa Jackson and Lisa Gardner, and Fresh Fiction likened her writing to that of James Patterson.
Mary is routinely featured among the top twenty writers in Amazon’s Author Rankings for romantic suspense, and her recent novel The Last Move claimed the number ten fiction slot in the Kindle eBooks Store.
Research is a favorite part of Mary’s day. She never tires of learning more about police work, evidence collection and analysis. She’s known for taking a hands-on approach, whether it means interviews with professionals in the field, forensic seminars or lessons at the firing range.
A Richmond native, Mary has lived there for most of her life. She is a graduate of Virginia’s Hollins University and worked in marketing before she began writing full time. Her first book was published in 2000 and she’s now the author of thirty-four published novels, five novellas and four works of contemporary women’s fiction written as Mary Ellen Taylor.
A member of International Thriller Writers, Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Novelists, Inc., and Romance Writers of America, Mary is known for creating multiple suspense stories connected by characters, such as her recent The Forgotten Files novels. Her new book, Her Last Word, and The Last Move, break that mold.
When not traveling for research or visiting with readers at bookstores, book festivals and conferences, Mary remains very much a homebody. She and her husband spend time alternately enjoying and lamenting their empty nest and spoiling their four-legged babies Buddy, Bella and Tiki.
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Author Updates
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Blog postMary Burton releases THE LIES I TOLD- coming August 2, 2022! For a woman obsessed and a killer in her shadow, remembering the past becomes a mind game in a novel of psychological suspense by New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton
Read More2 months ago Read more -
Blog post“With plenty of possible suspects, Burton’s (Never Look Back) latest will appeal to readers who want light romance and heavy suspense.” – Library Journal
Buy Now2 months ago Read more -
Blog postPUBLISHER’S WEEKLY PRAISE FOR BURN YOU TWICE
I’m thrilled to share the Publisher’s Weekly STARRED review for NEAR YOU.
“Thrilling novel… fans of romantic suspense will be enthralled.”
Forensic psychologist and single mother Ann Bailey has joined forces with Montana Highway Patrol officer Bryce McCabe. An expert in untangling the motives of depraved minds, Ann is tasked to help solve the mystery of t
1 year ago Read more -
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Blog postGet the Book Prologue
Missoula, Montana
May 13, 2010
1:00 a.m.
Ten Years Ago
The college campus bar was packed with students celebrating the end of another school year. All eyes were on the small stage, now flashing with blue and white spotlights as a singer gripped the mike and hit the high notes on the song’s last chorus. Everyone was mesmerized, including Joan and Ann who were standing n
2 years ago Read more -
Blog postI’m thrilled to share the Publisher’s Weekly review of Burn You Twice!
“Burton does a good job balancing gentle romance with high-tension suspense.” And advanced praise from reads is just as fantastic.
“It is blazing fantastic! “Hated that it ended,” “This is a scorcher!!! and “MUST READ.”
2 years ago Read more -
Blog postNashville, Tennessee
Monday, August 17, 10:30 p.m.
Heat and humidity punched up the bleach’s faint scent in the van’s dark interior. It made his eyes water, his throat burn, and his palms itch under the latex.
Scrubbers and fine brushes cleaned surfaces well enough, but disinfectants seeped into unseen crevices and obliterated pesky droplets of blood. Trace evidence sowed the seeds of a cavalier man’s downfall.
Perhaps the second dous
2 years ago Read more -
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Blog post
The building manager’s gaze dropped to the creased bills carefully smoothed out so they did not look like they had been jammed in a pantry mason jar. “I could lose my job.”
Nikki’s cash reserves were on vapors, and her credit cards bumped against their respective limits. What resources she still had needed to last until the end of the month, when her corporate freelance gig coughed up the two grand needed for rent. “No worries. Open the door, and no one w3 years ago Read more -
Blog postJoin me to celebrate the release of my latest suspense novel I SEE YOU! Enter to win one of eight $25 Amazon gift cards. Winners will be announced on I SEE YOU’S Pub Day, October 8, 2019. Please include your name and an active email address. The first winner will be announced at 10:00 a.m. EDT on my Facebook page. Winners will be announced throughout the day.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
3 years ago Read more -
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Blog postA Mary Burton Killer Recipe
Sav
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
1 t baking soda
½ t baking powder
2 T pumpkin pie spice
Cinnamon sugar
Cream together the butter and sugar. When the mixture is smooth, add in one egg at a time. In another bowl shift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and pumpkin pie spice. Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the b3 years ago Read more -
Blog postPreview Changes (opens in a new tab)
Special Agent Zoe Spencer stepped back from the clay bust she had been working on for weeks. The woman’s likeness featured an angled jaw, a long narrow nose, and sculpted cheekbones. She had chosen brown for the eyes, a guess based on statistics. And it was not lost on her that the most telling part of who this woman had been was conjecture.
Zoe’s attention to detail was both her superpower and her Achilles’ he3 years ago Read more -
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Titles By Mary Burton
A homicide detective in the dark. A serial killer on the loose. Both have their obsessions in a nerve-twisting novel of suspense by New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton.
Austin homicide detective Jordan Poe is hunting a serial killer she fears is the same man who assaulted her sister, Avery, two years ago. The details line up: the victims are the same age, same type, dead by the same grim MO. Luckily Avery survived. But the terrible memories linger, making Jordan more determined than ever to stop this monster in his tracks.
Texas Ranger Carter Spencer isn’t one to poach on a detective’s territory. Yet no matter how resentful a capable lone wolf like Jordan is, when she is attacked at a third crime scene and suffers a trauma that leaves her with limited vision, it’s up to Carter to help Jordan navigate a world she no longer recognizes. He needs her instinct, her experience, and her fearless resolve to crack this case. A case that’s about to get even darker.
A stranger is watching. He’s closing in on his ultimate prey. And no one but the killer can see what’s coming.
She’s hunting. He’s watching.
Special Agent Macy Crow is a survivor. After a vicious hit-and-run nearly kills her, she gets right back to work, and now she’s gunning for a spot on the FBI’s elite profiling team. As an audition, she offers to investigate the recently discovered bones of Tobi Turner, a high school girl who disappeared fifteen years ago.
While investigating with local sheriff Mike Nevada, a former colleague and onetime lover, Macy discovers a link between Tobi’s case and several others that occurred around the same time as her disappearance. As Macy interviews victims and examines old cases, she uncovers a sinister picture of a stalker who graduated to sexual assault—and then murder.
Macy and Nevada race to put this monster behind bars before he can come out of hiding. But the murderer’s had years to hone his skills, and soon Macy herself becomes a target. She’s no stranger to pain and terror, but will Macy’s first profiling case be her last?
In this gripping stand-alone from bestselling author Mary Burton, an FBI agent must catch a copycat killer. The only difference this time: she’s the final victim.
Catching monsters helps FBI agent Kate Hayden keep her nightmares at bay. Now an urgent call brings her back to San Antonio, the scene of her violent past. A brutal new murder shows hallmarks of a serial killer nicknamed the Samaritan. Tricky part is, Kate already caught him.
Either Kate made a deadly error, or she’s got a copycat on her hands. Paired with homicide detective Theo Mazur, she quickly realizes this murder is more twisted than it first appeared. Then a second body is found, the mode of death identical to a different case that Kate thought she’d put behind her.
Now Kate and Detective Mazur aren’t just working a homicide; the investigative pair is facing a formidable enemy who knows Kate intimately. While Mazur is personally trying to protect Kate, the closer they are drawn to the killer, the clearer it becomes that in this terrifying game, there is only one rule: don’t believe everything you see…
An unsolved crime pits a desperate woman against a relentless killer in New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton’s heart-stopping novel of psychological suspense…
Fourteen years ago, Kaitlin Roe was the lone witness to the abduction of her cousin Gina. She still remembers that lonely Virginia road. She can still see the masked stranger and hear Gina’s screams. And she still suffers the guilt of running away in fear and resents being interrogated as a suspect in the immediate aftermath. Now Kaitlin has only one way to assuage the pain and nightmares—by interviewing everyone associated with the unsolved crime for a podcast that could finally bring closure to a case gone cold.
But when a woman Kaitlin questions is later found stabbed to death, she fears that she’s drawn a killer out of hiding. It’s Detective John Adler’s fear that the murders have only just begun. Now his job is to keep Kaitlin safe.
As a bond between Kaitlin and Adler builds, the past closes in just as fast—and it’s darker than Kaitlin remembers. Soon, her wish will come true. She’s going to find out exactly what happened to Gina. Someone has been dying to tell her.
Twin sisters separated by the past are reunited by unspeakable crimes in New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton’s throat-clutching novel of suspense…
Trauma victims are not new to medical examiner Faith McIntyre, but this one is different. The unconscious woman clinging to life after a hit and run is FBI agent Macy Crow. What the woman from Quantico was doing in a dark alley after midnight is just one mystery. The other is more unsettling: Macy is Faith’s mirror image—the twin sister she never knew she had.
Faith knew that she was adopted, but now she’s finding that her childhood concealed other secrets. Following the trail of clues Macy left behind, Faith and Texas Ranger Mitchell Hayden make a shocking discovery on an isolated country ranch—a burial ground for three women who disappeared thirty years before.
They weren’t the only victims in a killer’s twisted plot. And they won’t be the last.
As the missing pieces of Faith’s and Macy’s dark lives snap into place, Faith is becoming more terrified by what she sees—and by what she must do to save her sister and herself from the past.
Even behind bars, serial killer Harvey Lee Smith exudes menace. Psychologist Jolene Granger has agreed to hear his dying confession, vowing not to let the monster inside her head. And Harvey has secrets to share—about bodies that were never found, and about the apprentice who is continuing his grisly work . . .
AND NOW HE’LL TEACH THEM
He buries his victims alive the way his mentor Harvey did, relishing their final screams as the earth rains down. And as one last gift to the only father he knew, he’ll make the most perfect kill of all.
HOW TO DIE
Everything about this investigation is unnerving Jo, from Harvey’s fascination with her to the fact that she’s working alongside Texas Ranger Brody Winchester, her ex-husband. Harvey’s protégé is growing bolder and more vicious every day. And soon the trail of shallow graves will lead them to the last place Jo expected, and to the most terrifying truth of all . . .
“A thrill a minute . . . there is no escaping the fact that with No Escape, Mary Burton delivers again.”
—The Jefferson County Post (Tennessee)
He Will Never Forget
The broken body hanging from a tree in Texas Hill Country . . . the frozen figure huddled in a meat locker . . . only at second glance does the truth become apparent. What seems like suicide is far more sinister, and the terror is only beginning . . .
Never Forgive
One devastating moment changed Greer Templeton’s life and ended two others. Now, with a body found on her property and Texas Ranger Tec Bragg on her doorstep, Greer’s nightmare has returned. With each new victim, her link to Tec’s case grows, and soon it will be too late to run.
And Never Let Them Live . . .
Greer hoped the past was behind her, but an obsessed killer has never forgotten the bond that unites them. One by one, he will track down his victims, finish what was started—and make Greer’s dying wish come true . . .
“Murder with unsettling, eerie elements grabs the reader’s attention from the get-go. Mary Burton weaves a tale of mystery and suspense that made me shudder at times.”—Long and Short Reviews
“Burton plays cat-and-mouse with the reader through a tight plot, with credible suspects and romantic spice keeping it real.”—Publishers Weekly
“Kept me engaged and guessing from beginning to end . . . chilling.”—Smart Bitches Trashy Books
“The story is intense and fast paced and the characters are well written.”—Dive Under the Cover
In a scorching novel of obsession and revenge, New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton ignites fear in the heart of a woman targeted by a killer who knows her secrets.
Forensic psychologist and single mother Ann Bailey has joined forces with Montana Highway Patrol officer Bryce McCabe. An expert in untangling the motives of depraved minds, Ann is tasked to help solve the mystery of two murdered women doused with gasoline and set aflame.
It’s not hard for Ann to be reminded of the charismatic Elijah Weston, who served a decade in prison for arson—a crime that nearly cost Ann her life. Elijah may have been exonerated, but the connection to these rage killings is impossible for Ann to ignore. One of the victims has been identified as an obsessed Elijah groupie. Elijah has obsessions, too. Ever since Ann returned to town, he can’t take his eyes off her. And as a mother with a secret, she’s the perfect victim for an infatuated psychopath.
The deeper Ann and Bryce’s investigation goes, the nearer they get to each other and to danger. After another murder hits close to home, Ann fears a clue is hidden in her own past. Only one thing terrifies her more than the reveal of her long-held secret. It’s that the secret itself has put Ann into a killer’s line of fire.
A cold case heats up in this gritty, suspenseful thriller from New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton.
FBI special agent Zoe Spencer uses skeletal remains to recreate the faces of murder victims through sculpture. Though highly scientific, the process is also sensitive and intimate; she becomes attached to the individuals she identifies, desperate to find justice for each.
As Zoe examines old remains, she sees a teenage girl looking back at her—the victim in a cold case from over a decade ago. Zoe wants nothing more than to tell this young woman’s story and to bring her killer to justice.
Zoe’s case leads her to the victim’s hometown and to homicide detective William Vaughan, Zoe’s on-again, off-again lover. As the two become more involved in the case, they quickly realize that it isn’t as cold as they first believed: someone’s still out there hunting women. And with more women gone missing, time’s running out. Can they work together and stop this madman before he kills again?
Beside each body, he leaves a simple charm bearing a woman’s name: Ruth, Judith, Rachel. The victims were strangers to each other, but they have been chosen with care. Each bears a striking resemblance to Kendall Shaw, a local anchorwoman. And each is brutally strangled by a madman whose obsession will never end . . .
In front of the cameras, Kendall is the picture of stylish confidence. But at night she’s haunted by nightmares in which she is young, alone, and filled with fear. Are these memories—or omens? Despite warnings from Richmond Detective Jacob Warwick, Kendall can’t stop investigating the recent string of murders. She knows she holds the key to catching an obsessed psychopath—ss long as he doesn’t catch her first . . .
As Kendall and Jacob dig deep into the victims’ backgrounds, a legacy of evil begins to resurface. Every moment—and every murder—has been leading to Kendall. And nothing will stop the killer making her the final victim . . .
“With a gift for artful obfuscation, Burton juggles a budding romance and two very plausible might-be perpetrators right up to the tense conclusion.”—Publishers Weekly
A Virginia homicide detective must save a young widow from an obsessed serial killer in the New York Times bestselling author’s romantic suspense novel.
An aspiring artist. A high-school senior. A stripper. Three missing women with only one thing in common—wealthy Craig Thornton knew them all. For that, they paid the ultimate price. Then Craig comes to his own untimely end, and his wife Adrianna is left to face the shocking truth of his life . . .
When Adrianna starts receiving cards and flowers from her late husband, she assumes it’s someone’s cruel joke. Then grisly remains are found on the Thornton estate. Detective Gage Hudson believes the bodies are linked to Craig. But the biggest shocks are yet to come. A psychopath has resumed his work, each death a prelude to his most cherished target. The only way to stop him is to uncover a family’s dark past—and a twisted love someone will kill for, again and again . . .
For a woman obsessed and a killer in her shadow, remembering the past becomes a mind game in a novel of psychological suspense by New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton.
Twin sisters Marisa and Clare Stockton were sixteen when Clare’s body was found in Virginia’s James River. No arrests were made. Fourteen years later, Marisa’s friends and dedicated career as a photographer help her to cope with the open wound of the past. But Marisa still feels the hurt—and the unsolved murder isn’t the only thing haunting her.
A recent car crash has erased ten days of Marisa’s memories—a black hole leading up to the accident that’s left her disoriented. Every text and phone call from that crucial missing time has vanished, along with her phone. A photograph she took of the river has disappeared. A new neighbor Marisa believes she knows introduces himself as if he were a stranger. And there’s the growing fear that her near-fatal accident was no accident at all. As dreams of Clare and nightmares of the crash begin to converge, so do two disturbing puzzles fourteen years apart.
Putting the pieces together could be fatal. As she struggles to remember everything, Marisa closes in on a killer—without realizing that he’s already closed in on her.
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