Gene Gross

All summer on Iowa’s iconic Lake Okoboji, Executive Director of Lakeside Laboratory Dr. Cassandra Marek has defended research by renowned freshwater scientist, Dr. David Pryor, from a smear campaign by some who fear his work could slow the economy in the region should he project the threat of waterway pollution from future construction projects. But when Pryor’s body is found floating in a bog and autopsies report no strong conclusions, Marek is forced to enlist the help of a locally famous private investigator, retired federal prosecutor Michael Cain.

Looking into Pryor’s reputation and the possibility of murder, Cain learns of many with motives, the means, the opportunity… even a few individuals on campus. Could botany and mycology instructor Dr. Doreen Adams be culpable? How about the mysterious character who bribed Pryor for access to his report before its release? Or was it Pryor’s graduate assistant, Penny Dykes, whom the man ridiculed nearly to the point of abuse? Whoever is to blame, the case is certain to require rigorous science, personal grit, Cain’s talent for perception, and the help of Michael’s Marauders to solve the mystery before the environment and the laboratory suffer irreversible catastrophes.

Gene Gross’s third novel, A Lab for Murder, is a whodunit wrapped in an environmental drama about the health and future of Iowa’s Great Lakes in an age of rapid growth.

It is the peak of tourist season for the Iowa Great Lakes region, but the vibrant resort area is shaken when a retired FBI agent disappears and body parts begin to surface. When the governor asks former federal prosecutor Michael Cain to investigate, Michael peals away, layer by layer, the sordid attempts by a self-anointed criminal mastermind, Bart Farley, to win a casino license for the lakes area.

With his nightclub and oversized excursion boat as a front, Farley schemes to use prostitution to blackmail a member of the state’s gambling commission. But Farley’s plan implodes when a trafficked girl escapes and a second is murdered by his client. Obsessed and with his own life at risk, Farley will stop at nothing, not assassination, human trafficking, blackmail, nor multiple murders, to achieve his goal.

Standing in his way is Michael Cain.

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The Iowa Lakes region is home to deep blue lakes, summer resorts, and a respectable community with families going back generations. But this idyllic image is shattered one night when a fisherman draws in a net with the body of local darling Virginia Lawrey. Seasoned prosecutor Michael Cain with his unrelenting thirst for justice soon gets drawn deep into the investigation. Haunted by his own past, Michael is forced to confront his own ghosts and those of his hometown—someone close has aligned themselves with the devil. Can Michael redeem himself and find the culprit before more lives are lost—including his own?