Elise Sandburg

4 primary works

Play Dead

by Anne Frasier

Published 1 June 2004

No one is more familiar with Savannah’s dark side than homicide detective and native resident Elise Sandburg. She’s been haunted for years by her own mysterious past: she was abandoned as a baby in one of the city’s ancient cemeteries, and it’s rumored that she is the illegitimate daughter of an infamous Savannah root doctor. The local Gullah culture of voodoo and magic is one that few outsiders can understand, least of all Elise’s new partner. Now someone is terrorizing the city, creating real-life zombies by poisoning victims into a conscious paralysis that mimics death. As the chilling case unfolds, Elise is drawn back into the haunted past she’s tried so hard to leave behind.

Stay Dead

by Anne Frasier

Published 22 April 2014

New York Times bestselling author Anne Frasier takes listeners back to her dark, enchanting Savannah—a place as terrifying as it is mesmerizing.Homicide detective Elise Sandburg is traumatized after her run-in with a madman the press has dubbed “The Organ Thief.” As Elise takes refuge in her deceased aunt Anastasia’s abandoned plantation to investigate and recover from her ordeal, she begins to question everything—from her dangerous line of work to her complex relationship with her handsome, tortured partner, David Gould. But with a madman on the loose, and her mother’s claims to still hear from Aunt Anastasia, she may have more immediate problems on her hands. In Elise’s world, where cold hard crime mixes with the local Gullah culture, nothing is ever what it seems, and no one is above suspicion—not even the dead.

Pretty Dead

by Anne Frasier

Published 1 September 2015

A serial killer stalks the streets of Savannah...

Homicide detective Elise Sandburg and her partner, profiler David Gould, are all too familiar with the terrible costs of chasing evil. Despite their wounded psyches, the detectives delve into the deranged killer’s twisted mind, determined to unravel the clues in the taunts he leaves behind.

A city gripped by fear...

When his daughter becomes the killer’s next victim, a grief-stricken mayor comes down hard on the police, demanding that they catch the psychopath—now. Feeling the pressure, department officials enlist the aid of both Elise’s estranged father and an FBI profiler who has unresolved business with David.

A cunning and elusive madman...

In a heart-pounding race to stop the next homicide, the detectives uncover their own role in the madman’s deadly game. Will they outsmart the killer before another horrific murder takes place in their beautiful city? Or have Elise and David finally met their match?

Truly Dead

by Anne Frasier

Published 30 May 2017

In award-winning author Anne Frasier’s riveting thriller Truly Dead, homicide detective Elise Sandburg returns to Savannah with her partner, profiler David Gould, to track a killer who seems eerily familiar.

When a demolition crew uncovers several bodies inside the walls of a house where serial killer Frank J. Remy once lived, the discovery sends shock waves through the Savannah Police Department. All of the bodies were hidden before Remy’s imprisonment and subsequent death thirty-six years earlier—except for one belonging to a missing child.

Homicide partners Elise Sandburg and David Gould were the Savannah PD’s dream team, solving uncrackable crimes and catching killers. But their last case resulted in their termination from the squad, until the coroner calls them back to consult, unofficially, on a body found in the wall of a house once occupied by Remy, a killer Elise’s own father sent to jail—a killer who died in prison. The MO seems uncomfortably similar to that of a serial killer wreaking havoc in Florida.

Does Elise have a copycat on her hands? Is Remy’s influence reaching from beyond the grave? Or is Elise making connections where there are none? When her father warns her to back off the case, Elise’s shadowy family history threatens to swallow her once again. But whatever force is at work, she won’t rest until the killing stops.

Now at odds with everyone she cares about and forced to acknowledge her worsening emotional state, Elise struggles to protect the people she loves as the body count rises.