Book 1

Fire in the Stars

by Barbara Fradkin

Published 3 September 2016
A former aid worker returns home haunted by her time in Africa and channels her pain into a murder investigation that’s all too personal.

After surviving a horrific trauma in Nigeria, international aid worker Amanda Doucette returns to Canada to rebuild her life and her shaken ideals. There, the once-passionate, adventurous woman needs all her strength and ingenuity when a friend and fellow survivor goes missing along with his son.

A trained first-aid and crisis responder, Doucette — always accompanied by her beloved dog Kaylee — joins forces with RCMP officer Chris Tymko to discover the truth about the disappearance. Their search leads them to the Great Northern Peninsula, a rugged landscape of Viking history, icebergs, whales, and fierce ocean storms. Elsewhere, a body gets hauled up in a fisherman’s net, and evidence is mounting of an unsettling connection with Amanda’s search for her friend. Fradkin writes evocatively of the beautiful, often hostile, Newfoundland landscape where Amanda soon finds herself fighting for her very survival.

Book 2

The Trickster's Lullaby

by Barbara Fradkin

Published 2 September 2017
A winter camping trip turns deadly as two missing teenagers, a twisted love triangle, and the spectre of radicalism create turmoil in the remote Laurentian wilderness.



Amanda Doucette's cross-Canada charity tour is in for a cold snap when she organizes a winter camping trip for inner-city young people in the stunning setting of the Laurentian Mountains. With a view to bridging cultural divides, she brings along a mixture of Canadian-born and immigrant youth.


Trouble begins when two of the teenagers disappear into the wilderness during the night: Luc, a French/English-Canadian with a history of drug use, and Yasmina, an adventurous young woman from Iraq who dreams of becoming a human rights lawyer. Although frantic, their parents are strangely secretive amid suspicions of drug use and forbidden romance. But when a local farmer turns up dead and terrorist material is found on Luc's computer, the dangers turn deadly. Now in a battle against both the elements and police, Amanda and Corporal Chris Tymko discover a far greater web of secrets and deception.


As Amanda races to save the young people from danger, she finds herself fighting for stakes far higher than their own lives.

Book 3

Prisoners of Hope

by Barbara Fradkin

Published 6 October 2018
Amanda Doucette finds herself drawn into the world of exploited foreign workers when she rescues a Filipino nanny accused of murdering her wealthy employer.


Georgian Bay: a spectacular terrain of granite shores, deserted islands, and infinite sparkling bays. As part of her cross-Canada charity tour, Amanda has planned a kayaking trip in the area for abused families from a rural Ontario community.

While exploring some remote islands offshore, she and a local tour guide rescue a frightened young woman whose boat has capsized. In an apparent act of kindness, the tour guide takes the woman to shore, leaving Amanda stranded. But when news surfaces that a wealthy doctor has died at his estate and his Filipino nanny has gone missing, Amanda fears far more sinister forces are at work. When the young tour guide is found dead on a nearby island, she and RCMP officer Chris Tymko race to prevent more innocent deaths.

Book 4

The Ancient Dead

by Barbara Fradkin

Published 26 January 2021
Amanda Doucette searches desperately for the connection between bones discovered in a remote Alberta coulee and an uncle who went missing thirty years ago.

Photographer Todd Ellison is engrossed in a photo shoot deep in Alberta's dinosaur country when he stumbles upon human bones buried in the sand of a remote coulee. Not far away, while driving through the Alberta prairie, Amanda Doucette glimpses an abandoned farmhouse that reminds her of an old photograph hanging on her aunt's wall.

Who is the cocky young cowboy in the photo? Could it be connected to Amanda's uncle, who went missing in Alberta thirty years ago? As Amanda starts to makes connections between his disappearance and the body in the coulee, she discovers more questions than answers. To make matters worse, a mysterious person will stop at nothing to get her to abandon the investigation.

Book 5

Wreck Bay

by Barbara Fradkin

Published 24 January 2023