Character Profile: Laura

Laura Gonzalez

Ex Wife of Professor Gonzalez. The man who was murdered at the beginning of Deadly College Murders, and the woman whose testimony helped seal Hannah’s fate at her trial. Laura is a woman haunted by the consequences of choices she made long ago. Once a simple, determined person, she set out to destroy Hannah in retaliation for what she believed Hannah had done to her husband. Yet behind closed doors the truth was more complicated: Laura had been deeply unhappy in her marriage to Gonzalez and carried knowledge of many of his secrets—secrets she deliberately kept to herself. In a late turn of conscience she writes a letter to Hannah, offering an apology for the role she played in her downfall, though Hannah never receives it while Laura is alive, as Laura herself is killed at the start of the fourth book, The Thirteenth Riddle: A Poisoned Silence.

The only good thing that Laura had was the fierce devotion she felt for her daughter Christina, who returned that love with equal intensity. What Laura does not know is that someone is stalking them both, and a deadly threat is closing in. It will fall to Detective Walker to investigate and discover who murdered mother and daughter. Meanwhile, Hannah will learn that the two women were patients at the Clinic to Heal the Mind in Lucerne, Switzerland, and she will take it upon herself to uncover the reason they were killed. Her search will lead her to the tranquil, remote town of Giethoorn in the Netherlands, where the trail ends at a secluded cabin Rafael brings her to — a place where the crucial answers are waiting.

Hannah will also learn that Christina hid yet another secret: that her husband Gonzalez was not her biological father, but rather Stu, a man whom Laura had loved at least once in her life. Will Hannah be able to determine who murdered Laura and what the secret was that led to her demise? The answer lie in The Thirteenth Riddle A Poisoned Silence.