Update: Lethal Design is now available.
Tomorrow, Lethal Design leaves preorder and becomes available.
Book 2 in the KC & Orlando Prime crime thriller series releases August 4, 2026.
Before the case officially opens, here is the trailer.
Watch the Official Lethal Design Book Trailer
Watch the Lethal Design trailer on YouTube
The trailer offers a spoiler-free look at the atmosphere behind the investigation: Orlando after dark, separate trails of evidence, and the growing realization that several routine deaths may share one deliberate design.
Some Deaths Are Designed
The first scene does not announce itself as murder.
There is no obvious foul play and no clear reason to dig deeper. But Orlando Prime commander Frank Travers has seen enough manufactured coincidences to recognize when a clean scene feels wrong.
Successful professionals with no history of addiction begin dying along eerily similar paths. OPD Major Crimes detective Kylie “KC” Cassidy, Orlando Prime, and federal investigators follow different evidence through different cases.
Each team sees one part.
The danger becomes visible only when they begin comparing what they know.
That structure is one reason I enjoyed writing this book. The investigation does not depend on one miraculous clue. It grows through accumulation: a detail that does not fit, a connection that appears too often, and evidence that changes meaning when it is placed beside another team’s case file.
A Case With Personal Stakes
For Frank, the pattern also reaches into the one investigation he has never been able to leave behind, his wife Linda’s murder.
He must lead the team while questioning whether his history helps him recognize the truth or makes him more likely to see the connection he wants.
The case tests more than his investigative judgment. It tests whether he can trust KC and the rest of Orlando Prime to challenge him when the evidence becomes personal.
Readers who want to meet Linda before the investigation can read the free, spoiler-free bonus scene “Ten Years Ago.” It takes place at Frank and Linda’s Blackwater cabin, before one photograph and one unresolved clue acquire a different meaning.
Read the free Lethal Design bonus scene
New Readers Can Start Here
Lethal Design is Book 2, but its central case begins and resolves within the novel.
Readers of Fatal Invitation will recognize the team’s established relationships. Mirror Estate readers may also catch connections to Stolen Secrets. Neither earlier book is required to understand the new investigation.
If you enjoy clean crime thrillers with forensic evidence, multi-agency teamwork, unexpected turns, and the ensemble energy of NCIS or Criminal Minds, you can enter the series here.
Or you still have one day to begin with Book 1.
The Investigation Begins August 4
Lethal Design releases tomorrow.
After you watch the trailer, tell me: which catches your attention first—the apparently routine deaths, the scattered evidence, or the old case Frank never left behind?
The Frank-and-Linda bonus scene and future case-file dispatches go to readers through the S.F. Baumgartner list. Join the reader list for release notes, extras, and the next investigation.