Stories that go where the light doesn't.
A Short Story By J. A. Hartig
Some debts can only be settled by the dead.
Forensic archaeologist Clara Whitaker has spent her career giving voice to the dead. She’s unraveling the mystery of an ancient mass gravesite in the Andes and a girl buried with a Spondylus shell necklace when her twin is murdered. And the story about her sister’s death is a lie. Messages appear on Clara’s laptop, written by someone who witnessed Mira’s final moments but remains hidden.
Mayu Killa was meant to stay buried. She protects the sacred necklace, but her separate burial and other clues suggest it’s because she was dangerous. The mysterious messages connect Mayu and Mira across centuries and demand justice.
Clara battles small town corruption and connections that shield a monster described as “a good man.” The deeper Clara digs, the less certain she is of who’s guiding her and what they want. The messages know things they shouldn’t. And the closer Clara gets to justice, the more she fears the messages want to settle an old debt—and are using her to do it.
Will Clara survive and get justice for her sister, or will justice demand her soul?
Set in the Appalachian foothills, The Death Ledger is a Southern Gothic horror-thriller crossover for fans of Sharp Objects, Mexican Gothic, and True Detective. Featuring a female forensic archaeologist confronting ancient corruption, and a supernatural mechanic that will keep you questioning what’s real until the final line.
J. A. HARTIG
J.A. Hartig is the darker half of Julie Hartig.
The voice that goes further into the shadows and doesn’t soften the landing.
Some threads run through all of her work—systems that fail or destroy the people they’re meant to protect and moral reckoning in the absence of good options. But under this name, those preoccupations become stranger, more violent, and more supernatural. Stories less interested in resolution and more interested in what happens when women decide the rules no longer apply.
The Death Ledger was the first story that could only have been written as J.A. Hartig. It won’t be the last.
For more information about the author, visit the about page on the sister site.
J.A. Hartig shares a home with Julie Hartig
For more about the author visit the about page.
For upmarket book club fiction — including the novel Hope and Madness — visit the Julie Hartig page.