"Stolen Ashes" is the fifth book in a series featuring Tom Newberry and Barry Noonan, former detectives with NYPD's Fugitive Warrant Squad. After catching the madman who killed four Craigslist prostitutes and dumped their bodies on a beach on Long Island's south shore, Tom was appointed chief of the town's twelve-man police department. After four months and one solved murder he gives up the post and returns to the detective agency he opened four years ago. He quickly picks a missing husband case that takes him and Barry to Hudson, NY, a small town thirty miles from the state capital where they learn the man they're after has good reason to hide. Meanwhile Tom's new bride Cynthia returns to Manhattan South Homicide Squad and before she can peel the lid from her tea container she's assigned a cop-murder to investigate on Manhattan's West side.