Kindle Price: $14.99

Save $13.00 (46%)

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Audiobook Price: $12.28

Save: $4.79 (39%)

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

Buy for others

Give as a gift or purchase for a team or group.
Learn more

Buying and sending eBooks to others

  1. Select quantity
  2. Buy and send eBooks
  3. Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.

Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Under a Broken Sky: A Novel Kindle Edition

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 38 ratings

In this Sacramento-set thriller perfect for fans of Meg Gardiner, Emma Lawson uncovers greed and deception for a living, but this time is different. If only she knew this killer can hear her.

He can see her.


One year into her prized role as the youngest ethics investigator in California's history, Emma suspects corruption in the state's billion dollar expansion to train travel. That unwittingly puts her on a killer's trail - a killer who will do anything to reach his illicit million dollar payday, including personally eliminating Emma Lawson as a threat.

Detective Alibi Morning Sun sees connections where no one else does. For him, a drowning at a lake, a fire in a storage facility and a murder by the river carry a thread soaked in blood.

As Emma follows the money and Alibi traces bullets and bodies, the killer counts down to his grand finale. With each mounting danger, it quickly becomes apparent that the corruption Emma has been digging for is real— and it’s deadly.

Three days. Two days. Now only one…
Read more Read less

Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Under a Broken Sky:
“Calvin skillfully crafts an energetic story . . . Strong plotting”
Shelf Awareness

“Riveting and sophisticated,
Under A Broken Sky is a wonderfully complex and surprising page-turner. Sue Grafton meets John Lescroart when a determined and honorable investigator must risk everything in search of her past and in search of justice. Do not miss this!”
—Hank Phillippi Ryan,
USA Today bestselling author of Her Perfect Life

“Calvin crafts an intricate, torn-from-the-headlines mystery with a rich cast of fascinating, devious, and wryly-observed suspects. A high-stakes suspense thriller!” 
—Mark Wheaton, critically-acclaimed author of
Emily, Eternal

“Calvin’s voice is strong and unique, making it easy to get lost in the story . . . An outstanding addition to a powerful and entertaining thriller series.”
—Tamsen Schultz, award-winning author of the Windsor and Tildas Island series


“Calvin deftly weaves together threads of several intriguing mysteries to create a rich, complex tapestry of corruption, betrayals and lies. Just as compelling are the believable, three-dimensional characters and the way their lives collide and intertwine.This suspenseful, emotional page-turner should shoot to the top of everyone’s must-read list!”
—Brianna Labuskes, bestselling author of
A Familiar Sight

“Kris Calvin’s Under a Broken Sky gives you a father-daughter relationship, fraught with complication, that sticks with you long after you’ve finished the last page. Abandonment. Acceptance. Forgiveness. Heady concepts to weave into a crime novel, but Calvin does it like a champ . . . More, please!”
—Tracy Clark, winner of the 2020 Sue Grafton Memorial Award

“Shrewdly plotted with compelling characters, Calvin has crafted a chilling page-turner, one you’ll be reading late into the night.” 
—James L’Etoile, author of
Black Label, Dead Drop, and the Detective Penley series

“With Under A Broken Sky Kris Calvin delivers another intriguing mystery, filled with compelling characters and a story that proves all politics is local and all murders are personal.”
—Eric Beetner, author of
All The Way Down

Praise for
All That Fall:
“A rich and detailed story.”
Kirkus Reviews

“An intriguing and suspenseful story of corruption and murder that grips readers from the outset and holds their attention throughout.”
City Book Review

"A sizzling thriller chock-full of suspense and intrigue." 
—Robert Dugoni, bestselling author of The Tracy Crosswhite series

“Suspenseful, complex, and engaging.”
—Meg Gardiner, author of the UNSUB series

About the Author

Kris Calvin is an award-winning author of thrillers. Educated in economics and forensics psychology, she has been honored by the California Governor's office and legislature for her leadership in child advocacy. A single mom, she and her kids are faithful SF Giants and Warriors fans, but their favorite place is the public library!

Caitlin Davies is an actress, a director, and an award-winning audiobook narrator who has been nominated for multiple Voice Arts Awards. Her work has received starred Booklist reviews and Parents' Choice Awards and has appeared on YALSA's Amazing Audiobooks for Young Adults list. A resident of New York City, she received her bachelor's degree in English from Vassar College and her master's in acting from Brown University.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B098PX53RK
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Crooked Lane Books (July 12, 2022)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 12, 2022
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1348 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 300 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1643859048
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 38 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Kris Calvin
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Award-winning author Kris Calvin was educated in forensics psychology and economics and has been honored by the California Governor's office and legislature for her leadership in child advocacy. Kris writes thrilling and suspenseful mystery/crime fiction stories for adults, in which no harm comes to children.

A single mom, Kris and her kids are faithful SF Giants and Warriors sports fans, but their favorite place is the public library.

Kris’s new series features Emma Lawson, an ethics investigator, and Detective Alibi Morning Sun, who together track down corruption and killers in California's capital of Sacramento.

Kris's writing has received multiple awards, including Best First Novel, Best Female Detective/Sleuth and Best Political Thriller.

John Lescroart, author of 19 New York Times bestsellers, has this to say about Kris: "Crisp and entertaining...Kris Calvin sets herself apart..."

About ALL THAT FALL:

Introducing Emma Lawson—an unlikely hero to cheer for!

The body shot and killed in the early morning hours by the Sacramento River would have been an easy case for Detective Alibi Morning Sun to solve, if only his prime suspect weren't already in jail. Across town, Emma Lawson, California's youngest lead government ethics investigator, is enjoying a rare day off to help her best friend, Kate, prepare for the opening of her new business, Rainbow Alley Preschool, when amidst a hail of gunfire, Kate’s 15-yr-old son, Luke goes missing. As Alibi gathers new evidence to determine the identity of the riverside killer and Emma desperately searches for Luke, the two investigations collide. At the heart of both is a diabolical plot with stakes Emma could never have imagined. Will Emma and Alibi be in time to to stop a calculating killer whose plan threatens all that Emma holds dear?

Jess Lourey, Amazon chart-topping author, says: "All That Fall has everything I look for in a thriller!"

About UNDER A BROKEN SKY:

In this Sacramento-set thriller perfect for fans of Meg Gardiner, ethics investigator Emma Lawson uncovers greed and deception for a living, but this time is different. If only she knew this killer can hear her. He can see her.

One year into her prized role as the youngest ethics investigator in California's history, Emma suspects corruption in the state's billion dollar expansion to train travel. That unwittingly puts her on a killer's trail—a killer who will do anything to reach his illicit million dollar payday, including personally eliminating Emma as a threat.

Detective Alibi Morning Sun sees connections where no one else does. For him, a drowning at a lake, a fire in a storage facility and a murder by the river carry a thread soaked in blood.

As Emma follows the money and Alibi traces bullets and bodies, the killer counts down to his grand finale. With each mounting danger, it quickly becomes apparent that the corruption Emma has been digging for is real— and it’s deadly.

Brianna Labuskes, best-selling author, says: "Under A Broken Sky is a suspenseful, emotional page-turner should shoot to the top of everyone’s must-read list!”

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
38 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on October 18, 2022
This was my first Kris Calvin book, but it definitely won't be my last. I read Under a Broken Sky in two days and was immediately drawn in by honorable ethics investigator Emma Lawson and her friends and family, including homicide detective Alibi Morning Sun. (Such a great name--Alibi. Love it!) Since I live in Sacramento it was a treat reading about all the familiar sights and landmarks of a place I know so well and picturing them as the story unfolded. I was immediately captivated by this suspenseful, page-turning tale of corruption and murder made all the more fascinating by its rich, complex cast of characters. Now I need to go back and read Kris's first book in the series, All That Fall. (I hope this series continues as I want to read more about Emma and Alibi.)
Reviewed in the United States on August 23, 2022
Under a Broken Sky is a thriller, but it's also a story about families--defined in lots of different ways! The book weaves the two aspects together, drawing the reader in.

It's a breath of fresh air to have a protagonist who is not a grizzled loner or someone whose work is their whole life! Even Emma's pets have lots of people who care for them. This makes the thriller aspect all the more thrilling, because each development can ripple outward to affect lots of people we care about...
Reviewed in the United States on July 12, 2022
As soon as I finished chapter 2, I was hooked. This book is suspenseful and surprising - definitely one of the best mystery thrillers I've read in a while. Alternating points of view from Emma and Alibi make this a complex and captivating read - great for someone who reads a lot of mysteries. I like how the chapters are relatively short so you always have time for one more :) The characters are down-to-earth, believable, and very one-of-a-kind. Would recommend to any mystery/thriller enthusiast who likes multiple POVs.
Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2022
It’s one thing to create a suspenseful storyline. It’s another to add layers about relationships, regional tone, or complex conflicts, and Kris Calvin has done this in her next round of storytelling.
Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2023
Ethics investigator has a sense that something isn't right with the train travel stations currently up for expansion. But who or what gives her that sense is unclear, even though the death of her boss's son has now been deemed a murder. But who killed him and is it related to the arson that resulted in the injury of someone else and the death of a homeless man in the warehouse that was torched?

Alibi Morning Sun also has a sense, a sixth sense, that links him to a young woman whose murder near the river going through town. Who was she and why does he sense that she may be related to the other wierd things going on?

Then Emma's long-lost father shows up and soon she's head-deep in trying to figure out why he's shown up after a decade of being gone and out of her life. Does he have the answers she's been seeking--about him and the mother she thinks has been dead so long?
Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2022
Please buy it, I'm begging you!!
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2022
I couldn’t put it down!
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2023
This is the second book in the Emma Lawson series and I enjoyed it as much as I did the first one. She works well with Detective Alibi, and I loved the case they had to solve. This was a suspenseful, captivating read that I flew through in one sitting. This can be read as a standalone but you’ll want to read the first one too, I promise. I’m already looking forward to the next book!

Thank you to the author and Crooked Lane Books for the free copy to review.

Report an issue


Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?