About this book:

In the quiet coastal town of Fenwick, journalist Cassie Donnelly returns home to confront a past she thought she’d left behind. Her arrival coincides with a shocking discovery: a skeleton unearthed at a new pier construction site, clutching a distinctive locket. This grim find reopens a decades-old cold case – the disappearance of Eliza Hayes, a young artist who vanished without a trace forty-five years ago. Driven by journalistic instinct and a deep sense of unfinished business, Cassie begins to pull at the threads of Fenwick’s well-guarded secrets, uncovering a diary that suggests Eliza was being harassed and blackmailed in the days leading up to her death.

As Cassie delves deeper, she uncovers a vast network of corruption orchestrated by Fenwick’s seemingly untouchable Mayor, Thomas Sterling, and enabled by figures like the town’s quiet newspaper editor, Mr. Henderson, who meticulously cataloged everyone's darkest secrets. The locket's hidden compartment reveals Eliza's desperate attempt to expose this corruption, leading Cassie to a trove of incriminating letters that threaten to shatter the lives of Fenwick's most prominent families. But her investigation soon draws the attention of Silas, the enigmatic and dangerous enforcer known as "The Fisherman," a man with a chilling past and a deep, unexpected connection to Fenwick's elite, who will stop at nothing to keep the town's secrets buried—even resorting to murder.