Description

A winter storm. An ancient rowboat. A skeleton beneath Hollow Eye Lighthouse.

When the boat washes onto the shingle at Treggan Bay, it carries a dead man dressed for bad weather—and three stubborn clues: a Belgian pocket pistol, a cigarette case with one stick marked WICKED TODAY, and a gold pocket watch on an old albert chain.

Noah Yalland—once a relentless investigative journalist, now trying to keep his head down—can't stay out of it when DS Scott Langdon brings the puzzle straight to his kitchen table and Noah's old friend Issey Ashford arrives with a notebook.

Set on the south Devon coast in the '90s, the mystery is built on tangible evidence rather than hunches. Forensics suggest a man in his fifties or sixties, shot decades ago and hidden somewhere damp and salt-aired before the sea returned him. The trio split the work: the pistol to Scott, the watch to Issey, the cigarette case to Noah—until the watch's provenance tugs at money, politics, and old channels of power.

As Noah is drawn towards Leo Petit of the Drift Café, village loyalties, smuggling talk, and a lighthouse that seems to collect secrets raise the cost of knowing. The aim is simple and dangerous: name the dead man, and pry open what Treggan Bay kept shut—before the truth lands where it will hurt.

Includes: one on-page intimate scene (kissing); historical/off-page violence and remains; occasional strong language.

The central mystery is self-contained; best read in series order for the relationship arc.