The Marrow Point Drowning: A Nora Kessler Investigation, Book One

Nora Kessler came home to bury her aunt. She didn't expect to reopen a murder.

Nine years as a homicide detective taught Nora everything about reading a crime scene — and nothing about surviving her own mistakes. Three years after a case went catastrophically wrong, she's traded her badge for quiet, solitary work as a private investigator. Returning to her hometown of Marrow Point should have been simple: close her late aunt's estate, sell the house, leave before winter.

Then she finds the box her aunt hid in a closet.

Inside: a decade of secret research into a "accidental" drowning that killed a teenage boy from the town's most powerful family — fifteen years ago. Her aunt believed it was murder. Her aunt died before she could prove it.

Now Nora is the only one still asking questions in a town built to keep them buried — and the people protecting that secret have already shown exactly what they're willing to do to anyone who won't stop looking.

Perfect for readers of Kate Atkinson, Tana French, and Louise Penny — a slow-burn small-town mystery with a wounded, methodical investigator, a genuinely twisty cover-up, and a coastal setting you can feel in your bones.