Joyce Walker

Vivian, a former reporter and a newlywed, doesn’t know what to do with herself after an incident with her husband forces her to question their partnership and her future. Yearning for the ocean air and a sense of home, she retreats to Tybee Island to clear her head and visit her Nana, a retired PI who now struggles with dementia. The phone rings: Catherine Grant, a housewife living in a private development nearby, woke up to find her husband and their baby girl missing, and she is desperate for help.

Claire Malloy, now a married woman of leisure, tries her hand at volunteering but instead lands right in the middle of another murder investigation. Longtime bookseller and single mother Claire Malloy has recently married her long-term beau and moved out of her less than opulent apartment into a sprawling, newly remodeled house. Her daughter, Caron, is making plans for college. All of this leaves Claire with something she hasn't had in quite a while: Spare time.

Tess Monaghan has finally made the move and hung out her shingle as a PI-for-hire, complete with an office in Butchers Hill. Maybe it's not the best address in Baltimore, but you gotta start somewhere, and Tess' greyhound Esskay has no trouble taking marathon naps anywhere there's a roof. Then, in walks Luther Beale, the notorious vigilante who five years ago shot a boy for vandalizing his car. He wants to make reparations to the kids who witnessed his crime, so he needs Tess to find them.