Summary

Summary:

From Publishers Weekly

At the start of this solid stand-alone from Freeman (Immoral and three other titles in his Duluth, Minn., crime series), former high school teacher Mark Bradley is on vacation in Florida with his wife, Hilary. The previous year, accusations of an affair with a female student ruined Mark's teaching career in Wisconsin's Door County, where he and Hilary had moved to escape Chicago. Even though Tresa Fischer insisted that her crush on Mark was nothing more than that, the tight-knit community shunned the Bradleys and labeled Mark a predator. When 16-year-old Glory, Tresa's wild-child younger sister, turns up dead on a beach near Mark and Hilary's hotel, Mark becomes the number one murder suspect. Det. Cab Bolton, who isn't one to jump to conclusions, travels from Florida to Wisconsin to unravel Mark—and Glory's—complicated lives. Well-developed characters and a thrilling climax help compensate for a plot that relies on too many coincidences. (Apr.)
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Product Description

Hilary and Mark Bradley are trapped in a web of suspicion. Last year, accusations of a torrid affair with a student cost Mark his teaching job and made the young couple into outcasts in their remote island town off the Lake Michigan coast. Now another teenage girl is found dead on a deserted beach. . . and once again, Mark faces a hostile town convinced of his guilt.

Hilary Bradley is determined to prove that Mark is innocent, but she’s on a lonely, dangerous quest. Even when she discovers that the murdered girl was witness to a horrific crime years earlier, the police are certain she’s throwing up a smoke screen to protect her husband. Only a quirky detective named Cab Bolton seems willing to believe Hilary’s story.

Hilary and Cab soon find that people in this community are willing to kill to keep their secrets hidden—and to make sure Mark doesn’t get away with murder. And with each shocking revelation, even Hilary begins to wonder whether her husband is truly innocent. Freeman’s first stand-alone thriller since his Stride novels is a knockout.