Florida Book Awards Finalist
"A worthwhile addition to Faye's long-running series that weaves history, mystery, and psychology into a satisfying tale of greed and passion." --Kirkus Reviews
Archaeologist Faye Longchamp-Mantooth has dug herself a deep hole and she can't make her way out of it. As she struggles to recover from a shattering personal loss, she sees that everyone she loves is trying to reach out to her. If only she could reach back. Instead she's out digging holes all over her home, the Florida island of Joyeuse.
In their old plantation home, Joe Wolf Mantooth is surrounded by family--Faye, the wife he loves; their toddler son he adores; and his father, who hasn't gotten around to telling him how long he's been out of prison or how he got there--yet Joe has never felt so helpless or alone.
Then a close friend at the local marina is brutally murdered, the first in a string of crimes against women that rocks Micco County. Joe, desperate to help Faye, realizes she is in danger from both her inner demons and someone who has breached the island's isolation. Local law and environmental officials say they want to help, but to Faye and Joe they feel more like invaders. A struggling Faye reaches back over a century into her family's history for clues. And all the while, danger snakes further into their lives, threatening the people they love, their cherished home, even the very ground--some of it poisoned--beneath their feet.
A mystery from the past provides just the therapy a grieving mother needs. Archaeologist Faye Longchamp-Mantooth is in a deep depression after suffering a miscarriage and losing her baby daughter. Her husband, Joe Wolf Mantooth, is holding things together, caring for their son, Michael, and dealing with a visit from his long-estranged father, Sly Mantooth. Faye spends her time aimlessly digging holes on Joyeuse Island, her home off the Florida coast, until one day she digs into an old tank that's releasing some noxious fluid. When the crew from the EPA arrives, they find elevated amounts of arsenic in the soil. On the mainland, Faye's friend Liz Colton has been murdered and a local boat mechanic caught dumping noxious substances in the water. Faye's been trying to avoid Oscar Croft, a wealthy Ohio native convinced that his Civil War officer ancestor was held prisoner nearby by a crazy woman who sent his sword home to his wife. Working for Oscar is Delia Scarsdale, an attractive genealogist determined to track down information on Cally Stanton. Faye's unwilling to admit that Cally is her great-great-grandmother, a former slave who owned Joyeuse and left an unpublished memoir mentioning the Civil War officer. Could the murder, the contamination, and the search for information about the past all be related? Faye, who feels compelled to look for answers, puts her whole family in grave danger, but what she finds turns out to be her salvation. A worthwhile addition to Faye's long-running series (Rituals, 2013, etc.) that weaves history, mystery, and psychology into a satisfying tale of greed and passion.--Kirkus Reviews
