“An intense and engaging portrait of characters driven by—and bound by—the secrets of their pasts . . . an absorbing mystery as well as a gracefully layered story of death and loss in a small town.” —Allen Eskens, USA Today bestselling author of The Life We Bury

When Transom Shultz goes missing shortly after returning to his sleepy hometown of Fallen Mountains, Pennsylvania, his secrets are not the only secrets that threaten to emerge.  Red, the sheriff, is haunted by the possibility that a crime Transom was involved in seventeen years earlier―a crime Red secretly helped cover up―may somehow be linked to his disappearance. 

Possum, the victim of that crime, wants revenge. Laney will do anything to keep Transom quiet about the careless mistake they made that could jeopardize her budding relationship. And Chase, once a close friend, reels from Transom’s betrayal of buying his family’s farm under false pretenses and ruthlessly logging it and leasing the mineral rights to Marcellus shale frackers. 

As the search for Transom Shultz heats up and the inhabitants’ dark and tangled histories unfold, each one must decide whether to live under the brutal weight of the past or try to move beyond it.