In a humid Georgia town dripping with secrets, some shadows refuse to stay buried.
Jo Ann "Jo" Tucker arrives in Single Wide, Georgia, desperate for a fresh start, carrying little more than a duffel bag, her service weapon, and a past she'd rather forget. Running from a traumatic incident that ended her career in the Dakotas, she takes a deputy job under the watchful eye of Sheriff Amos Tuttle - a charismatic but compromised lawman. Her new home? A beat-up RV parked on the shores of the beautiful but eerie Lake Serenity, a place whispered to hold more than just water.
Jo is an outsider, navigating a good-old-boy sheriff's office where loyalty is currency and secrets fester beneath Southern charm. When a ten-year-old boy vanishes near the lake, the case echoes the decade-old, unsolved Lake Shadow disappearances that still haunt the town. Paired with the earnest, former football star deputy Cody Rayburn, Jo starts digging, peeling back layers of small-town silence.
Her investigation quickly runs afoul of corrupt Mayor Vernon Slade, a man tied to a regional mob syndicate, and threatens to expose Sheriff Tuttle's own dangerous compromises.
As Jo confronts stonewalling deputies, cryptic warnings, and mob threats, she realizes the missing child is entangled in a web of corruption, cover-ups, and fear that stretches back years.
The deeper Jo digs, the closer she gets to the truth about the Lake Shadow predator, the town's deadly secrets, and the ghosts of her own past. Can she unravel the conspiracy connecting a ruthless mayor, a compromised sheriff, and a terrifying predator before the lake claims another victim, or buries Jo herself?
Fans of gritty crime thrillers, atmospheric Southern Gothic mysteries, and determined female protagonists like those in novels by Karin Slaughter or Attica Locke will be gripped by Single Wide. This fast-paced suspense novel delivers a tangled web of small-town secrets, mob connections, police corruption, and a cold case brought chillingly back to life.
