WINNER OF THE 2024 KILLER NASHVILLE CLAYMORE AWARD FOR BEST SUSPENSE

Everyone in Rupert, Ontario knows Bob Gillis as the quiet middle-aged man who runs the town’s grocery store – and that’s all. The first twenty years of Bob’s life are a mystery even to his wife and children; the only biographical detail his estranged son Tom can provide with confidence is Bob's name. And when Bob dies unexpectedly, Tom discovers that even that was a lie.

Meanwhile, in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Kate Fitzpatrick is coming to terms with the death of her own father, a retired businessman whose erratic behaviour during his last months stood in stark contrast to the tight control he had once maintained over his personal and professional lives. But when sorting through his affairs, Kate learns that Jimmy Fitzpatrick’s bizarre final acts were as calculated as the steps he took to build his empire…and that they were taken with the purpose of destroying the life of an Ontario shopkeeper with a shocking link to Kate’s childhood.

As a teenager, Kate found herself on the periphery of three violent acts that left one boy in her remote Cape Breton hometown grievously injured, another dead, and a third missing. A fourth boy was blamed for all three incidents but never charged, and the fallout exposed cracks in the close-knit community that were never repaired. Now, thirty years later, Bob and Jimmy’s deaths are calling into question everything Tom and Kate thought they knew about their families. And with reputations at stake, some are driven to learn the truth about the events that tore a village apart – and others are equally determined that the past remain buried.