Salvage Bay's Night Navigation Safety Week is supposed to be reassuring: banners, drills, radios, and smiling volunteers. But boatwright Maren Cole can smell trouble through fresh varnish-and this week, something in the working harbor feels touched.
First, harbor enforcer Dec Morrow brings Maren his skiff with a new kill-switch lanyard that shouldn't be new. Then Maren hears the phrase that sticks like salt in a seam: "quiet window"-no radio chatter, clean channel, no confusion. The kind of procedure that can be used as a weapon.
When safety captain Walt Hennessy dies during a nighttime drill-while the dock waits for an "okay"-the town reaches for the word tragic. Sheriff Jonah Pike reaches for facts. And Maren finds one in the worst place: a harbor log fragment tucked near a jammed shred bin, with a line that isn't a note at all.
DO NOT RADIO.
If it was written down, someone meant for people to obey. And if someone can order a harbor to go quiet, they can decide who gets help in time-and who doesn't.
Maren, Simone, Dec, and Jonah follow the fragment's coded initials into the harbor office's calm, controlled world... where "protocol" covers everything, and the truth is scheduled down to the minute.
Autorentext
Sloane Grant spent years in the fast-paced world of nursing, where she learned that everyone has a story?and a few secrets. Now, she's traded the hospital wards for a much quieter life of "fictional homicide," trading her stethoscope for a notebook and a sharp pen.
When she isn't dreaming up small-town scandals, Sloane is a full-time "chaos coordinator" for her two daughters. Her home office is currently overseen by a strict editorial committee consisting of three cats?Mooshi, Pixie, and Sugar?and one small, very vocal dog named Chocky.
Sloane believes that the best mysteries are solved over a warm drink, and that no puzzle is too complex when you have a sharp mind and a loyal pet by your side.