Gerald Fitch made his living uncovering secrets and blackmailing people desperate to keep them buried. Now he is dead in Clara Whitford’s bookshop, and her letter opener is lying beside his body.

Clara believed her painful divorce and the mistakes surrounding it were finally behind her. But Gerald Fitch knew the truth about her past, and he had been using it to control her. When Clara discovers the ruthless blackmailer murdered beside the rare-book cabinet at Whitford Books, her sanctuary becomes a crime scene-and she becomes the most obvious suspect.

Former police detective Jack Rourke knows that Fitch collected enemies as carefully as he collected secrets.

Together, Jack and Clara investigate the people caught in the blackmailer’s web: a remorseful ex-hushand, a fiercely loyal friend, a quiet poet, and a delivery driver hiding a troubling past.

Then cryptic messages begin appearing inside books. Pages vanish from a mysterious manuscript. A witness is attacked before revealing what he saw.