Albert Hooper is found dead at Torre Manor, and the timing is too neat to be chance.

Noah Yalland planned to keep his head down in Treggan Bay—good coffee at Drift, a quiet sabbatical, and the pretence that exile is a lifestyle choice. Then Detective Sergeant Scott Langdon, tired and stubborn in equal measure, needs Noah's eye for detail and his willingness to ask the questions polite people avoid. With cameras and hungry headlines already circling thanks to Issey Ashford and the press pack, Torre's death turns village chatter into something sharper.

As Noah and Scott trace the narrow paths between the manor, Kingsbridge station, and the wooded Whealings, every lead comes with a social cost: who was invited in for that drink, who benefits if Torre changes hands, and who can disappear into the trees when the questions start? Talk of Landmark Syndicate circling the Hooper estate and a prize bottle from the fête begin to look less like gossip and more like motive—just as Noah's fragile new steadiness, and his growing attachment to Leo Petit, are pulled into the fallout.

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