1999 is a challenging time for writer Mike Strack. The two-year-absent muse continues to avoid him, his wife suggests time apart to “do them both some good,” and the life he’d worked so hard to abandon in Harder, Alabama is back to haunt him with the unexpected death of his mother.If there was one thing he could control, it was a quick burial for the recently departed. Get in, get out, wash his hands of it all. But a bigger problem is waiting for Mike and his estranged brother, Tom. They unearth a deadly secret surrounding their grandfather; one the town did everything they could to protect.Mike finds unlikely partners in his hotheaded brother and childhood-friend-turned-police-officer Ray Slater. Armed with grit and determination, they dig deeper into the pitch-black depths of Harder, determined to solve a fifty-year-old cold case that would clear the name of the wrongly accused.This impressive debut novel by Mark G. Clemons is packed with heart-pounding suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat until the very end.