Kit Forbes left her job as a high-powered forensic accountant in Seattle to beat the bottle and start fresh in the sleepy Oregon seaside town of Newport. She's contented with a quiet life baking scones in a local cafe—until the murder of one of the cafe's regulars draws her into a chilling mystery involving the tarot, false identities and a commune of hippies whose tragedies extend all the way from the sixties into present day. Kit's investigative instincts kick into high gear as she begins to uncover the sinister undertones beneath the surface of Newport's idyllic charms—leading her to butt heads, and other body parts, with Newport Police Detective Patrick Munro. But when Kit becomes target of death threats from someone calling himself The Hanged Man, Patrick calls off their budding romance to focus on protecting her. Ignoring Patrick's edict to stop playing amateur detective, Kit delves still deeper into the town's secrets in search of the murderer, circling ever closer to the truth—and to The Hanged Man's noose.
