Stay up late tonight reading (and chuckling)! When a body bumps against the dock just a few feet from Eva Fairchild’s floating house on the night of her welcome party at the marina, she begins to wonder if her recent move across the country was such a good idea. Combine the resulting murder investigation with mysterious nighttime kayak trips, politicians run amok, nosy neighbors, and culinary lessons for her blue-haired teenage tagalong, Willow Ratliff, and Eva has her hands full. It doesn’t help that the police detective on the case is handsome, annoying, and more than willing to match her snide remarks with witticisms of his own. Soon, Eva is a walking repository of other people’s secrets. It’s not a role she ever asked for, and it just might prove lethal.

Eva Fairchild is reveling in the idyllic, if insular, setting of her adopted home at Marten’s Marina when a rash of newcomers triggers speculation and the not-so-latent nosy tendencies among the residents. Eva is appalled to learn that she’s acquired a surprising new persona along with her new location—since when does she get involved with other people’s problems? But Ancer Potts’ distress is not to be ignored. Everyone knows the absentminded genius needs friendly nudges now and then to get out of his shell, but Eva’s certain his current trouble extends beyond the realm of social awkwardness and preoccupied introversion. And that was before he disappeared. Eva is tossed into a sketchy, shadowy world of subterfuge when it becomes apparent that the secret project Ancer was working on is in high demand, and by dubious parties. In the race to find the missing researcher and secure the knowledge that’s inside his head, Eva is forced to rely upon her new friends. But trying to explain to the handsome police detective, Vaughn Malloy, how she turned his elderly mother into an accessory to a crime could result in a real mess. In this sedate floating community on the Willamette River, first impressions are flat-out wrong.

It’s a cause avid foodie and enthusiastic eater, Eva Fairchild, can really get behind—the launch of a CSA (community-supported agriculture) farm in the small town of Fidelity, Oregon. But when a tractor plows up a WWII-era bomb in the back forty, things get dicey. Turns out there’s more lurking under the surface than anyone expected. As a marketer and publicist, Eva wants nothing more than to help her friends and clients protect the reputation of their farm, but to do her job properly, she may need to pair up with the endearingly grouchy detective, Vaughn Malloy—whom she’s just begun to date—to figure out why all these human remains, both ancient and disturbingly fresh, keep popping up in the rich humus. And there’s no avoiding the fact that it takes a village—or at least the floating community of Eva’s new residence at Marten’s Marina—to solve a crime. After all, nobody can keep a good gaggle of busybodies down, not even when the threat ranges alarmingly close to home.

Changes are afoot. Lots of them. Eva Fairchild supposes that’s to be expected when one is self-employed. But being conscripted into pro bono work on top of her already busy schedule? Sure, why not? Add supper club experiments in the midst of a January ice storm; missing valuables; the snarky, inbred world of philanthropic (mis)management; and one criminally good-looking police detective who invites himself over for dinner on a regular basis, and Eva’s well-planned life is brimming over. Not that she’s complaining. Much. But when the gala that was supposed to launch her cooking hobby into a major career shift devolves into a free-for-all brawl on the deck of her floating house, it has nothing to do with whether or not she remembered to put the chocolate in the mole sauce. Somebody has the cultural elite of the small town of Fidelity, Oregon on an emotional razor’s edge. But no one’s talking about why. And ignored threats of revenge don’t go away—they fester. Until something blows.

You know what’s bad for business in a boutique hotel? A body in the bed. One that doesn’t have enough air left in her lungs to become a satisfied repeat customer. Since the hotel owner is one of Eva Fairchild’s public relations and marketing clients, creatively constructed spin and press statements are inevitable in her near future. But in her heart-of-hearts she has an even greater burden to bear. Because Eva knew that body—when it was still breathing. In fact, the victim had confided in her. Perhaps—if she’d been paying closer attention—Eva could’ve done something to prevent this tragedy. As if one distressed family weren’t enough, Eva’s semi-estranged father decides now would be a good time to visit. Talk about culture shock. He’ll be on his own amid the eccentric (in the best way possible, of course) residents of Marten’s Marina while Eva and her boyfriend, Detective Vaughn Malloy, chase down the growing web of tangled connections between relatives and friends of the dead woman and open an even bigger can of worms. Accusations are flying. Tempers are flaring. Emerging technology complicates everything. With lucre and love at odds, Eva finds that trying to set one matter right might have the consequence of sinking herself and those she holds dear into deeper danger.

Summer, and the Willamette River is a busy place. Eva Fairchild should know…since the wakes of all those passing bulk freighters (not to mention the splashy aftereffects of the daredevil personal-watercraft aficionados and hobbyist fishermen and wide-bottomed weekend yachters) set her floating house to sloshing. But when an explosion rocks the night, it’s more than turbulent water that comes Eva’s way—because there’s a body in the rubble. What’s the price of greed and truth, particularly when they’re at cross purposes? Eva is about to find out, when she’s called on to provide public relations support for the brave new investigative journalism venture formed by a few of her intrepid friends. Her sweetie, Detective Vaughn Malloy, isn’t exactly thrilled by the proximity to danger her involvement necessitates, but he can’t complain because he’s also supplying a favor of his own for his law-enforcement cronies in the much bigger Portland Police Bureau. Because he has a stealthy and in-demand expertise he hasn’t told Eva about—yet. Big money equals big politics, big egos, and big explosions. Not necessarily in that order.

That soft, timid knock late at night. A hoarse mayday in the dark. When you live in Marten’s Marina, your doorstep is an international shipping lane. So when a half-drowned refugee washes ashore, Eva Fairchild-Malloy and her neighbors scramble to the rescue. Their castaway is fleeing—from something almost too terrifying to put into words. But the Promised Land isn’t really, not if she doesn’t have the right paperwork and the right connections. While Eva and her detective husband, Vaughn, are just beginning their married life together, they’re also determined to help this desperate survivor hang on to her tenuous lifeline. Can they untangle the web of nefarious fixers who work for other fixers—like an ugly, predatory food chain—before there’s a break in the links that plunges everyone they love into danger? Because this dark underbelly of society will kill to avoid being exposed.

Eva Malloy and her partner in cooking, Willow Ratliff, are taking their supper club venture to the next level—by foraging for their own wild foods. What they didn’t expect to find was a dead body, facedown in a marsh. It’s enough to turn anyone’s stomach. But when Eva and her police detective husband, Vaughn, discover the man is dead because he had the wrong name—well, the right name but in the wrong context—everything changes. Now they have a murder investigation on their hands. And it goes to the top. Straight to the very top. Of both the local law enforcement echelon and the city’s hierarchy of rackets bosses. All while both sides might be playing footsie with each other under the table. You thought vice was cloaked in social niceties these days? That it’s watered down and euphemized for general enjoyment? That maybe it doesn’t even happen in its worst sense in well-bred, hipster cities like Portland, Oregon? Yeah, think again. Can Eva and Vaughn sort through the mire and bring the truth to light without getting their own names featured at the top of a hit list?