When newspaper owner and editor Bernadette "Bernie" O'Dea's house burns down on New Year's Eve with an unidentified body in the charred rubble--who may or may not be her missing tenant--it's clear the new year won't be nice and quiet after all. Bernis is already navigating boyfriend and police chief Pete Novotny's struggles with PTSD, so when the arson and murder investigation turns its focus on her, she plunges into work trying to find and oasis of normalcy, only to uncover a dark conspiracy with tentacles that reach to every corner of her town, include Pete's troubled police department. The farther Bernie digs, the more tragic and ultimately deadly, the consequences.
