M. K. Wren

The police called it an accident. The dead man's wife insisted it was murder. Either way it was maddeningly mysterious....

"I'll be on your patio at four o'clock. If you aren't there, I'll understand...." This is the gist of the mysterious plea for help that Conan Flagg finds lying on the counter of his Holliday Beach Book Shop....

The war between the McFalls and the Drinkwaters had taken a nasty turn: someone had dynamited a reservoir, depriving the Drinkwaters' Double D ranch of its precious water supply....

In 1940, Leland Langtry ran off with his redheaded secretary and $10,000 in company funds... Or so everyone believed... Forty years later, Langtry's remains are found....

Celebrated author Ravin Gould, his equally celebrated actress wife, the media, the locals, and as many tourists as can cram themselves into Conan Flagg's bookstore are all on hand....

A Gift Upon the Shore is a lyrical, haunting story of two women, an artist and a writer, surviving in a dark near future...