The storm

A perfect storm. The perfect crime.

When Hurricane Leo threatens Camino Island, Florida, the governor quickly issues an evacuation order. Most residents abandon their homes and flee to the mainland, but a small group of resistors decides to stay. Among them is Bruce Cable, owner of Bay Books in downtown Santa Rosa. The hurricane is devastating: homes and businesses are destroyed, hotels and shop windows are shattered, streets are flooded, and a dozen people die. One of the victims is Nelson Kerr, Bruce's friend and a thriller writer, and several mysterious blows to the head suggest that the storm was not the cause of death. Who would want Nelson dead?

The local police, overwhelmed by the aftermath of the storm, are not in a position to solve the case. Bruce begins to wonder if the obscure characters in Nelson's novels were more fact than fiction. The manuscript of his new novel is somewhere on Nelson's computer, and the key to solving his death might be there, in black and white. Bruce starts investigating, and what he finds between the lines is more shocking than Nelson's imagined plot—and much more dangerous.