A woman, clad only in a white nightgown, is dead - her body discovered on the banks of Black River. Her unsolved murder, and her ghost, still haunt the small town where she lived and died.Twenty-five years later, Detective Gordon Daniels inherits his estranged grandfather's home on the property where the body was found. Anxious to sell it, Daniels invites his partner, Detective Aaron Remalla to help him clean it out and enjoy some time off from their high-pressure job. But their getaway is interrupted when a second woman's body is found on the river, clad in a white nightgown, and they are unwittingly thrown into an investigation they would prefer to avoid.Their scrutiny of the nearby town uncovers colorful suspects, including a cranky elderly woman and her entitled grandson, two fortune-telling sisters, a paranormal-investigating sheriff, a drifter with a dubious past and Daniels' own grandfather. As strange occurrences, frightening dreams, and spectral encounters stack up, Detectives Daniels and Remalla are forced to confront the town's ghosts and will uncover a sinister secret so shocking that someone is prepared to kill to keep it hidden.Can the specters of the past help them find a killer before the killer gets to them first?

This novel of sorrow and suspense, set in rural Montana, is “a complex and powerful story—put Black River on the must-read list” (The Seattle Times). Wes Carver returns to his hometown—Black River, Montana—with two things: his wife’s ashes and a letter from the parole board. The convict who once held him hostage during a prison riot is up for release. For years, Wes earned his living as a correction officer and found his joy playing the fiddle. But the uprising shook Wes’s faith and robbed him of his music; now he must decide if his attacker should walk free. With “lovely rhythms, spare language, tenderness, and flashes of rage,” S. M. Hulse shows us the heart and darkness of an American town, and one man’s struggle to find forgiveness in the wake of evil (Los Angeles Review of Books).