Private Investigator Virginia Vane is chasing a fraudster downstate when the trail runs cold in the last place she ever wanted to return: her hometown of Birch Hollow. A sleepy town of cornfields, grudges, and covered up crimes, Birch Hollow is where Virginia's past lies buried-and where her mother still lives in the same immaculate house on the hill, steeped in silence, secrets, and lies so old they became the truth.
As Virginia fights the stifling summer heat, the local cops, and herself, she finds that everything is just as she left it over thirty years ago, including the unsolved disappearance of her first love, Juliette Ashling. The cops said that she skipped town. The retired mechanic knows that he saw something that night, and saw someone with a reputation to protect.
The bodies are piling up. It's up to Virginia to solve the mysteries of Birch Hollow before her past catches up to her.