First published 2010
A coal chunk the size of a stove explodes from the wall, and water floods the mine. Miner Amos Blevins scrambles through the pitch black underground tunnels, barely escaping with his life while his crewmates remain trapped. Inspector Will Murphy arrives to investigate what his superiors want labeled a simple accident. The mine needs to reopen quickly to preserve jobs for both miners and inspectors. But Will suspects something more sinister happened in this flooded mine, which happens to be owned by his older brother who inherited the family mining empire. When Will refuses to close the case, his witnesses begin dying one by one. Amos faces his own pressure, ordered by his boss to lie about the dangerous conditions underground. If he tells Will the truth, he risks losing everything he has. Will and Amos discover that in Kentucky coal country, survival depends on understanding that life, family, money, and power all flow from the same dark source buried beneath the mountains.
Genres: mystery, crime, thriller, action
Vibes: dark, fast-paced, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Kentucky, Coal Country
Period: 20th-century
368 pages · Kindle Edition · Minotaur Books
Content warnings: violence