First published 2025
Marcus works nights at a rundown Speedway on Houston's east side, mapping his shifts between silent customers and flickering fluorescents. When his estranged uncle resurfaces after fifteen years of radio silence, Marcus discovers a cache of encrypted letters hidden in his grandmother's attic—documents that suggest a decades-old family conspiracy involving land rights, oil speculation, and a violent incident never discussed. As Marcus begins decoding the letters, he realizes the information could unravel everything his family has constructed: their reputation, their property, their carefully maintained silence. Someone knows he's digging, and they want those secrets to stay buried. With each translation, Marcus inches closer to a truth that could destroy his remaining connections or rebuild them entirely.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, mystery, thriller, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-drama, secrets, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Houston, Texas
Period: 21st-century
337 pages · Kindle Edition · Farrar, Straus and Giroux