by Ken Gormley
First published 2021
Shawn Rossi sits in his Pittsburgh law office, questioning every choice he's made. He could have taken lucrative positions at major firms in thriving cities. Instead, he came back to this declining steel town to serve ordinary people. Now his wife is dead, his teenage daughters pierce their bodies and disappear at night, and his law practice teeters on collapse. The estate case consuming his days seems unwinnable. A coffin arrives containing the wrong body. Nuns who ran a home for unwed mothers refuse to break their silence and testify. The family he represents faces losing everything they own. Worse still, his client is Marjorie, the college girlfriend he swore he'd never see again. Rossi must decide whether the values that built small American towns can survive in a world that measures worth only in dollars. His choice will determine not just the fate of one family's inheritance, but whether decency and loyalty still matter in modern America.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama, legal-thriller
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: Pittsburgh
Period: contemporary
326 pages · Paperback · Sunbury Press, Inc.
Content warnings: mental-illness