First published 2026
Marconi Franco drifts through Southeast Alaska's waters on his boat, mourning his wife's death. One sleepless night, a woman's distress signal crackles through his radio. Marco feels compelled to find her, though he cannot explain why. His search leads him to Radioville, a crumbling 1930s communication station on a deserted island. Among the ruins, Marco discovers pieces of an old story: stolen gold from the Depression era, a broken marriage, and a troubling series of vanished women. As he digs deeper into the past, his own grief begins to echo the tragedies he uncovers. Someone wants these secrets to stay buried and will stop Marco from learning more. The novel weaves together three time periods: a 1938 radio operator who collects more than telegrams, a 1980s woman fighting to escape her violent husband, and Marco's present-day quest to find the voice calling through the static. His investigation reveals how pain and loss connect across generations.
Genres: literary-fiction, historical-fiction, suspense, mystery, adult-fiction, thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, haunting, introspective, melancholic, suspenseful
Tropes: grief-driven-investigation, multi-timeline-narrative, mystery-unraveling, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Southeast Alaska, Radioville, deserted island
Period: 1938, 1980s, present-day
304 pages · Hardcover · Ballantine Books
Content warnings: death, domestic-violence