Sun, sand, and surf meet intrigue and murder when Ned Johnston and Sophia Ambrosetti return in the second book in the Oceanic Park mystery series.
It’s summer again in Oceanic Park. After the tumultuous events of the previous year, small-town attorney Ned Johnston is back to his usual summer routine of surfing, listening to music, and hanging out at Java Joe’s Coffee Cafe. At the same time, Johnston is torn between anticipating and dreading the return of Sophia Ambrosetti, the musician and investigator with whom he had worked the previous summer.
Meanwhile, the summer season in Oceanic Park is roiled by anti-immigrant tensions. A group calling itself the Oceanic Park Vigilantes is conducting an anti-immigrant flyer campaign, and an abrasive talk-show host named Walter Braddock is using his show as a platform for spreading inflammatory anti-immigrant rhetoric. When the anti-immigrant campaign turns deadly, Johnston undertakes an investigation. As the investigation progresses, it reveals that nothing is as it appeared at first and ultimately leads to a series of startling discoveries.
Ned Johnston, a middle-aged attorney, has escaped the grind of a high-pressure job by returning to his hometown of Oceanic Park and establishing a small law practice. He spends his spare time hanging out at Java Joe’s Coffee Cafe, surfing the 21st Street beach break, and listening to music at an old jazz club called the Crow’s Nest.
The carefree days of summer in Oceanic Park are shattered, however, when a client and friend of Johnston’s dies under suspicious circumstances. Unsatisfied with the police investigation and suspecting a coverup, Johnston starts his own investigation into the death with the assistance of Sophia Ambrosetti, an investigator and forensic researcher. Their investigation has the effect of stirring up a hornet’s next and uncovers a web of corruption, deception, and murder.