The River Knows Her Name

On an August morning in 2010, the Mississippi gave up a corpse that shattered Willowbend’s quiet calm. Half-eaten by catfish, the body was beyond recognition. Most believed it was just another rainy-season drowning. Only Dean, a disgraced New York cop, saw something else: murder. As he follows the trail, Dean is drawn to Tara, the town’s newest arrival. She is wealthy, magnetic, untamed—the kind of woman who burns too bright to ignore. The first time they had sex, Tara cuffed Dean to the bed. The next morning, Dean wakes to a message from the coroner: a reconstructed image of the victim. The face staring back is hauntingly familiar. It looks almost exactly like Tara, still sleeping beside him. Who was the dead woman? Who is Tara? And what secrets lie waiting in this river town’s depths?