No Wake Zone

Some weekends, somebody doesnt wake up.

Joanne Pruitt is fifty, teaches AP Chemistry in suburban St. Louis, and has been married for twenty-seven polite years. In February she wrote a letter to Nicole Barrett, her husbands former office manager, who quit the practice to run a lake house with her husband and another woman. In March Joanne sent her a list: five things she wanted and had never asked for.

In May the invitation came. Memorial Day weekend at Marchetti Point, a glass house on the Lake of the Ozarks with eight rules on one card. The first rule is Only yes means yes. The third is Nobody plays after a drink.

Joanne means to work through her list. She doesnt plan on Theo, the big, quiet ex-Navy boat mechanic who is never in a hurry. She doesnt plan on Tessa, the former All-American swimmer from across the cove who can cross it in the dark in four minutes. And she definitely doesnt plan on Tessas husband Ryder, a loud charter-boat owner with a bottle of tequila, a three-million-dollar life insurance policy on his wife, and a habit of roaring through the coves NO WAKE buoys.

On Monday morning Joanne paddles out at dawn and finds Ryder dead in the cabin of his own boat. The generator is still running. The door is hooked shut from the outside. Only Joanne has seen that hook.

A patient sheriff starts asking questions. Her husband has a secret worth $240,000. A dock camera saw more than anyone knew. And Joanne, who has spent her whole life getting the right answer, has to decide what the truth is worth and whose it is to tell.

Scorching, tender, and full of twists, No Wake Zone is the second Marchetti Point novel. It stands alone.

For readers 18+ only. Contains graphic sexual content between consenting adults, including scenes between women, threesomes, group scenes, and voyeurism, along with a death and strong language.