When a young university student Phillipa Huddleston sits down in the office of Fitzhugh investigation, she wants Fitz to find her mother, Barbara Huddleston. The problem? She's been gone for four years and the police were never notified. Why wouldn't her father report his wife missing? Had he killed her? Or why didn't Pippa's wealthy grandparents do the same?

The case takes Fitz out of the familiar environs of his hometown, Fawcettville, to New Tunstall, a small town on the Ohio River filled with secrets. Once the center of the country's pottery business, New Tunstall now struggles with unemployment, opioids and poverty. With no familiar sources, Fitz must turn to two unlikely allies to help him solve his case.

This is the seventh in Debra Gaskill's award-winning Fracktown Gumshoe series.