On a sunny Saturday in June, on the clear, blue waters off the coast of Carolina Beach, North Carolina, a highly civilized party aboard the Portofino yacht is interrupted by a floating corpse. Guests of the party and private investigators Katherine (Cash) Delaney and Stella Conroy contact Stella’s father, Brunswick County Sheriff Billy Conroy, to attend to the unidentified body. Meanwhile, Sheriff Conroy has been asked to investigate episodes of mysterious vandalism at a nearby vineyard. These two cases intersect in a way that results in accidental murder, a drug-related injury, malfeasance by a federal law enforcement agency, and a deadly exchange between a young cop and a well-known litigator. No one in this tangled web will ever forget the impact of these events on the usually peaceful southern shores.