The Moon Keeps Score

Summary

A cold case pulls Sheriff Red Hammergren into the murky depths of Hammer Lake, where money, violence, and forty years of lies collide.

When a fisherman finds a rusted Camaro in Hammer Lake, Sheriff Red Hammergren links it to Rence Thomas—an Iowa man who vanished without a trace four decades ago. Before Red can search for his remains, his adult twins arrive in rural Minnesota demanding answers about their father's fate.

Red's investigation uncovers a reclusive woman with a scarred face who has ties to the old disappearance—and to money now missing from the town treasury. But the more Red digs, the more she realizes everyone connected to this case is hiding something. When one of the twins is found dead on the lakeshore days after a public confrontation, the connection between past and present becomes lethally clear.

Now, with the Hammer Lake Association demanding she close the case before it ruins tourist season and her friend Scotty getting dangerously close to the surviving twin, Red must unravel how the scarred woman, the stolen money, and two deaths forty years apart are connected—before the lake claims another life and the truth sinks with it.