Orpheus Rising - Bateman

Michael Ryan was the author of a runaway bestseller, Space Coast , but its publication coincided with his wife's murder in a bank raid. Now he's back to face the ghosts of his past.

Michael met Claire when she was dragging Paul de Luca, detective novel writer and owner of a porn shop, out of the sea after he'd lost his feet in a shark attack. Claire was living with local hard man Tommy, a Gulf War vet, at the time and Tommy was not impressed with Michael's interest in his girl. When Tommy leaves town to be a roadie for a band playing a six week stint on a cruise ship, Michael falls in love with Claire, they marry and he writes his novel. But then Claire is killed in the bank raid. Ten years later Michael returns to the scene of the crime to exorcise the ghosts of the past and try to write his second novel. But he discovers the grim truth behind his wife's murder and encounters the strangest of small-town behaviour...