High Water: A Novel

A suspenseful and chilling tale of a family undone by a mother's mysterious death and a father's startling secrets.

Beaufort, South Carolina, is home to the Smallwoods, a family that appears close-knit but is in fact deeply at odds. The youngest sibling, Georgie, is consumed with anger at her father, Fielding, an unforgiving ex-marine, whose involvement in a notorious scandal many years earlier cast a shadow over his career and the Smallwood name. A fierce patriarch, Fielding neglects Georgie's mother; belittles her brother, Ashby; and denies her sister, Claire, the financial support she needs after a trying divorce. When her mother dies suddenly and of mysterious causes, Georgie immediately suspects that her father was somehow involved.

As she works to convince Ashby and Claire of her suspicions, however, their father is murdered, and Claire is implicated in his death. Georgie desperately attempts to piece together both her family and her personal life, but the evidence of their father's betrayal and the secrets of his past threaten to leave the Smallwood family in ruin.

As affecting as it is suspenseful, High Water infuses a harrowing mystery with an intensely personal study of the delicate, complex bonds that define a family. Lynn Hightower's most successful book yet, High Water, packs a powerful combination of intrigue and insight.