The Best Man Dies First

The best man is dead before the bachelor party reaches midnight. A storm has sealed six old friends inside Grayhaven, an abandoned prison above a flooding quarry.

The roads are gone.

The exit is chained.

Cason Haney’s body has been staged in a cell no guest should be able to open. County fire investigator Tate Sutter knows scenes can lie.

He also knows every man in the prison helped bury the truth about a death twelve years ago, including Tate and his younger brother, the groom. When a second body surfaces, each false alibi points back to that old night.

The killer has the master key, the group’s private history, and enough rising water to erase both. To keep his brother alive, Tate must reconstruct two murders from blood routes, broken locks, and memories designed to agree.

Tropes: closed circle of suspects, locked room murder, bachelor party weekend gone wrong, buried secret among old friends, storm-locked isolation, brother protecting brother, fair-play whodunit (what these mean)