An invitation to speak at the Gotham Crime Fiction Conference draws Ann Kinnear into a mystery within a mystery, where the stakes are not just reputation and riches—they're life and death.

In the spectral silence of a deserted beach town, one wrong step could be fatal.

In an almost-deserted condo complex overlooking the wintry Atlantic, some secrets are stored away just as carefully as the summer deck chairs—until Ann Kinnear arrives.

Hired for what should be a straightforward speaking engagement at a writer’s conference, Ann is soon drawn into a tangle of ambitions, grudges, and dangerous bargains. An author desperate to break free of a suffocating publishing contract, a calculating editor juggling clients and agendas, and a shadowy figure slipping in and out of a thirteenth-floor unit all become part of a web Ann can’t ignore—especially when her unique ability starts picking up threads no one else can perceive.

As icy winds rattle the condo’s walkways and the off-season streets grow darker, Ann must decide whom to trust in a community where every favor comes with strings, and where the next knock at the door could bring a breakthrough … or a one-way descent.

For fans who love atmospheric settings, amateur sleuths with an extraordinary edge, tangled motives, and slow-burn suspense that builds toward a deadly confrontation, BE WITH THE DEAD blends the eerie isolation of a winter beach town with the pulse-pounding stakes of a narrow ledge negotiation, where a single misstep could be the last step Ann takes.