Played to Death

A body in a rundown Opera House. Simmering resentment in a small Virginia coastal town. A missing manuscript. A dark family secret.

Former piano prodigy-turned FBI agent Scott Drayco is still suffering nightmares from his last case as a private consultant. To add insult to injury, he's bequeathed an unwanted and rundown Opera House in Cape Unity, a down-on-its-luck seaside village where vacation homes were once a playground for the rich. His hopes for a quick sale are dashed when a new client with dreams of his own redemption is murdered in the Opera House, the letter “G” mockingly carved into his chest. Working with a wary Sheriff, Drayco has to navigate a complicated maze of illicit love affairs and hostility over immigration and coastal development.

Drayco's confidence in his decision-making abilities is shaken when the flirtatious and lonely wife of a Town Councilman almost derails Drayco’s efforts with attempts to seduce him, despite the fact she had an affair with the victim. One mystery soon turns to two, as Drayco learns of a famous Polish pianist whose last concert was at the Opera House fifty years ago—and was murdered after returning home. Slowly, inevitably, Drayco gets pulled into a tangled scheme of jealousy and betrayal that reaches across the Atlantic into some of the darkest days of human history. But will he be able to untangle the web before the tensions in Cape Unity explode into more violence and he becomes the next victim?