Frictional Characters

Small towns + gossip = friction

No one in the town of Whitby, North Carolina was excited when Jonas Merchant returned to town. Jonas was an effective muckraker; an expert at uncovering secrets, rumors, and undercurrents. Even worse, he'd fallen on hard times and was desperate for easy cash. It was a decidedly dangerous combination.

It was perhaps not the biggest surprise when Jonas was discovered dead one day. More shocking, at least to local librarian Ann Beckett, was the fact that her strai...