A debut sci-fi mystery set on an abandoned future Earth, featuring a twisty mystery straight out of a John le Carre novel, a group of larger-than-life characters who'd be at home in the work of John Scalzi, and a deeply weird and dangerous hyperdimensional entity to haunt the dreams of any reader of Kim Stanley Robinson.
Humanity is dying. Banished from the Earth, our descendants eke out lives in orbital habitats and moon colonies--and look with longing on our former home.
But Earth is uninhabitable. Over hundreds of years, its oceans have transformed into an annihilating liquid entity--the Caul. Every living creature approaching its shores is irresistibly compelled to enter. . . and is never seen again.
Scientists working in facilities seek to understand and stop the Caul. And scavenging the shores are the penitents--those who resist its siren lure.
Penitent Mae Jameson, an octogenarian former Service agent who arrived on Earth thirty years ago to find her lover, encounters Siofra, a mute girl, wandering alone by the shore. Back at Siofra's camp, Mae finds the girl's father, rogue scientist Carl Magellan, hanging from a noose. He's been murdered. Unwilling to leave it in the hands of the facility Carl abandoned years ago, Mae takes Carl's journals and sets about investigating.
The journal details Carl and his deceased wife's obsession with the Caul and its mysteries, even as it takes a debilitating toll on them.
In this page-turning, dual-timeline novel, both Mae and Carl's quests for the truth put them at the center of a dangerous conspiracy. Someone believes they can use the secret of the Caul to shape humanity's future, and they aren't afraid to kill to keep control of it.
