Under the Surface

Some places hold their secrets beneath layers of salt air and old memories. When Bear and Mandy Logan settle into a quiet winter on North Carolina's Outer Banks, the isolation feels like exactly what they need. It isn't. What starts as a simple act of protecting vulnerable neighbors pulls Bear into the heart of something far darker—organized crime, buried history, and a past that never quite let go. The stakes climb fast, and with the only road off the island gone, escape isn't an option. This is a thriller that understands how quickly sanctuary can become a trap.

What Ryan and Rought do particularly well here is balance relentless forward momentum with genuine emotional weight. The father-daughter dynamic between Bear and Mandy gives the tension something real to anchor itself to—these aren't just plot pieces in danger, they're characters readers have already grown to care about. The prose moves with confidence and economy, the island setting does real atmospheric work, and the pacing trusts readers to keep up. Book two in this series deepens everything the first established and pushes it harder.