The First to Die

Connie Tucker, a free-spirited beach bartender, has been estranged from her family in New Jersey ever since her actress mother, Simone, disappeared one night during a violent storm at the theatre where she was rehearsing. Uncontrollable and in a rage at the loss of her parent, fifteen-year-old Connie is exiled to California, due to her delinquent behavior, to live with an aunt she doesn't know. Fifteen years later, Simone's murdered remains are discovered at a construction site and Connie returns to the east coast for the funeral-she owes it to her mother. The cold case unit will take over now and solve the crime. But then she discovers a message her mother left behind. It feels like a dispatch from the grave. Connie must face her tortured past, the guilt of concealing a devastating secret, and the part she played in her mother's disappearance. Unearthing buried family history and childhood demons, she confronts the agonizing reality that she doesn't know where she belongs, where to call home. Who to trust. When a second suspicious death occurs, Connie races to unravel the events of the night Simone disappeared. Her mother was the first to die...but not the last.