Dr. Janie O’Connor vanished before her shift started at a local hospital, and as Savannah Police Det. Frank Winger investigates, he confronts numerous challenges. He and his partner, Det. Pepper Stephens, delve into Janie’s relationship with billionaire “Playboy Phil” Carruthers and quickly discover that he had a controlling side that prompted Janie to call off their wedding; she also rekindled her romance with an old flame, Dr. David Wommack, shortly before she disappeared. Carruthers becomes a prime suspect after the detectives learn that his security chief assaulted Janie’s sister, Diane, and tried to kill Wommack by setting his front porch ablaze. The later discovery of Janie’s remains, due to an anonymous tip, seemingly seals Carruthers’ fate, even as his sister, Erika, stoutly dismisses the idea that he would commit such a crime. As the investigation moves forward, however, Winger comes to realize that Carruthers isn’t the only person hiding secrets. The attempted suicide of a Carruthers Enterprises employee, John Straub, throws the case into a whole new realm—one that involves human trafficking and the murders of a young boy and his mother, allegedly by a giant alligator: “For Carruthers Enterprises employees, this was their Loch Ness Monster.” As Winger revisits previous steps in the investigation, the revelation of missing evidence jolts him into accepting a shattering conclusion about the power of Carruthers’ forces, whose reach seems boundless.  

Police Chief Clarence “Gatehouse” Brown is also keeping secrets, which may explain his initial reluctance to approve basic steps, such as searching a home (“What the hell is he afraid of? Frank thought”). The twists don’t end there, however. What initially seems like an excursion into Chinatown-style noir, leading inevitably to one suspect’s doorstep, gives way to an explosive, unanticipated journey through the heart of coastal Georgia society. Over the course of the narrative, readers will find that Murphy’s novel presents an extensive meditation on wealth and power, superbly underpinned by the author’s vivid establishment of atmosphere and setting. Along the way, Winger learns that Rose Dhu, the wealthy neighborhood whose name provides the novel’s title, is an area that has a great many ghosts in its past; it’s a place where the sight of bloodstains at an abandoned house is seen as a reason for outsiders to mind their own business, rather than investigate wrongdoing. As readers will discover, what lurks underneath Rose Dhu’s glossy, sophisticated veneer is a terrible evil, indeed, and it’s a theme that will surely resonate with many readers, amid contemporary social and political debates about how some ultrawealthy people find it easier to surrender to their worst urges, rather than check them. The ways that Winger strives to sweep aside local power structures will stick in readers’ minds, long after he, and Murphy, has tied up the case’s frustrating loose ends.