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Party drugs with a body count
A new designer pill hits the festival circuit. The high comes with a price.
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A detective with everything to lose
Marc McKinley is fighting his past, his town’s politics, and a killer supply chain.
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A mother on the front lines
Detective Carly Hill is raising her daughter and hunting the people selling death to kids like her.
A coastal crime story with a beating heart.
One-line hook — 90 seconds. One summer you won’t forget.
The Story
About the Book
Setup: Introduce East Bay: the summer crowds, the Wharf, the Neon Jungle music festival rolling into town, and the sense that the volume’s turned up too high.
Conflict: A deadly new pill tears through the festival crowd. A local girl pays the price. Detectives Marc McKinley and Carly Hill find themselves chasing a supply chain that runs through beach bars, luxury condos, and the Stevens Family Fairgrounds.
Stakes: As the death toll rises, Marc’s relationship with ER nurse Mary Wade and Carly’s responsibility as a single mom collide with the case. Someone is flooding East Bay with poison—and they’re willing to burn the whole town down to keep the money flowing.
The lights didn’t try to co-exist with the night. They tried to own it. Darkness be damned.
CHARACTER SPOTLIGHTS
Marc McKinley
East Bay detective. Surfer. A man carrying old grief and new cases. Marc has seen what bad drugs do to good families—and this time, it’s personal.
Carly Hill
Single mom. Cop. Professional plate-spinner. Carly hunts dealers by day and helps her daughter chase big dreams by night.
Avery Bass
Rich kid turned party king. Neon Jungle is his playground—until the pills he loves and sells start killing people he can’t ignore.
Mary Wade
ER nurse holding the line between life and death. Mary sees the overdose victims before anyone else and feels each one in her bones.
Welcome to East Bay
The Wharf:
fishing boats, Bloody Marys at sunrise, tequila and live music until the neon fades.
The Fairgrounds:
a former cattle ranch turned festival machine where Neon Jungle lights up the night and kids in day-glo armor chase the next high.
The Divide:
luxury condos, golf carts, and Michelin-starred seafood on one side; working families and exhausted cops on the other.
What Early Readers Are Saying
Formats & Buy Options
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
About Eugene Owens
Eugene Owens writes coastal crime stories about small towns, big secrets, and the people trying to hold it all together. He lives in Florida, surfs whenever there are waves, drives long distances for reasons that usually become stories, and believes beach towns are the perfect place to hide
