After a nerve-shattering encounter with military justice in The Accused, Craig Parshall's third novel, all lawyer Will Chambers wants to do this summer is relax with his wife, Fiona...

A long stay on the North Carolina coast seems perfect. But when Will reluctantly looks into a local inheritance case involving Jonathan Joppa, a down-on-his-luck preacher—

"Piracy charge—Joppa's ancestor? What...when?"

"Why, for being part of Blackbeard's pirate crew...in the early 1700s..."

Will just wants to rest, but Fiona keeps insisting there's something missing...buried. Soon the two have had a near-fatal brush with smugglers—and together they've unearthed the truth: about a pirate's history, about Jonathan Joppa, and about two remarkable women—one in the past, and one in the present.