Murder on the Hawthorne
David F. Herr
Type: Beta project
Genre: Mystery, thriller
Word count: 101,600
Warnings: Swearing
In Murder on the Hawthorne, a retired FBI accountant washes up dead on the North Carolina coast, clutching the key to a secret someone will kill to protect. Sheriff Kelly Faircloth’s investigation leads to a failing riverfront factory poisoned by corruption, where plant engineer Cal Mercer and teenage runaway Skye Barrett uncover secrets that put them in the killer’s path.
In Murder on the Hawthorne, Sheriff Kelly Faircloth is still fighting to be taken seriously in late-1970s coastal North Carolina when a retired FBI accountant washes up dead in Topsail Inlet, clutching a brass key no one can identify. What first looks like an odd drowning soon points upriver to Cape Fear Cord & Canvas, a failing factory where missing records and corporate desperation have poisoned a business vital to the local community.
As Kelly digs deeper, she draws help from Cal Mercer, a plant engineer whose loyalty to the mill is tested by what he uncovers, and Skye Barrett, a streetwise runaway whose talent for boats puts her in the wrong place at the right time. Together, they follow a trail of corruption, fear, and carefully hidden evidence. But behind the murder is a killer with a rigid sense of order, and anyone who disrupts it may not survive.
David Herr is a historian of the American South and author of the Hawthorne River mysteries, set in coastal North Carolina. After more than three decades teaching history and the humanities, he turned his attention to fiction shaped by his love of place, character, and the hidden pressures that drive ordinary people toward extraordinary choices. His work blends murder mystery, light thriller, and Southern coastal atmosphere, with an eye for historical texture, moral complexity, and the humor found in small-town life. He lives in North Carolina.
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