A quiet calm has settled over the quirky coastal town of Ebonreach Bay, but a new crime wave threatens to disrupt the peace. For Linwood "Linny" Crane, owner of 'The Curious Case' bookstore and cafe, and his partner, the brilliant investigative journalist Nora Penrose, life is about to get weird again, even by their standards.
A string of bizarre thefts has the town on edge. Cherished sentimental items-a four-hundred-pound garden statue, an antique thimble, prize-winning petunias-are vanishing from homes without a single trace. There are no broken locks, no footprints, and no witnesses. It's as if the objects simply... cease to exist.
But this is no ordinary thief. The victims aren't just losing their possessions; they're losing the memories attached to them. As the objects disappear, so does any recollection of ever owning them, leaving the victims in a state of gentle, heartbreaking confusion. While the gossips spin wild theories about thieving gnomes and floral-nesting sea sirens, Linny and Nora suspect something far more sinister is at play. Is this the work of a phantom, an entity that feeds on cherished moments, a true "Memory Collector"?
The mystery deepens and takes a terrifying turn when a violent break-in at the local antique shop leaves a path of destruction and a hysterical eyewitness screaming about a monstrous "creature in black." This is an entity unlike any Linny has faced before.
As Linny and Nora navigate a tangled web of eccentric townspeople, simmering family frustrations, and a hidden history connected to a mysterious local artist, they find themselves caught between two seemingly separate threats. With a monster on the loose and a memory thief erasing the town's past one object at a time, they must race to solve a crime where the evidence itself is being stolen from the minds of the victims. In a town where logic is merely a suggestion, they must confront a puzzle that blurs the line between a cunning human plot and a horrifying supernatural force, before more than just memories are lost for good.
