Ex-Marine Acton Sanderson, the local sheriff, lives in one of the converted missile towers on Boatswain Island, home to America's first missile site. Older and newer entangled families with secrets produce their own virtual Tower of Babel. Acton has to let Suelima Pardee know that her older sister, Charlotte, who runs the Silver Mullet Pier and Motel founded by their father, has had a breakdown. By the time she interrupts completing her doctorate in literature at the University of Chicago to come to her aid, Charlotte is dead, and the island's "bad boy, " Wes Thomas, is missing. Suelima seems destined to sort out matters and solve the mystery [mysteries?]. A secondary motive for her return is to determine, prior to answering the marriage proposal of philosophy professor "Jamie" Winthrop, whether her feelings for Acton are merely the dregs of a childhood crush. After what she uncovers, can Suelima be satisfied that she has done her best by the island she loves and not left it a place of "whited sepulchers"?