The Ninth Ledge
When a construction crew pries open a wall on the ninth floor of the prestigious Aurelia Tower, they find what the Garden District has spent decades hiding, a corpse sealed behind the plaster, beyond the reach of time and the law. Investigator Marcus Venn arrives at the scene expecting a routine inquiry, but the silence inside that opened wall tells a different story. Someone with money, influence, and patience put this body where no one was meant to look. As Venn digs into the tower's history and the powerful families tied to it, the case spreads from the Garden District's manicured avenues into the back rooms of the judiciary, the parish, and the old money that built New Orleans. With Judge Aldric Poole guarding the bench, Father Anselm tending to secrets in the confessional, and a circle of suspects including Dana Rourke, Louis Marchetti, Sofia Delacroix, Remy Fontenot, Mireille Thibodeaux, Tomás Vega, James Calloway, Nora Voss, Eddie Beaumont, and Celeste Duval, each with reasons to keep the past buried, Venn must choose which lies to expose and which truths might destroy the city he loves. Because the killer isn't merely hiding a crime. They've been building one, brick by brick, for a generation.