The Second Story

Some help costs more than you can afford to pay.

Frank Merchant has built a second life. The retired Knox County detective, turned Knoxville real estate agent, has a wife he loves, a baby on the way, and a renovated building on Broadway he shares with his business partners. For the first time in a long time, the future feels solid.

Then his world starts to burn.

A home inspection in South Knoxville turns up bones in a crawl space. It might be the unfinished case that has tormented Frank in retirement - one of his "Greatest Misses." His business partner Adam reveals he's borrowed money from the wrong people, and Merchant & Moore is collateral. When Frank calls in an old favor from a shadowy government operative named Isaac Johnson, the "help" arrives as fire, smoke, and a wife unconscious on a gurney.

What unfolds is bigger than a single case. A multi-generational conspiracy that owns the paper trail to half of East Tennessee, and a man who would rather see Frank's whole world burn than let the BIGGER secrets surface.

To survive, Frank will need every friend he has: his old partner Russ, the unstoppable PI Peters, a freshman Congresswoman with a prosecutor's instincts, and new friends who are incapable of leaving a Stone unturned.

The Second Story is the second novel in the Frank Merchant Mystery series - a love letter to Knoxville, Tennessee, and an edge of your seat page turner. Nothing is simple - but some call for the fight of your life.

The Second Story A Frank Merchant Mystery Following Principles of Real Estate and Murder