THE DEEPEST OF SECRETS

A detective in a remote Yukon town shrouded in secrecy has to figure out which resident has turned traitor.

Rockton (population 171) was founded in the 1950s as an intentional community designed to support idealism, a place where people could find refuge from McCarthyism and the like, but in the present day it's turned into something totally different. Since everyone in town uses a false name, the town leaders, known as the council, have used the place as a haven for criminals, and not just those guilty of white-collar crimes. Under the council’s misdirection, a certain price can buy a resident paperwork that suggests their reason for seeking shelter is something more like embezzlement than murder. Only a select few citizens know the truth, like Sheriff Eric Dalton, who’s given limited knowledge of certain high-risk residents that he shares with Casey Duncan, his detective and common-law wife, on a need-to-know basis. In spite of the criminal pasts of some residents, Rockton's Yukon setting and the town's emphasis on shared responsibility mean that the residents have to work together for a common goal: survival. But someone is determined to stir things up when they hang up a sign revealing Deputy Will Anders’ actual criminal history. Casey and Dalton take the case personally since Anders is a longtime friend, but Casey’s certain that the root of the problem is the council and its plan to shut Rockton down. Casey has to find out which of the locals has defected to the side of the council in a place where no one is who they say they are, even as whoever’s behind Anders’ outing keeps upping the ante.

While the characters worry that this is the end of their hometown, Armstrong is just hitting her stride.