Salt on the Tongue

A dead professor. A room locked from within. And a mystery that should never have been disturbed.

Arkham, Massachusetts. 1927.

Rain falls relentlessly over the ancient streets of Arkham when private investigator Silas Thorne receives a telephone call in the dead of night.

A prominent professor has been found dead beneath Miskatonic University's library. The archive door was bolted from the inside. There are no obvious signs of an intruder. Yet the dead man's clothes are soaked, strange geometric cuts mark his flesh, and a pool of saltwater spreads across a floor that should be dry.

Nothing about the scene makes sense.

Once a respected police detective, Thorne now works alone, haunted by an investigation that destroyed his career and left questions he has never dared to answer. He believes in evidence, not superstition. In motives, not monsters.

But the deeper he digs into Professor Thaddeus Vance's death, the more the evidence begins to suggest something far older-and far less human-than any murderer he has ever pursued.

Shipping records conceal disturbing discrepancies. Forgotten waterfronts harbor secrets. An iron key points toward something buried in Arkham's past. And an impossible hour keeps appearing where it has no business being.

Each discovery draws Thorne closer to a truth that powerful men have worked desperately to conceal.

A truth connected to the sea.

A truth that may already be watching him.

As the investigation descends into the darkest corners of Arkham, Thorne must confront the possibility that the laws he has trusted all his life are not merely being broken.

They may never have applied.

Blending hardboiled detective noir with the creeping terror of Lovecraftian cosmic horror, Salt on the Tongue is an atmospheric mystery of forbidden knowledge, buried guilt, and the terrible price of uncovering the truth.

For readers who love 1920s detective fiction, occult mysteries, unsettling investigations, and cosmic horror that lingers long after the final page.

Book One of The Silas Thorne Investigations.

Some doors are locked to keep people out. Others are locked to keep something in.