An out-of-season nor'easter tears across the New Jersey coast, and the beach community of Oceanside Heights is a mess. Ghostwriter Anne Hardaway's cottage-by-the-sea has seen better days to begin with, but she reluctantly decides to repair her rotting basement floor. Never mind that her newest assignment is writing a "how-to" home repair book for women--she still can barely tell a flat head from a Phillips, a lack of skill she's grateful for when her handy-man finds a twenty-year-old skeleton buried in the dirt beneath her basement's wooden floor.

When her gruesome guest turns out to be the psychologist who treated her mother in the mid-70's, Anne must consider whether her own mother could have been the killer. Some discreet investigating soon leads Anne to Sunnydale Nursing Home where elderly clients are dying at an alarming rate and the staff makes Nurse Ratched look endearing. Before she can say riptide, Anne is hip deep in the residue of a killer storm and uncovering a tale of dark desire that makes the climate ripe for more murder.