Growing up in the tiny town of Mortales Harbor, Oregon, you have two choices: you can log or you can fish. For best friends Frank and Carre, working the most dangerous jobs in America takes reckless courage. But even the highest waves and the toughest wilderness pale in comparison to the deadly secrets that wait at home.

Nothing can crush Carre's dreams of becoming an artist. But his hard-drinking, hard-hitting father just might kill him before the woods can. And Frank's natural optimism is no match for the grinding poverty that nourishes only one part of him: a lethal temper.

It's an unforgiving world and there's no place in it for Joseph, Frank's sickly younger brother who's been dying since the day he was born. Or for Marie-Camille, the sister forced to take care of him who sparks a bitter rivalry for her love. It's a rivalry that can't be stopped-except by a dead body sprawled at the edge of the tide. In a world where every day on the job carries a death sentence, anything can be a killer: the storm-swept sea, a widowmaker branch falling from a tree...or someone you love.