How do you live without someone who’s been part of your life for twenty years?

Jack Holm begins to find out when his wife doesn’t return to their suburban Seattle home after shopping one day. Her absence is not unusual given her flight attendant’s job, and it’s a respite from recent marital discord, so Jack feels relief, not worry. But when a day goes by with no word, then another, Jack, his teenage daughter and ten-year-old son do worry. After three days, Jack reports her missing.

Suddenly, Jack is swept up in a terrifying conflagration of events that threatens to tear his world apart. The police suspect him of foul play. Children and Family Services suspects him of abuse. And someone is spying on his kids.

He quickly realizes the only way to stay ahead of the law and prevent his children from being put in foster care is to find out what happened to his wife. When a CD containing child pornography turns up in her effects, Jack knows the stakes have risen dramatically. With the help of another outcast, a woman who believes in his innocence, and new-found courage, Jack pursues a shadowy Japanese Yakuza crime boss from Seattle to Las Vegas and back, putting himself and all the people he loves in mortal danger.

“In a shift from his Emerson Ward mysteries (Death is No Bargain, 2006, etc.), Sherer creates a suspenseful tale of a family stressed by the conflicts murder reveals.” —Kirkus Review

“Sherer takes a break from his Emerson Ward series (Death Is No Bargain, etc.) with this solid stand-alone … an unrelenting tale of personal calamity that ends on a gratifying note of hope.” —Publishers Weekly

Island Life is a genuine page-turner … a portrait of a family in free fall…”

—Adam Woog, Seattle Times