After her father's death, surveyor Mara Kincaid returns to Myford, Ohio, a town stitched around the shuttered Pierce & Sons Foundry. In his garage she finds a dented flat-file of township plats marked with red Xs and pencil notes like don't trust Ashhollow. As the foundry's siren starts wailing at odd hours and someone repaints the town boundary in fresh white at night, Mara realizes the maps point to a secret the residents have chosen to unsee.
With teen map-nerd Eli Ramos and retired union steward Len Hart, she follows the Xs from the covered bridge to the VFW's Blue Room, chasing a 1968 charter revision buried during a flood. Their search uncovers an unofficial landfill beneath Myford High's football field and a paper-company note that could erase the town. When a standoff at the No. 7 water tower turns dangerous, Mara must choose whether to redraw Myford's borders or save the people within them, knowing lines on paper can cut as sharply as steel.
Ansel Greeley (b. 1983) is an American writer and archivist from Dayton, Ohio. He studied urban planning at Miami University and spent a decade cataloging municipal records for Rust Belt towns, work that shaped his fascination with maps, memory, and civic myth. His short fiction has appeared in small magazines, and his debut story collection, Salt Flats at Night, received a regional new-writer prize in 2017. He leads an oral history project with retired factory workers and lives in Columbus with his partner and a retired greyhound.
Lean, atmospheric, and unexpectedly tender. The partnership between Mara and Eli gives the mystery warmth, and the civic details feel lived-in rather than researched to death. Not perfect pacing, but I kept turning pages.
A tense, humane portrait of municipal power and memory. The hunt for the 1968 charter revision and the landfill beneath the field creates real stakes without resorting to cartoon villains. The sense of place—Ashhollow Creek, the foundry siren, the No. 7 tower—lingers like a low hum. A few repetitions aside, beautifully done.
Midwest noir fatigue setting in. Every page is another metaphor about oxidation or boundary lines, and the conspiracy under the football field felt melodramatic. I liked the idea of a surveyor protagonist, but the execution was overwrought and the Blue Room scenes dragged.
I am feral for books where maps matter and this DELIVERED. The Xs, the penciled warnings about Ashhollow, the boundary repaintings—chef's kiss. Also I would die for Len Hart, union dad of my heart.
Chapter with the Blue Room at the VFW and the reveal about the 1968 charter? Cartography-nerd tears. The water tower scene (page 287 in my paperback) had my stomach in my throat. Instant favorite.
Solid small-town mystery with a fresh cartography angle. The pacing sags in the middle and the symbolism of rust gets laid on pretty thick, but Mara's grief arc works and Eli Ramos steals scenes. Worth reading, not life-changing.
Myford turns linework into knife-edges. The flat-file cabinet, the foundry siren, and those midnight boundary stripes are images I can't shake. Greeley makes governance feel like ghost story and labor history at once.
The final climb at the No. 7 water tower had me gripping the book like a railing. Mara, Eli, and Len feel earned, flawed, stubbornly human—and the town itself breathes like a character. I loved it.
