Untamed Coast: A Novel

A late-night mayday call drives a grieving man to embark on an unexpected journey along the wild Alaskan coast, unraveling a decades-old mystery of stolen gold, missing women, and murder in this atmospheric and propulsive debut novel, perfect for fans of William Kent Krueger and Peter Heller.

After the loss of his wife, Marconi Franco is content drifting alone on his boat through the isolated waters of Southeast Alaska with no real destination in mind. But when a mysterious distress signal cuts through the static on his radio one sleepless night, Marco feels an overwhelming pull to help the woman whose plea he heard—a pull he can't explain or ignore.

His search for the missing woman draws him to Radioville, an abandoned 1930s communication outpost now decaying on an uninhabited island off the coast of Alaska. There, Marco begins uncovering fragments of a story long forgotten: a Depression-era theft, a shattered marriage, and a disturbing pattern of disappearances. As he sifts through the past, his own grief starts to mirror the tragedies that echo across decades, and his search draws the attention of someone determined to keep the truth buried.

Told across three evocative timelines—a radio operator in 1938 collecting more than just telegrams, a young woman in the 1980s fighting to survive her abusive husband, and Marco in the present day searching for a voice in the static—Untamed Coast is a story of fierce determination, missed signals, loneliness and connection, and the unseen ripples that reverberate across generations, standing the test of time and the tides.

Kevin C. Morris is an engineer, writer, boater, pilot, entrepreneur, and deckhand. Born and raised in Texas, he has called Portland, Oregon, home for the past forty years, but spends summers leading boating expeditions up the Inside Passage to Southeast Alaska. Untamed Coast is Morris’s first novel.

“A page-turner of a mystery with marvelous characters and a pitch-perfect ending. Kevin C. Morris is a writer to watch.”—New York Times bestselling author Chelsea Cain

“In this salty, action-packed novel, Kevin C. Morris writes thrillingly of the wild seas and stunning beauty of the Alaskan coast with sharp detail drawn from his own experience. Inspired by long-buried history, Untamed Coast spins a tale of lonely miners and hardened fisherfolk drawn to desperate measures in harrowing conditions. The insatiable greed for gold propels this story across the decades from the 1930s to the present, in a compelling tale of shady disappearances, murder, and one man’s solitary pursuit of the truth.”—Kate Manning, author of Gilded Mountain

“Untamed Coast is a bold, intricately plotted debut unfolding against the beauty and danger of the Alaskan wilderness. . . . The timelines coil, the intrigue mounts, but it’s Kevin C. Morris’s vivid evocation of Alaska’s savage beauty that truly shines, inviting you to marvel at the raging seas and looming glaciers, the soaring eagles and breaching whales. You’ll be booking a ticket to the Inside Passage before you’ve flipped the final page!”—Kate Quinn, New York Times bestselling author of The Astral Library

“Morris mines the beauty and danger of the Alaskan wilderness for his . . . debut. . . . The result is a heartwarming, swashbuckling regional mystery.”—Publishers Weekly