If you like treasure hunts, small-town secrets, dual timelines, and mysteries that give you just enough information to convince you that you’ve figured everything out before proving that you absolutely have not, Tom Ryan needs to be on your radar.

I first discovered his books through The Treasure Hunters Club, a mystery set in the coastal town of Maple Bay, Nova Scotia, that I immediately described as a cozy mystery meets The Goonies.

So when I found out Cass, Dandy, and Peter were coming back for another mystery, obviously, I needed to know what they were getting themselves into next.

RETURNING TO MAPLE BAY

Return to Breakneck Island brings us back to Maple Bay, but this time the mystery stretches nearly a century into the past.

In 1932, an entire lighthouse-keeper family disappeared from Breakneck Island, a remote island sitting just across the bay.

Almost 100 years later, Cass is celebrating the launch of her new book when an older Maple Bay resident named Cookie tells her something intriguing: there's more than one treasure to be found.

Before Cookie can explain what she means, she's dead.

From there, Cass, Dandy, and Peter begin following seemingly separate threads involving Cookie’s death, an old diving tragedy, family secrets, rumors of hidden treasure, and the question of what really happened on Breakneck Island in 1932.

Unlike The Treasure Hunters Club, where the three characters are brought together by the central mystery, they're largely operating independently here. Slowly, those separate threads begin colliding.

And once they do? That's when this book really took off for me.

THE TIMELINE I COULDN'T GET ENOUGH OF

The 1932 chapters were easily my favorite part of Return to Breakneck Island.

• An isolated lighthouse.

• A family trapped together.

• Secrets.

• A storm closing in.

• And the knowledge that, somehow, all of these people are going to disappear.

COME ON.

Every time we returned to 1932, I wanted to stay there.

The present-day storyline took a little longer to grab me, and there were a few side plots where I wasn't initially sure how everything was going to connect. But once Ryan starts pulling those threads together, the book moves.

What I really appreciated, though, was how completely the mystery came together by the end. Details that seemed insignificant suddenly mattered. Questions were answered. The different timelines actually had a reason to exist together.

And then there's the epilogue, qhich brings me to something Tom told me during our conversation.

A GREAT MYSTERY NEEDS MORE THAN A GREAT TWIST

When I interviewed Tom about Return to Breakneck Island, we obviously talked about the mechanics of writing mysteries: multiple POVs, clues, pacing, timelines, red herrings, reveals.

But one of my favorite parts of our conversation was his explanation of what actually makes a mystery successful.

You can construct the most intricate plot imaginable, but if the character work underneath it isn't sincere, the story still isn't going to fly.

I think that's an important distinction because a twist can make me gasp. A mystery can make me desperately turn pages because I NEED to know what happened, but characters are what make the answer matter once I finally get it.

That's especially true in Return to Breakneck Island.

Without spoiling anything, there's a thread of hidden queer history running through the book that becomes increasingly important as the past and present collide.

Tom told me that when he reached the final lines of this story, he actually got choked up. It was the first time he'd ever made himself cry while writing. For him, there was something deeply fulfilling about getting to give this particular piece of hidden history a happy ending.

WATCH THE FULL CONVERSATION

My full interview with Tom Ryan goes much deeper into Return to Breakneck Island and the craft behind his mysteries.

We talk about his journey to becoming a mystery writer, creating The Treasure Hunters Club, managing multiple POVs, returning to Maple Bay, why the second book needed to work differently from the first, writing that emotional epilogue, and what he believes makes a mystery truly successful.

And yes, I asked whether there will be a third Treasure Hunters Club book. 👀

Return to Breakneck Island is out October 6.

QOTD: When you're reading a mystery, what matters more to you: a twist you never see coming or characters you genuinely care about?