Excerpt from Ruby Falls by Gin Phillips, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She unpeels herself from the wall and starts forward again. She doesn't know how long she has before her flashlight dies. Whoever this is, she's going to have to make it past them, although she's not sure how, considering that she can't straighten her arms without touching limestone on each side.

The glow brightens as she comes closer, and she strains to hear. Usually, workers come down here in teams, and she doesn't hear voices or the banging or scraping of tools. Maybe this isn't a worker. She flashes back to the old stories of bootleggers and escaped convicts.

She has no choice, though, so she keeps inching forward. When she rounds the bend, at first she doesn't see anyone at all. A lit lantern has been abandoned a few steps in front of her. She considers it for a moment before her light catches a pair of boots and trousers and the broad back of a man facing the wall.

Excerpted from Ruby Falls by Gin Phillips. Copyright © 2026 by Gin Phillips. Excerpted by permission of Atlantic Crime. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.