When Claire Harmon's husband is pulled from a river lancha in twelve seconds - a hand from an unmarked boat, a side channel closing behind him, and then silence - Claire has nothing but what she knows: he was taken alive, and someone wanted him for a reason.

That reason lies two hours upriver, at a jungle research compound where an archaeologist named Adriana Carvalho has spent three years documenting a Bribri land claim in the remote canals of Costa Rica. Claire arrives expecting a connection. She finds something more complicated: a team of researchers, a body on the dock, and a woman who knew more than she said.

What follows is a close and precise investigation into what people build - and what they protect - in isolated places. A novel about the architecture of loyalty, the cost of what you choose not to look at, and the specific weight of carrying twelve seconds forward without being held down by them.

For fans of Liane Moriarty, Lisa Jewell, and Ruth Ware.