Fragments of Calm: A Psychological Literary Thriller
Paperback
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: Dec 19 2025
Pages: 242
Weight: 0.72
Height: 0.55 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Casey Donovan is a decorated Marine veteran turned investigative reporter who has spent a lifetime chasing stories no one else wants to tell. Now in his mid-fifties, haunted by war and tethered to routine, Casey lives between two worlds-the one in front of him, and another that quietly calls to him from the edges of memory.
He knows the shoreline well.
It is a place he returns to in his mind during moments of exhaustion and trauma-a calm, distant sanctuary that feels more real than the life he inhabits. Others dismiss it as fantasy, a coping mechanism born of PTSD. Casey isn't so sure. After years of reporting on homeless veterans, addiction, and systemic failure, he begins to suspect the shoreline is something more.
When a psychiatrist who once studied similar phenomena vanishes without a trace, Casey finds himself pulled back into a decades-old investigation he never truly let go. With the reluctant help of a retired detective and his fiercely intelligent apprentice, Casey begins to uncover a disturbing pattern-veterans, researchers, and witnesses who disappear quietly, leaving behind fragments of truth no one wants to examine.
As the search deepens, so does Casey's internal struggle. The line between psychological trauma and something far more unsettling begins to blur. Are these men and women broken by war-or have they learned to slip somewhere else entirely? And if so, who is watching?
Hunting the Shoreline for Fragments of Calm is a haunting, character-driven novel that explores PTSD, moral injury, faith, and the cost of survival. Grounded in investigative realism but infused with metaphysical unease, it asks unsettling questions about where the mind goes when the body can no longer bear the weight of memory.
This is not a story about easy answers. It is a story about unfinished wars, buried truths, and the quiet pull of a place that feels like peace-but may demand a terrible price.
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