Orpheus Rising by Bateman
Michael Ryan was the author of a runaway bestseller, Space Coast, but its publication coincided with his wife's murder. Now he's back to face the ghosts of his past.
Michael met Claire when she was living with local hard man Tommy, a Gulf War vet. When Tommy leaves town to be a roadie for a band playing a six week stint on a cruise ship, Michael falls in love with Claire, they marry and he writes his novel. But then Claire is killed in a bank raid. Ten years later Michael returns to the scene of the crime to exorcise the ghosts of the past and try to write his second novel. But he discovers the grim truth behind his wife's murder and encounters the strangest of small-town behaviour...