Unshackled

Camille Delaney returns with another investigation—and this time it’s personal.

Shackled to her bed against the pleas of the medical staff, Charli Zhao gives birth to a beautiful daughter she names Willow. Charli had been transported to the hospital from prison, where she is serving time for a crime she didn’t commit. Within hours of the birth, the unthinkable happens: the newborn is abducted, leaving Charli devastated and wondering if she’ll ever find her child, even after she gets free.

Attorney Camille Delaney isn’t used to the inside of women’s prisons—she works in courtrooms. But when a local legal aid group recruits her to help with a case on the inside, she feels drawn to these women’s stories. They are often so similar—a lifetime of trauma culminating in the heartbreaking and often permanent loss of custody of their children, even after they’ve served their time and gotten clean.

When Camille meets Charli, it’s been years since Willow was abducted, and the case has gone cold. But there’s something about Charli’s story—and Charli herself—that Camille can’t refuse. With the help of her trusted friend and private investigator Trish Seaholm, Camille begins a dogged pursuit to find Charli’s daughter and bring the man who framed Charli to justice. As Camille’s quest for the truth takes her team from Seattle to the San Juan Islands to the mountains of Olympic National Park, she must reckon with a system that routinely dismisses the rights of convicted mothers—and has their children pay the price.