when journalist ellie carver returns to the fog-shrouded town of harrisford, maine, she finds more than small-town whispers. a cursed chessboard, an unsolved disappearance from 1973, and a string of new deaths all lead back to the town's crumbling chess club-and a game someone is still playing. as ellie digs into the town's buried past, a black knight and a white pawn mark each fresh corpse, and every move she makes edges her closer to a killer hidden in plain sight. tied to the mystery is her own brother's long-cold case, a disappearance that may not have been so random after all.the deeper she plays, the higher the stakes: betrayal, buried secrets, and a town that never forgets-or forgives. some games never end, and in harrisford, losing means vanishing forever.atmospheric, chilling, and razor-sharp, the shadow on the board is a dark mystery of memory, loss, and the deadly games people play.