The Watchman's Secret
A Treggan Bay Mystery
At a Glance
- Best for
- Readers who want coastal mystery atmosphere, buried history, and a second-book deepening of the series relationships.
- Tone
- Mistier and more elegiac than Book 1, still cozy-leaning but edged with old grief.
- Reading order
- Book 2 of the Treggan Bay Mysteries. Best after Murder in Treggan Bay.
- Heat / intensity
- Low heat. The queer romantic thread remains gentle and non-explicit.
- Content note
- Contains old remains, grief, family secrets, peril, and historical prejudice; violence is not graphic.
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Blurb
The storm should have ended by morning.
Instead, it leaves Treggan Bay with a rowboat below Hollow Eye Lighthouse, a skeleton in a waterproof jacket, and three clues: a Belgian pocket pistol, a cigarette case marked WICKED TODAY, and a gold watch.
Noah Yalland is still learning how to live in the cottage he inherited and the community that keeps pulling him closer. He would rather keep his head down after the library murder, but DS Scott Langdon brings the puzzle to his kitchen table, and Issey Ashford arrives with questions of her own.
The trail leads through old money, smuggling talk, watercolours, poems, lighthouse shadows, and village loyalties that have had decades to harden.
At Drift Cafe, Leo Petit offers warmth, wit, and the uneasy comfort of someone who understands that Treggan Bay’s history is never only history. But when old rooms begin to speak, Noah has to decide whether some secrets were buried to protect the dead or to shield the living.
The Watchman’s Secret is the second Treggan Bay mystery: atmospheric, clue-led, coastal, gently queer, and full of old village silence.
Why you’ll love it: A darker, salt-weathered second mystery with lighthouse atmosphere, village history, Noah and Leo deepening, and secrets that reach further back than anyone wants to admit.
Behind the Pages
The Watchman’s Secret leans into the part of Treggan Bay where history has not passed cleanly into the past: the lighthouse, the old watch, and the stories people chose to keep sealed.Reviews
The Watchman’s Secret by Jern Tonkoi is a beautifully written coastal mystery, steeped in atmosphere and quiet emotion.
I loved seeing the pieces come together. That was amazing. A really good book. Both books.
A very interesting mystery and a developing romance between Noah and Leo, the searcher and the secret keeper.
Read-alikes
- The Thursday Murder Club — Richard Osman 2020 · Cozy / community mystery
Warm mystery ensemble, emotional depth, and an approachable darker thread.
- Murder at Pirate's Cove — Josh Lanyon 2020 · Gay cozy / amateur sleuth mystery
Seaside amateur-sleuth lane with queer relationship continuity.
- The Cornish Village Murder — Fiona Leitch 2021 · UK coastal village cozy mystery
Adjacent coastal-village mystery expectations around place, secrets, and tone.