Unraveling

A roadside bomb killed two of his closest brothers-in-arms and left Adrian carrying scars that never truly healed. Years later, he has built a new life as a private investigator in Boston, helping others find answers while avoiding the questions that haunt him. Carrying a cane, a gun, and his ghosts, he keeps moving forward, one case at a time.

Then the last man who survived the explosion with him takes his own life.

Now, the old memories resurface, and the weight of survival grows heavier. As he sinks into isolation, Adrian must confront a terrifying truth: saving others is easier than saving himself.

Spanning a series of interconnected mysteries, Unraveling follows Adrian through the cases that define his second life-and the personal reckoning that threatens to destroy it. Each story stands alone, but together they reveal a haunting portrait of grief, survivor's guilt, and a man slowly coming undone.

Andrew C. Peterson is a Boston-area writer whose work explores themes of identity, memory, service, and human resilience. Unraveling is his first novel.

Early Reviews

"Andrew C. Peterson's Unraveling is a debut collection you must read! Tannhauser lands on the scene as a crusader with a conscience. Brilliant writing!" - Seth Harwood, bestselling author of In Broad Daylight and Jack Wakes Up

"A compelling compilation filled with tension, and complex and memorable characters, Unraveling is a satisfying read for fans of classic detective fiction." -J.F. Baker, author of The Widow of Hartforde, 2025 Historical Fiction Company Book of the Year Silver Medalist

"Adrian Tannhauser works Boston as a private investigator with a knight's morals and a killer's instinct, a cane-dependent army veteran who rescues everyone but himself. One case pulls him toward the next, a forty-year-old murder, a woman fleeing her husband, a friend searching for the parents who gave him up, each closing an old wound and opening a fresh one. Peterson writes hardboiled prose stripped to the bone, where a stray smell or a chiming clock drops Tannhauser back into a burning Humvee mid-sentence. The cases are real mysteries, but the mystery that matters most is a man's own unraveling memory, and the guilt a bullet leaves behind when it touches everything. For readers who like their mysteries with scar tissue." - Tamarah Rockwood, Bainbridge Island Press