Eight months after his own brush with death over Alberta's Cardinal Divide, Cole Blackwater has learned that his good friend and former client Archie Ravenwing is presumed dead on the waters of British Columbia's Broughton Archipelago. Days before his disappearance, Ravenwing was on the brink of unravelling a corporate conspiracy surrounding an outbreak of sea lice that could decimate wild salmon along the BC coastline.

While Cole and newspaper reporter Nancy Webber search for answers, Cole is haunted by the dark secret surrounding his own father's mysterious death. For Nancy Webber, whose long-forgotten feelings for Cole have risen to the surface again, getting to the bottom of Cole's family history becomes both a professional and personal obsession.

The Darkening Archipelago, the second book of the Cole Blackwater series, is a race to keep both human souls and wild ecosystems from falling into darkness.