Running parallel to Naomi Smith’s modern-day mystery, *Sand Dollars* delves deep into Cape Cod’s historical roots through Cornelius “Con” Chase, a wealthy Boston-born real estate developer. In 1899, Con acquires 84 windswept acres in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, where he builds a grand summer mansion for his fiancée, Constance “Connie” Browne. For himself, he constructs a modest boathouse, later known as the Shack—a structure that silently bears witness to generations of triumphs, secrets, and tragedies.

Con and Connie enjoy decades of Cape summers until Con’s sudden death on October 29, 1929—“Black Tuesday.” Connie, left widowed, sells most of the land at a shockingly low price, unknowingly setting into motion disputes over the Shack and even parts of Wellfleet’s town beach. The land passes into the hands of a crooked lawyer’s descendants, leaving behind unresolved legal and emotional entanglements.

Through the story of Con and Connie, the novel paints Cape Cod not only as a backdrop but as a living character—its dunes, storms, and shifting ownership mirroring the turbulent human lives bound to it.