Action 7 News
Mother and son die in Aldercross house fire·Fire marshal rules Aldercross blaze an electrical fault·Neighbors report a dark sedan parked opposite that night·Detective hurt in Aldercross fire placed on indefinite leave·
RIVERBAY FALLS

The Etheron
Files
Relapse Paradox

Two years after the fire that killed his wife and son, Detective Clay Jensen is back at work, clean, and no longer sure which of his memories are his own.

Or solve a case file, free

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Relapse Paradox·Ebook out now·Paperback coming soon·A Riverbay Falls crime series·

Murder?

His house burned down with his wife and his eight year old son inside it.
He got three steps up before the ceiling came down on his back.

Was it a coincidence?

Addiction

They handed him Etheron before the burning embers were cold.

Two years later his memory still skips like a broken record player.

Corruption

It took the cops nine days to rule the fire faulty wiring.

No accelerant test. No word with the crew. No investigation into the sedan outside the house.

Vengeance

He is not looking for closure and he is not looking for an apology.

He is looking for vengeance.

The Etheron Files · Book 1

Relapse Paradox

Torn between addiction and justice.

For readers of Michael Connelly, Robert Dugoni and Tana French.

Ebook out now on Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play and Nook.
Paperback coming soon

RIVERBAY FALLS ACTION 7 NEWS
LIVE --:--
BREAKING
Mother and son die in Aldercross house fire
A firefighter dragged the homeowner out after he forced his way inside. Investigators are calling the fire an electrical fault.
DEVELOPING
Records annex File 9-E · Cohort 9 Twelve people were enrolled on the Etheron trial. Five died. The file was released in part. Read it.

Six tablets, one drawer, and the night he cannot stop reliving.

Clearance: Partial

Clay Jensen set the bottle on the table, and the glass clicked against his wedding ring.

Six Etheron tablets rolled inside the brown glass, blue and yellow under a glossy shell, bright enough to look harmless. Beyond the apartment window, March fog sat low over Riverbay Falls. Patrol drones went over the traffic lanes with their lights on.

Clay had told Dr. Simmons he had thrown the bottle away. He had meant to. For three days the bottle had sat inside the kitchen drawer beside a photograph of Lily and Max. Tonight he had taken the tablets out without deciding to.

He had found the six tablets on Thursday, clearing out the go-bag he had not unzipped in two years. The bottle had been in the lining, under a split seam he did not remember splitting, next to a receipt for coffee from a place that had since closed. He had stood in the kitchen with the bottle in his hand. Then he had lifted the drawer a fraction before he pulled, because you had to with the kitchen drawer at Birchmoor Drive, and put the bottle inside.

This drawer stuck too, though never as badly. He lifted it anyway, every time.

His back had started hurting shortly after midnight. The pain gathered around the old fracture and went up his spine until it was behind his eyes. Etheron could quiet both.

He turned the bottle until the warning label faced him. The department's wording ran to three lines and came to one thing: not while you carry a badge. The rest of what Etheron did to people was not on the label.

Clay closed his eyes. The traffic became a low roar.

A staircase. Two names going up into the smoke, and nothing coming back down.

The rest of this file opens when you read the book. Buy the ebook · $9.99
Riverbay Falls
WHERE EVERY BOOK IN THE SERIES IS SET

Rain most days, cases that close too quickly, and a police department that keeps looking the other way. Relapse Paradox is the first book set here. More are on the way.

Buy the ebook · $9.99

Read on any device

There are four free printable case files set in the same city. Download one.

Zachary M Foster
FOSTER, ZACHARY M · AUTHOR
Riverbay Falls PD · personnel file

Zachary M Foster

Zachary M Foster writes crime fiction set in Riverbay Falls. Relapse Paradox is his first novel and the first book in The Etheron Files.

He makes the rest of it as well. The playable case files, the ciphers and the cryptographic systems they run on, and this website are his too.

I plan to donate all royalties from my books to charities supporting US soldiers and veterans, in honor of my father, a United States Marine who served in Operation Desert Storm.

How this is made

Riverbay Falls is made with AI, and I would rather tell you that than have you find it out.

The city is mine. The people are mine. The story, the crimes, the structure and every decision about what this is and is not are mine. The book was written first and edited after. I wrote the manuscript, then took it through AI, Type.ai and Claude, to expand it, cut it, rewrite it and argue with it until it said what I already meant. The artwork is generated the same way, from my descriptions. The website, the ciphers and the systems behind the case files are built with AI to my design, and thrown out when they are wrong, which is most of the time.

Zachary M Foster
Chain of CustodyRights and use

Riverbay Falls and The Etheron Files are mine. That covers the city and its geography, the characters and their names, the plots, the case files and the ciphers they run on, the artwork made to my direction, and this website.

Yes, please do

  • Read the book and lend your copy to anybody you like.
  • Download the case files and print as many as you want, for yourself or a table of friends.
  • Run a case at a club, a class or a shop, free of charge.
  • Write about it, review it, film yourself solving it, tell people.

Not without asking

  • Selling the files, or anything cut out of them.
  • Republishing them anywhere as your own, or behind your own paywall.
  • Using the city, the characters or the series names in your own work.
  • Feeding any of it to a model as training data.

The case files are free to play. That is not the same as free to own. If you want to do something with any of this that is not in the yes list, write and ask me. The answer is more often yes than people expect.

© 2026 Zachary M Foster · All rights reserved