Poisoned Pen Press
October 2011
On Sale: October 1, 2011
Featuring: Nakayla Robertson; Professor Janice Wainwright; Sam Blackman
302 pages ISBN: 1590589416 EAN: 9781590589410 Paperback Add to Wish List
It was only routine. A simple assignment for private
investigator Sam Blackman and his partner Nakayla Robertson.
Follow a history professor who's suing a spinal surgeon for
malpractice and catch her in physical activities that
undercut her claim.
When the professor, Janice Wainwright, visits Connemara,
Carl Sandburg's home in Flat Rock, N.C., and climbs the
arduous trail to the top of Glassy Mountain, Sam believes he
has the evidence to wrap up the case-until he finds the
woman semi conscious and bleeding on the mountain's granite
outcropping. Her final words: "It's the Sandburg verses. The
Sandburg verses."
As the first person to discover the dying woman, Sam becomes
the first suspect. Now the routine case is personal. An
autopsy reveals painkillers in her blood and solid proof of
the surgeon's errors. Sam is left with the haunting
questions: why did this suffering woman endure the climb to
the mountaintop, and did she stumble and fall or did someone
cause her death?
A break in at the Wainwright farmhouse and the theft of
Sandburg volumes convince Sam someone is seeking information
worth killing for. But what did Pulitzer Prize winner
Sandburg have in his literary collection that leads to
multiple murders? And who will be targeted next?
Sam and Nakayla must navigate a convoluted trail of
historical facts and mountain legends to arrive at the
truth, a truth Carl Sandburg never knew he possessed, and a
treasure to be had for a song.