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Harper Perennial
September 2013
On Sale: September 17, 2013
Featuring: Caren Gray
ISBN: 0061802069 EAN: 9780061802065 Kindle: B007HBT7YK Paperback / e-Book (reprint)
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Other Editions Hardcover (September 2012)
Suspense | Thriller
Belle Vie is a plantation of genteel beauty and manicured grounds that sits between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. For some it represents the values of the South before the Civil War, for others it's a reminder of slavery's dark legacy, a time when enforced labor fueled the economy. But when Caren Gray, the estate's manager, learns that the body of a young woman has just been found lying face down in a shallow grave, her throat cut clean, it's suddenly the site of a murder investigation. There's no telling who wanted the victim dead. A local could be making a violent statement about migrant workers, trucked in and out seasonally, only to take jobs away from families that have worked cane for generations. Or it could be someone striking out against Groveland, the corporation that managed to talk the first family in the area into selling their farm to the highest bidder. When the investigation takes an unsavory turn, Gray is compelled to discover what, if anything, the woman's violent death has to do with an earlier mystery, one that originated in the slave quarters nearly two hundred years ago. It's a twenty-first century mystery that forces Caren to delve into the murky waters of the plantation's past - and her own - all while creeping frighteningly closer to the realization that the killer may be a lot closer than she ever could have imagined.
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