Elizabeth Goodweather lives in the Appalachian Mountains
among many neighbors spread throughout the hills and
valleys. She has kept up on the news of some of her closer
neighbors. However, while others live relatively close by,
she hasn't even known of their existence and the strange
lifestyles they lead.
An elderly neighbor's simple son is found drowned in a
river below a bridge. The man's mother knows he was
murdered and asks Elizabeth to help her solve the crime
because the local sheriff discounts the death as an
accident. Elizabeth is still mourning the accidental death
of her husband years before. Pouring her life into the herb
and flower garden business she and her husband created,
life and happiness are eluding her, yet she's trying to
find peace.
Elizabeth vows to help the neighbor and, through her
investigations, she meets a preacher with a flock of
followers who use serpents in their church services. She
meets another preacher who brings followers to him at a
lake or river to baptize them. She meets racist militiamen
who live life to the extreme, and she also meets members of
a cult too strange for words. She had no idea this was all
happening so close to her piece of heaven on the side of
the mountain.
Elizabeth was raised in a strict religious church where
there were no outcries of praise and amen during the
service. She hasn't forgiven God for taking her husband
anyway. Yet, through this search for the answers to her
neighbor's death, Elizabeth finds herself pulled toward the
ways of the people who live in the mountains, as well as
their superstitious and extraordinary religious beliefs as
she searches for answers.
SIGNS IN THE BLOOD is an interesting story. It made me
curious about the lives of those who live in the
Appalachian Mountains. I felt for Elizabeth's pain and
loneliness and applauded her determination to not stop
until she discovered the truth. This debut by Ms. Lane is
an intriguing mystery.
Elizabeth Goodweather and her husband built a rewarding life
in the hills and hollows of their adopted Appalachian home.
But now Elizabeth is alone, her husband tragically killed,
her children grown, the land around her filled with customs
and beliefs she cannot share. It’s still a good life–tending
the small herb and flower business–but Elizabeth’s fragile
peace is about to be shattered.
Cletus Gentry vanished while hunting ginseng in the
hills–and his mother is sure the childlike man was murdered.
As Elizabeth retraces Cletus’s last wanderings, she will
discover that a killer has been waiting all the while in the
coves and hollows near her farm for her to see the
light...and then come willingly to her own death.
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