Murder by Design

After cracking Foster Scoggins’s murder case, Kennedy Killingsworth figured life in Midway, Georgia, would settle back to normal (meaning desperately dull). But that thought goes right out the window when a black-clad man climbs in her window — the one in her bedroom, that is. As she’s startled awake by a hand clamped across her mouth, Kennedy’s heart pounds even faster when she realizes the hand belongs to Sloan, the gorgeous and somewhat terrifying construction worker who reveals a surprising alter ego. Given the fact that he once saved her life, Kennedy doesn’t protest as Sloan stows federally classified information in her not-quite antique Tiffany lamp.

But then the sun comes up and things get even more complicated. Amidst gossip about her ex-husband shopping for engagement rings, Kennedy heads to the cemetery for Midway’s annual Decoration Day, when residents beautify the graves and then picnic among the dead. Tragically, transient artist Jarrard Dupree soon joins the dead when he’s accidentally run over by a bunch of college kids. Yet when JD’s terrible paintings suddenly begin drawing dazzling offers from New York art dealers, Kennedy knows at least one of her neighbors has blood on his hands. Intrigue builds in high Southern style as Kennedy’s investigation reveals which townsfolk are foes, which are friends — and which may become more than a friend.