Southern Ghost

Bookstore owner Annie Darling must set aside her shame and do some serious sleuthing when her husband Max becomes the prime suspect in an unspecified crime involving a beautiful blonde.
While Hart sidetracks us with an excess of cat lore, the tiresome supernatural musings of Max's mother and such genre stereotypes as the crusty, all-knowing matriarch and a drunken daughter, in the end she whips all into a remarkably satisfying tale. The segues to the dark night 22 years ago are chillingly effective and tantalizingly brief.