Murder in Passing : A Sam Blackman Mystery

InAsheville, North Carolina, the Blackman & Robertson Detective Agency facesa disturbing reality: no clients. Sam Blackman finds inactivity intolerable, sowhen partner Nakayla Robertson suggests a mushroom hunt on the site of a historic freed-slave commune called the Kingdom of the Happy Land, Sam reluctantlyagrees. When he stumbles across a skeleton, his adventure mushrooms into a caseof murder. But it isn't his case-he has no client-and the local authoritiestell him to butt out.ThenMarsha Montgomery comes to the office asking Sam and Nakayla to investigate aburglary at her mother's home. In 1967 someone stole a rifle and a photograph ofMarsha's mother, grandmother, and great grandmother taken in 1932 by renownedphotographer Doris Ulmann. Marsha's visit is no coincidence: the photograph was taken at the Kingdom of the Happy Land.Sam's being played, but why?WhenMarsha's eighty-five-year-old mother Lucille is arrested for murder, Sam hashis answer and his case. Is the skeleton that of Jimmy Lang-Lucille's loverand Marsha's white father-who disappeared in 1967? Jimmy's brother says no; Jimmy left to seek his fortune after Lucille rejected his marriageproposal. But others stood to gain from Jimmy's disappearance.Aveil of betrayal and deceit hides a killer desperate to protect a dark secret,and no one-not even Sam-is safe from the deadly consequences.