Disturbing the Dead

Summary

Tom Bridger, who is half Melungeon, thought he had escapedhis mountain community’s lingering prejudice against the mixed-race group whenhe left to work for the Richmond, Virginia, Police Department. Tom was movingup the detective ranks when a family tragedy brought him back home and movedhim into his father’s job as a county sheriff’s deputy. 

Now the bones of a Melungeon woman who disappeared ten years ago have surfacedon a remote mountaintop, and all evidence points to murder. Violence escalatesas the victim’s poor family and the wealthy white family she married intoscramble to protect their secrets from Tom’s probing. But as he looks into hisfather’s investigation of the case, he finds his father was not the man heidolized.

The woman Tom is falling in love with, veterinarian RachelGoddard, is struggling to start over in a place that holds no memories for her.Rachel puts herself in danger when she befriends Holly, niece of the dead Melungeon woman. As a child, the girl witnessed something that could implicate heraunt’s killer, but she is too terrified to tell anyone what she knows. WhileRachel is determined to keep Holly safe and help her piece together pastevents, the guilty are equally determined to silence the girl—and Rachel too,if necessary.

Will this murder be Tom’s and Rachel’s undoing, or will itfree them to look into the future?