Perdition House, Paperback/Kathryn R. Wall

From Charleston to Hilton Head, Family matters... and murder is relative. When a fifth cousin twice removed calls Bay Tanner--a young, recently widowed financial consultant--from the Beaufort County Jail, it's no accident. Mercer Mary Prescott spent a lot of time and trouble locating Bay on the family tree, and she needs more than bail out of the relationship. What she's really after is a secret Bay's not willing to reveal--yet. But when Bay generously takes Mercer back to the family mansion of Presqu'isle, she finds that this distant kin comes with a lot of personal baggage--and some very dangerous pursuers. Before Bay can help straighten out Mercer's problems, the mousy young woman disappears. Bay begins a desperate hunt for her "shirttail" cousin through the twisted alleys of the past, from Civil War days to a plantation called Perdition House, and to one last deadly fight....... "Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, and Marcia Muller come to mind as the quintessential writers of the modern female private eye novel. Wall, in a quiet and unassuming way, has produced a body of work of equal quality. Highly recommended." --"Library Journal" on The Mercy Oak Third book in the Bay Tanner mystery series.