Sheila Travis and her inimitable Aunt Mary investigate a series of petty accidents plaguing two elderly sisters in Charleston, South Carolina, and uncover a host of suspects among the Charleston bluebloods--and murder.

Sheila Travis ruefully agrees when dispatched by her colorful Aunt Mary to Charleston to investigate several mysterious accidents at the historic home of Mary's childhood friends. However, Sheila can't help remembering what her dad always said about his sister: "Trouble follows that woman like fleas follow a dog." Sheila's hostesses are such gracious purveyors of Southern hospitality that Sheila has to keep reminding herself this is not a social visit. Even if she is initially inclined to write the accidents off as coincidence, the first murder changes her mind. The second begins to unearth dark secrets amidst the roses and honeysuckle. Wills and family history come under close scrutiny as Sheila closes in on a killer . . . unwittingly putting herself in deadly danger.

In his latest novel, Southern writer William Baldwin calls upon the true story of famed Charleston newspaper editor Frank Dawson to tell a tale fraught with romance and intrigue. Dawson--a larger-than-life personality revered throughout the nineteenth-century South--was murdered while defending his children's governess from the advances of an unscrupulous doctor who lived next door. Baldwin artfully intertwines details pulled from the personal accounts of those involved in the dramatic series of events with his own inimitable prose. The result is a captivating meld of fact and fiction, set in a tumultuous period in the history of the Holy City that is now only a nostalgic memory.

Liz Adams never imagined when she moved to Charleston with her truth-sniffing Labrador retriever, Duke, that she would use her skills as a private investigator to avoid winding up on Death Row. “Methodical and surprising, Stacy Wilder’s debut cozy mystery Charleston Conundrum shows enormous potential for a long, successful run.” Carpe Diem Chronicles Her best friend, Peg, murdered, shot by Liz’s gun. At the insistence of Peg’s father, Private Investigator Liz Adams, and her Labrador, Duke, rush to solve the case. Tensions flare between Liz and the cops as she rises to the top of their suspect list. Riding a roller coaster of emotions, Liz discovers many secrets Peg kept from her despite the two being best friends. As the investigation unfolds, a cast of suspects emerges,. . . the ex-husband, the boyfriend, a coworker, neighbors, even a few family members. Charleston Conundrum travels from Charleston, South Carolina, to Paris and back in the emotional unraveling of Peg’s life and death to a killer ending.

Once deemed "the most powerful man in the south," Charleston newspaper editor Frank Dawson met his violent death on March 12, 1889, at the hands of his neighbor, a disreputable doctor who was attempting to seduce the Dawson family governess. More shocking than Dawson's demise was the quick acquittal of his killer on the grounds of self-defense. Drawn from events surrounding this infamous episode, the third novel from the Lillian Smith Award-winning William Baldwin pulls back the veil of a genteel society in a fabled southern city and exposes a dark visage of anger and secret pain that no amount of imposed manners could restrain - and only love might eventually heal. With a southern storyteller's passion for intricate emotional and physical details, Baldwin, through the fictional guise of Capt. David Lawton, chronicles editor Dawson's fated end. Having survived three years of bloody Civil War combat and the decade of violent Reconstruction that followed, the liberal-minded Lawton is now a famed but embattled newspaperman whose national importance is on the wane. Still, he remains a celebrated member of Charleston's refined elite, while in private life moving amid a pantheon of proud and beautiful women - Rebecca, his brilliant wife; Abbie, his sensual sister-in-law; Mary, the all-knowing prostitute; and Helene, the discontented Swiss governess - each contributing to an unfolding drama of history-haunted turmoil. Though Lawton loathes the South's cult of personal violence, by the customs of his era and place, he is duty-bound to protect his household, and though he loves his wife, he, like the doctor he despises, is attracted to the other women around him and entangled in his own sexual intrigues. Unable to act otherwise, Lawton meets his rival in a brutal physical contest, and in the aftermath, Rebecca, Abbie, Mary, and Helene must make peace with their own turbulent pasts. War, earthquake, political guile, adultery, illegitimacy, lust, and murder - all the devices of gothic romance - play a role in this tale closely based on the lives of Charlestonians who lived these events over a century ago. A Gentleman in Charleston and the Manner of His Death interrogates the social codes that govern behavior and relations among the men and women of different races and many classes and confronts us with the folly of the human condition. Will witnessing the killing of David Lawton instruct us as to how to escape our own fated ends? Slipped quietly beneath the storylines of Baldwin's quick-paced novel is perhaps an answer.

Toots and the Sisters travel to Charleston, where they search for the murderer of Ida's late husband--and try to protect Ida from similar fate.