Fitting in, being liked by his friends, or staying alive? Sometimes the person you love isn't the person you thought you knew. Crime historian Lizzie Stuart and her fiance, John Quinn travel to a farm on the Eastern Shore of Virginia for a weekend gathering of his old West Point buddies. Mexican migrant laborers and struggling black farmers. Money, politics, and war. Too many secrets in the past, too many lies in the present, and a weekend that turns deadly.

On August 16, 1912, Virginia Christian became the only female to die in the electric chair in the state of Virginia. She was a 17 year old (her age was the subject of debate) African American juvenile who had been convicted of the murder of her white female employer, Ida Belote. Virginia and her family was sharecroppers on the woman's farm. I discovered the case when I was during research for Blood on Her Hands, a book about women and murder.

In this compelling mystery, African American university professor and crime historian Lizzie Stuart comes face-to-face with her long lost mother, Becca, and ultimately learns that some things are better left buried in the past.

African-American, 38, a crime historian, Lizzie Stuart has spent most of her life in Drucilla, Kentucky. When her grandmother dies, Lizzie decides it is time for a vacation. She joins her friend Tess for a week in Cornwall, England, in the resort town of St. Regis. Lizzie finds her vacation anything but restful when she becomes an eyewitness to a murder and the probable next victim.