Perdition House: A Bay Tanner Mystery - Hardcover

Kathryn R. Wall

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312313853 ISBN 13: 9780312313852

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2003

Synopsis

From the ashes of the past, a voice cries out for justice...

Still recovering both physically and emotionally from the brutal murder of her husband, financial consultant Bay Tanner finds herself enmeshed in crime when a shirttail cousin Mercer Mary Prescott drops disastrously into her life.

Jailed for vagrancy, Mercer appeals to Bay’s father, a wheelchair-bound retired judge. Vulnerable one moment, sly and secretive the next, the scruffy young woman seems obsessed with the history of Bay’s aristocratic family. Her prying is interrupted, however, when she is hauled from the Judge’s antebellum mansion and charged with trespassing at a nearby nuclear facility.

Bay’s relief at the departure of her meddlesome cousin is short-lived as a procession of dangerous characters come gunning for Mercer, now on the run after escaping from her police escort. When Bay’s housekeeper is viciously attacked, she launches her own search, enlisting the aid of computer wizard Erik Whiteside and her brother-in-law, sheriff’s deputy Red Tanner. As the body count rises and Bay finds herself confronted by a group of ruthless anti-nuke fanatics, only Mercer can explain the connection between the terrors of the present and the long-buried secrets of Perditon House.

Like the two previous Bay Tanner novels, Perdition House is an original and complex mystery filled with the breathtaking beauty of the South Carolina Lowcountry and the unique social customs of a Southern aristocracy still clinging tenaciously to its traditions.

About this title

From the Back Cover

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 she'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. Now, 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.

"The suspense ratchets up periodically, the characters are well drawn and unique, and the writing evokes the new South without resorting to stereotype. Best of all, Bay makes a believable and appealing protagonist." -The Cleveland Plain Dealer

"The finely spun plot makes Bay's latest a taut, tasty chiller." -Kirkus Reviews

www.minotaurbooks.com

About the Author

Kathryn R. Wall practiced accounting for twenty-five years in Ohio before retiring with her husband to Hilton Head, South Carolina, where she is currently at work on the fourth Bay Tanner mystery.

About this edition

• Publisher: Minotaur Books
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0312313853
• ISBN 13: 9780312313852
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368