Disturbing the Dead

November 27, 2006
In Parshall's dark, suspenseful second novel (after 2006's Heat of the Moon
), Mason County, Va., sheriff's deputy Tom Bridger reopens a cold case that his predecessor—his deceased father, John—never fully closed. Ten years earlier, Pauline McClure, a Melungeon woman (of Portuguese and Native American descent) went missing, and when Tom unearths her bones, he discovers she died of an ax blow to her skull. Pauline had married into a snobbish, wealthy white family, and the reopening of her case pits local Melungeons against the white establishment. Additional tension arises when Tom's romantic interest, veterinarian Rachel Goddard (the heroine of Heat of the Moon
), hires and befriends Pauline's teenage niece, Holly Turner, whose connection to the tragedy puts her and Rachel in danger. Both Tom, who's of half Melungeon heritage, and Rachel, who's a recent transplant to Mason County, hoped to leave behind their respective recent violent pasts. Instead, they're drawn into the center of a lethal, gothic drama.

Starred review from December 1, 2006
Tom Bridger, the lead detective for the Mason County (VA) Sheriff's department and of Melungeon (mixed-race) descent, heads a search for the missing skull belonging to a skeleton uncovered on a remote mountaintop. Ten years ago, a Melungeon woman named Pauline McClure vanished, and Tom's father had worked the case until the car accident that killed him and most of the Bridger family. Introduced in "The Heat of the Moon", veterinarian Rachel Goddard gets involved in the McClure case when she hires Pauline's niece to work in her animal hospital. Parshall writes complex stories peopled with characters dealing with many personal problems and secrets. As she shows, disturbing the dead in this remote Appalachian community can be a very seriousand dangerousbusiness. Edge-of-the-seat suspense and a budding romance for Tom and Rachel make this essential reading for fans of Margaret Maron and Karin Slaughter. [See Prepub Mystery, "LJ" 11/1/06.]

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