A Murder in Passing
A Sam Blackman Mystery

In Asheville, North Carolina, the Blackman & Robertson Detective Agency faces a disturbing reality: no clients. Sam Blackman finds inactivity intolerable, so when partner Nakayla Robertson suggests a mushroom hunt on the site of a historic freed-slave commune called the Kingdom of the Happy Land, Sam reluctantly agrees. When he stumbles across a skeleton, his adventure mushrooms into a case of murder. But it isnt his casehe has no clientand the local authorities tell him to butt out. Then Marsha Montgomery comes to the office asking Sam and Nakayla to investigate a burglary at her mothers home. In 1967 someone stole a rifle and a photograph of Marshas mother, grandmother, and great grandmother taken in 1932 by renowned photographer Doris Ulmann. Marshas visit is no coincidence: the photograph was taken at the Kingdom of the Happy Land. Sams being played, but why? When Marshas eighty-five-year-old mother Lucille is arrested for murder, Sam has his answer and his case. Is the skeleton that of Jimmy LangLucilles lover and Marshas white fatherwho disappeared in 1967? Jimmys brother says no; Jimmy left to seek his fortune after Lucille rejected his marriage proposal. But others stood to gain from Jimmys disappearance. A veil of betrayal and deceit hides a killer desperate to protect a dark secret, and no onenot even Samis safe from the deadly consequences.