Murder In Passing, A: A Sam Blackman Mystery (A Murder in Passing)

The Blackman & Robertson Detective Agency faces a disturbing reality: no clients. So when Nakayla Robertson suggests a mushroom hunt at the historic, freed-slave commune The Kingdom of the Happy Land, Sam Blackman reluctantly agrees. Hunting the elusive edible, he stumbles into a rotting logwith a skeleton hidden inside. As intrigued as Sam is, this isnt his case. So the local authorities tell him to butt out.
Then Marsha Montgomery comes to Asheville asking Sam and Nakayla to investigate a 45-year-old burglary at her mothers home. Someone stole a rifle and a photograph of Marshas mother, grandmother, and great grandmother taken in 1932 by renowned photographer Doris Ulmann. The site of the photograph is The Kingdom of the Happy Land. Marshas visit is no coincidence. Sams being played. But why?
When Marshas 85-year-old mother Lucille is arrested for murder, Sam knows there is something amiss. Is the skeleton that of Jimmy Lang, Lucilles lover and Marthas father, a white man who disappeared in 1967? It appears that Jimmy had been willing to walk away from a budding family empire to marry Lucille. So why had Lucille, who is black, refused to marry him? Did others stand to benefit from Jimmys disappearance? A veil of betrayal and deceit hides a killer desperate to protect a dark secret, and no one, not even Sam, is safe from the deadly consequences of a murder in passing.