A CHANCE FOR A NEW BEGINNING IS THREATENED BY SECRETS AND MURDER. When Alain Darnay suddenly appears on Hilton Head, Bay Tanner believes she and her former lover can finally settle into a normal life. But her tenuous peace is shattered by an innocent-looking boy with cold blue eyes who will force her to relive the nightmare of her husband's murder . . . Cart Anderson, a recently orphaned teenager burning with resentment, wants to know how and why his father, Geoffrey, died, and he's convinced Bay has the answers. But shortly after their confrontation, the boy disappears. His empty car is found splattered with blood at an abandoned fort on nearby St. Helena Island, and suddenly Bay and her lover find themselves the chief suspects. But what does the ancient black woman, whose ramshackle cottage sits next to the old fort, know about the boy's disappearance? And why is the entire county so willing to believe Bay is guilty? Enlisting the aid of her former partner, Erik Whiteside, and an ambitious local reporter, Bay begins to unravel a plot so intricate, so devious, it could shatter not only her own life but that of everyone she holds dear . . .

#8 in the Bay Tanner Mystery Series

The new case for young widow and sometime private investigator Bay Tanner strikes too close to home when an unexpected call from her housekeeper's son threatens to endanger those she holds dear. Roberto Santiago hints that the victim of a recent hit-and-run may have been a local crusader for the rights of illegal immigrants--and that it wasn't an accident. Before Bay can launch an investigation, the young man disappears.

Meanwhile, Bay's brother-in-law and suitor, Sheriff's Sergeant Red Tanner, is up to his ears in a string of holdups terrorizing the Lowcountry. When Lavinia Smalls, longtime companion to Bay's crippled father, is caught up in one of the armed robberies, Bay finds herself enmeshed in yet another mystery. What does Lavinia know about the gang of thieves, and what clues does her friend, the ancient black man with the intricately carved walking stick, carry in his muddled memory?

When the threatening phone calls begin, Bay knows she's on the right track. Almost too late she discovers that tempers run hot and prejudices deep when it comes to the growing immigrant population of the sultry South Carolina Lowcountry.

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"Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, and Marcia Muller come to mind as the quintessential writers of the modern female private eye novel. Wall, in a quiet and unassuming way, has produced a body of work of equal quality. Highly recommended."
--Library Journal on The Mercy Oak

Family secrets permeate this ninth entry in the award-winning mystery series set in the sultry South Carolina Lowcountry. Private investigator Bay Tanner is hired by a young mother desperate to locate her estranged family. Joline Eastman's daughter is dying of leukemia, and all other sources for a bone-marrow transplant have been exhausted. A yellowing photograph and a handful of wartime letters are the only clues she has to offer. But it's what she's not willing to share that may hold the ultimate solution to saving her daughter's life. Meanwhile, Bay has her own family to worry about. A phone call from her aging father's companion and caretaker sends her rushing to the hospital. A few whispered words, uttered in a moment of semi-conscious confusion, shatter her world and launch Bay on a quest that will redefine everything she thought she knew about herself. With time running out--perhaps for her father as well as the girl--Bay struggles to untangle the web of secrets and lies surrounding both her own family past and that of the dying child . . . until she encounters the strange women of Covenant Hall, who may well hold the key to everything.

When bank employee Cecelia Dobbs approaches Bay Tanner's inquiry agency, Bay has no idea her association with the awkward young woman will lead to murder. Concerned that one of her colleagues may be running a scam on the elderly and very wealthy Castlemains of Hilton Head Island, Cecelia is seeking proof she can take to the authorities. The other object of her suspicion is the couple's caretaker, flamboyant Kendra Blaine, whose interest in teller Dalton Chambers may be more than just as partners-in-crime. When Mrs. Castlemain dies suddenly of an apparent heart attack less than twenty-four hours after she accepts the case, Bay is stunned. Still mourning the loss of her father, Bay is also trying to adjust to her recent marriage. Since joining Bay's staff, Red has been chafing under the constraints of working for his wife, and Bay finds herself wondering if something deeper is amiss with their relationship. Then Cecelia disappears, and the Castlemains' grandson, Washington lobbyist Nicholas Potter, tries to hire the agency to investigate Kendra. He, too, believes she could be dangerous-or so he claims. Torn between her unwilling attraction to the charismatic Nick and her growing fears about Cecelia, Bay discovers that divided loyalties can be painful-and sometimes fatal. #10 In the Bay Tanner Mystery Series

"Sixth in the Bay Tanner Mystery Series"

Bishop's Reach--its waters are calm, beautiful, and deadly.

Bleached-blond call girls rarely bring good news, especially the one who bursts through the door of Bay Tanner's struggling inquiry agency and into her already complicated life. Karen Zwilling swears she's been viciously attacked but can't--or won't--go to the police.

With the tragedy of her husband's murder finally resolved, Bay has been yearning for a little tranquility, but that hope is shattered, both by Karen's plea for help and by the unexpected reappearance of aging playboy Win Hammond, scion of an old Beaufort family, who has been missing for more than twenty years. Why has the prodigal son chosen this moment to return, and what will the consequences be for his sister, Bay's beloved Miss Addie? Add to all this a suspected embezzlement by a local businessman and his questionable relationship with his partner, and suddenly Bay and her young associate, Erik Whiteside, find themselves hip-deep in cases and clients.

When a disfigured corpse is discovered on the beach at Hilton Head, Bay's longed-for peace and quiet are irrevocably washed away on the outgoing tide, and suddenly it's clear that no one is who they appear to be, including Bay's former nemesis Ben Wyler. As the pieces finally tumble into place, the shocking resolution may prove as deadly for Bay Tanner as the treacherous waters of Bishop's Reach.

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 Bay'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. 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.

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"Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, and Marcia Muller come to mind as the quintessential writers of the modern female private eye novel. Wall, in a quiet and unassuming way, has produced a body of work of equal quality. Highly recommended."
--"Library Journal" on The Mercy Oak

Third book in the Bay Tanner mystery series.

A freak summer storm has Bay Tanner, sometime private investigator, cooped up with her ailing father at his antebellum mansion near Hilton Head. Desperate for a distraction, Bay recovers a cooler bobbing along on the incoming tide. What she discovers inside will plunge her into a world of ancient magic where the power of the "root" has held sway since the days of the slave row. Suddenly, mysterious people and strange incidents, including a near-fatal accident, force her to realize that she may have unleashed something she can neither understand or escape. Meanwhile, her investigation into the simple case of a runaway wife turns deadly. The police are eager to nail the wealthy, prominent husband for murder, but Bay's instincts tell her there's more to the story. Sheriff's Sergeant Red Tanner, her late husband's brother, warns her off the case, but Bay's never been good at taking orders. Soon she's working full-time to defend her client, who may not be as innocent as Bay would like to believe. Time and again, every trail leads back to a mystical commune in the tangled backwoods of Beaufort County and to one of its leaders, a charismatic woman who believes in the real and malevolent power of the old ways. To find a killer, Bay must travel to the heart of this woman's world-and not everyone will escape the spell of Sanctuary Hill. ******Seventh book in the Bay Tanner series.

While restoring her Hilton Head home after a brush with a hurricane, PI Bay Tanner reluctantly accepts bestselling true-crime writer Winston Wolfe as a client. Arrogant and secretive, Wolfe is researching the cold-case disappearance of reclusive millionaire Morgan Tyler Bell from his secluded private island off the South Carolina coast. Adding to the mystery, Bell's personal assistant vanished as well. But what has Bay's investigative antennae quivering is the apparent suicide at the time of Bell's longtime housekeeper. After viewing the scene inside the millionaire's abandoned mansion on Jericho Cay, Bay isn't so sure she should've taken the case. Bay's husband and new employee is hot to pursue the inquiry. A former sheriff's deputy, Red would like nothing better than to solve the one case his old boss has never been able to close. But as Wolfe's behavior becomes more and more bizarre, Bay is torn between her desire to earn her hefty fee and her fear that something much more sinister is going on just below the surface. Is Bell dead or alive? And who is the elusive man in the red baseball cap who just may hold the answers to all her questions? While dealing with another tragedy that strikes at the heart of her family, Bay Tanner must dig beneath the lies and evasions that threaten all she holds dear--and her own life as well. A Bay Tanner Mystery - Book 11

In this twelfth installment of the award-winning series set in the South Carolina Lowcountry, Bay Tanner finds herself at the center of her own mystery when she becomes the object of a stalker. The strange, almost childish messages appear at random and quickly escalate from mildly annoying to frightening. While her apparent admirer ramps up the pressure, the inquiry agency accepts a new client. Hub Danforth wants his aging uncle, owner of a dilapidated bungalow on a beachfront property worth millions, placed under surveillance. Malcolm St. John has been acting strangely, and Hub hopes Bay and her associates can help him prove the old man incompetent, paving the way for Danforth to assume control of his assets. Although he claims he has the old man's interests at heart, Bay begins to have her doubts, especially when she discovers a large real estate conglomerate, headed by Danforth's ex-wife, also has designs on the valuable property. Then Malcolm St. John is attacked and one of the principal players is found dead in a hotel room. Are the two incidents related? As Bay tries to probe the erratic memory of the old man, she becomes increasingly aware that he is living in a world long past, one in which life was far simpler, but which keeps him from a full realization of his own vulnerability. Can Bay keep him safe? And who exactly does he need to fear? As her life seems to slide inexorably toward disaster, Bay Tanner must find the courage to face all her demons-both personal and professional-and to realize that reliving the past can be both a blessing-and a curse.

While restoring her Hilton Head home after a brush with a hurricane, PI Bay Tanner reluctantly accepts bestselling true-crime writer Winston Wolfe as a client. Arrogant and secretive, Wolfe is researching the cold-case disappearance of reclusive millionaire Morgan Tyler Bell from his secluded private island off the South Carolina coast. Adding to the mystery, Bell's personal assistant vanished as well. But what has Bay's investigative antennae quivering is the apparent suicide at the time of Bell's longtime housekeeper. After viewing the scene inside the millionaire's abandoned mansion on Jericho Cay, Bay isn't so sure she should've taken the case.
Bay's husband and new employee is hot to pursue the inquiry. A former sheriff's deputy, Red would like nothing better than to solve the one case his old boss has never been able to close. But as Wolfe's behavior becomes more and more bizarre, Bay is torn between her desire to earn her hefty fee and her fear that something much more sinister is going on just below the surface. Is Bell dead or alive? And who is the elusive man in the red baseball cap who just may hold the answers to all her questions?
While dealing with another tragedy that strikes at the heart of her family, Bay Tanner must dig beneath the lies and evasions that threaten all she holds dear--and her own life as well.
"Jericho Cay" is filled with Southern charm and local color, making it a terrific addition to Kathryn R. Wall's sultry Lowcountry series, one of the most absorbing on bookshelves today.

#4 in the Bay Tanner Mystery Series

"From the depths of a forgotten grave rise the echoes of a deadly conspiracy . . ."

When widowed financial consultant and sometime detective Bay Tanner flees Paris and the collapse of her short-lived affair with Interpol agent Alain Darnay, she finds herself drawn into yet another of the dark mysteries that seem to swirl around her father's antebellum mansion in Beaufort, South Carolina. No sooner has she unloaded her bags than she senses trouble between retired Judge Talbot Simpson and his longtime housekeeper/companion, Lavinia Smalls. What--or who--has driven a wedge between these two people who have been the bedrock of Bay's existence since her childhood? And why won't either of them talk about it? Then a phone call from her partner-in-crime-solving, Erik Whiteside, sets in motion a chain of events that will ultimately expose the dark underbelly of the aristocratic local society in which she grew up.

Erik's old college drinking buddy, archaeologist Gray Palmer, has uncovered a grave on an obscure island just off the South Carolina coast and hints the bones may be those of a murder victim. But before Bay and Erik can learn the details, Palmer turns up dead himself and in a particularly gruesome way. Spurred on by Gray's exotic girlfriend and his estranged father's offer of a sizeable reward, they methodically peel back the layers of deceit and cover-up carefully constructed over decades by those who have everything to lose if the grave injustices of "Judas Island" are ever brought to light.

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"Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, and Marcia Muller come to mind as the quintessential writers of the modern female private eye novel. Wall, in a quiet and unassuming way, has produced a body of work of equal quality. Highly recommended."
--Library Journal

A fast-paced romantic suspense novel set in the coastal South. It is the second novel in the Bay Tanner series.