Deadly Sins Deadly Secrets — Sylvia Dickey Smith

Rookie PI Sidra Smart thinks she knows where she's headed. She's divorced her preacher-husband, she's inherited a private detective business, and she's solved her first case. But then she moves into a ghost active house and discovers that the past holds the key not only to her future, but the to the lives of innocent people trapped in an unholy web of deception that spans decades. This mystery/suspense novel is set in a small Texas town where everyone knows everything about the other-or at least think they do-until the sins of the past catch up with the secrets of the present. Where yesterday's lighthouses, yellow fever, and Civil War skirmishes play a significant role in uncovering the sins of today. When Sid's second case requires she clear the name of a dead man, she finds herself confounded by clues that lead nowhere. She battles her own prejudice, a burned-out office, the disappearance of a local preacher's wife, and a midnight trip through a murky swamp before clues begin to fall in place. Then, with assistance from a seemingly unknown and perhaps ghostly force, Sid learns something about herself-when the cause is right she never retreats. The interaction between Sid and her client, a tobacco-spitting, chair-rocking old codger more interested in the shine on his shoes than the dust on his furniture, once again brings small-town America to life.