Midsummer Malice — M.D. Lake

Dead Men Tell No Tales

Campus cop Peggy O'Neill is making her nightly rounds when she runs into Steadman George, the aging piano man who lives and works aboard the university's Showboat Theater, docked on the Mississippi. Tonight he has a tale to tell.

Twenty years ago Steadman helped an unmarried teen sell her baby to a show-biz couple, and he's kept the shady deal to himself--until now. The biological mother is back, looking for her daughter, and Steadman wonders if he should help her, or help himself to a different deal.

But the day after Peggy hears Steadman's nostalgic story, she's fishing his body out of the river. Despite opinions to the contrary, Peggy's sure this was no accident, and it's time to investigate. Because a dirty little secret from the past is about to explode in tomorrow's tabloid scandal stunning the innocent, rocking the righteous, and driving someone to desperation ... and murder.