Beneath the southern gentility and grand mansions with their storied families, there lies a darker version of Savannah. Not everyone is aware of this and some choose to ignore it. Morgana Musgrove is a well-to-do grand dame of Savannah society, manipulative and acid-tongued, and her family tolerates her scheming to varying degrees. But when she agrees to take on the case of a local criminal accused of murder under the auspices of her late husband's investigation business, that might be a step too far. People start disappearing and turning up dead, and Morgana's family is at risk. Soon members of of her family are reluctant participants in the investigation and are uncovering Savannah's unsavoury past in the process.

I freely admit that I struggled with this novel. At 304 pages, it has only 5 chapters and at times they can be rather slow. While the setting is intriguing and the troubling ancestral history draws you in, the dialogue can be unwieldy and difficult. Rather than stating that a character speaks with a heavy Southern drawl, the author phonetically describes the dialogue ("daaayy-umm") which can become very annoying. The ending is somewhat abrupt and feels incomplete.

Thanks to NetGalley and Celadon Books for a copy to read and review.