Dead in a Flash

The charming genealogical gumshoes in the cozy southern Family History Mystery series give new meaning to the old saying “keep the home fires burning” when their investigation into a long-ago house fire leads to a modern-day murder. It’s not just politics as usual when genealogists Sophreena McClure and Esme Sabatier are hired to create scrapbook tributes for a former North Carolina senator’s intricate family heritage and illustrious career. Sifting through the ashes of his past, they discover his baby brother perished in a suspicious fire that burned down his childhood home. Still saddened by his late parents’ steadfast conviction—against all evidence to the contrary—that the fire was cover for a kidnapping, the senator wants this rumor put to rest once and for all. So with only snapshots of the evidence, Soph and Esme are determined to smother all speculation about the decades-old tragedy. The party lines are drawn when a shocking present-day murder turns up new candidates for the crime—including some suspects from the senator’s inner circle. Are the sleuthing scrapbookers trying to pin down a killer as adept at making laws as breaking them?