A sinister Episcopal Bishop shows up to confirm Lottie and Josie Albright's niece at the new frame church built on the corners of four Western Kansas counties. Suddenly, the Reverend Mary Farnsworth flees to the anteroom after dropping the chalice during communion. Josie, a psychologist, lingers after the service to comfort her, but Lottie orders her sister to leave when they discover Reverend Mary's body. As Deputy Sheriff, Lottie's duty bound to attend to the death.
Back at the county-wide picnic, an elderly lady informs Lottie that a man kneeling next to her scared Reverend Mary into a heart attack. Lottie soon learns that the beloved Reverend Mary was a woman without a past, and that the rogue Bishop has unexpected ties to Western Kansas. A sheriff from an adjacent county, unaware that Josie is an FBI consultant, assumes that seizing control of the investigation will be easy and instead arouses the twins' wrath.
Forgetting that the past is always present, Lottie's investigation into old documents riles up murderous century-old rivalries....
Autorentext
Charlotte Hinger is a Western Kansas historian. Deadly Descent was inspired by a childhood listening to the natural born liars in her small community of Lone Elm, Kansas, and the mesmerizing "rest of the stories" whispered behind closed doors when she edited over 500 family submissions for county history books. She has published a number of mystery short stories. Simon and Schuster published her historical novel, Come Spring, which won the Western Writers of America Medicine Pipe Award. Convinced that mystery writing and historical investigation go hand to hand, she applies her MA in history to academic articles and her depraved imagination to wicked little short stories.