DEEDS LEFT UNDONE

A vineyard owner with deep roots in Virginia hunt country encounters another murder.

Between an impending storm and an accident that’s sidelined one of their right-hand men, Lucie Montgomery and her husband, Quinn Santori, have their hands full managing the grape harvest. Then another problem is brought to Lucie’s attention by Francesca Merchant, who runs the selling side of the operation. Frankie’s husband, Paul, has just had a disturbing meeting with Nash Blake, head of a family-owned home construction and design business. Nash wants the area’s dirt roads to be paved so he can build more houses, but others are fed up with the development creeping over Loudoun County, beloved by tourists and horse people. Paul had taken over the late Violet Rossi’s plan to have the roads put on the National Register of Historic Places, which infuriated Nash. When Paul is found dead in his pool, what at first looks like an accident starts to seem suspicious to Lucie when she finds one clean glass in the kitchen and later a shard of another glass turns up, suggesting that Paul was not alone. Soon after Frankie gives Lucie a briefcase full of plans about the paving, Lucie agrees to take over Paul’s crusade. It seems odd that both Paul and Violet, who was in a car crash, died in accidents, and Lucie insists that Sheriff Bobby Noland, her best friend’s husband, take a closer look. Going through Paul’s briefcase, Lucie finds not only copious notes from Violet and Paul but also a picture and story about Nash Blake’s grandmother, an actress who died in a 1941 fire, another suspicious accident that may prove the key to solving several well-disguised murders.

The obvious motives may not be the answer, giving the heroine plenty to ponder.