THE BLOOD BALLAD

Yet another murder draws on Torie O’Shea’s genealogical skills.

While she’s acting as a reluctant participant in a birding Olympics, Torie O’Shea (Died in the Wool, 2007, etc.) and her partner are shot at and almost struck by a corpse thrown over a cliff. The body is that of Glen Morgan’s cousin Clifton Weaver. Glen tells Torie that her grandfather, John Robert Keith, wrote some of the Morgan Family Players’ music but never got credit, even though he was actually the son of group leader Scott Morgan. As proof, Glen offers a CD of an old homemade tape. Torie is unhappy to think that her carefully researched genealogy may be wrong. But when she receives another CD containing a song in which an unknown woman confesses to the murder of Scott’s lovely and talented daughter-in-law Belle Morgan, she starts digging through historical records. She soon discovers that Belle was almost certainly Isabelle Mercer, who disappeared just before she was to be married, changed her name and ran off with a lover. Certain she was murdered, Torie has a good idea where the body was buried. Although Belle’s killer is long dead, Torie continues her historical sleuthing until hidden sins of the past put her future in jeopardy.

MacPherson’s genealogical mysteries continue to please, even though it takes careful reading to keep track of the tangled family trees.