BLOOD, ASH, AND BONE

Tai Randolph, the cutest amateur sleuth to come along since Stephanie Plum stuck her nose in everyone’s business, rouses the ire of the KKK.

As she packs up souvenirs to sell at the Southeastern Civil War Expo in Savannah, the gun shop Tai Randolph inherited from her uncle gets a visit from John, the bad boy she found irresistible until he left her to snuggle with her roommate Hope. They need her, he begs, to find a Civil War Bible with an inscription from President Abraham Lincoln to Gen. Sherman on the flyleaf. If she can locate it, they’ll reap upward of $1 million, and she’ll get a 10 percent finder’s fee. Leery that this is just another scam of John’s, Tai runs it past her current boyfriend, Trey, heartthrob extraordinaire, whose police work caused him frontal lobe damage that turned him into a human lie detector. Trey, whose commando instincts and sniper training serve him well in his current job as a security specialist for the well-heeled Phoenix Enterprise, arranges to accompany Tai from Atlanta to Savannah, where she promises to be sensible in her detecting endeavors and he’ll oversee protection at Reynolds Harrington’s Lowcountry Classic golf tournament. Alas, sensible and Tai do not mesh. Minutes into her investigation, her former boss is murdered, she realizes that the curator of Reynolds’ sister’s collection of Civil War artifacts is tailing her, and the Klan brandishes all manner of weaponry to flush out that Bible. A Civil War battlefield re-enactment claims fresh casualties; Tai hides a gun beneath her hoop skirt at the dress ball; and poor overworked Trey gets kidnapped. Collectors, con men and cantankerous relatives will all have their say before Tai, to the relief of all, becomes sensible and heads back to Atlanta.

The plot is as deftly convoluted as ever (Darker Than Any Shadow, 2012, etc.), but this time, most everything takes a back seat to Tai’s rapture over Trey. And who could blame her? He’s one hell of a catch.