Sins of the Fathers

by Patricia Sprinkle

Overview

Family Tree Mysteries #2

"Old family histories and...secrets, combined with smooth, suspenseful writing, make this a new series a reading pleasure!" –Margaret Maron

Katharine Murray is a typical Atlanta housewife, but she's far from ordinary. She's found a fascinating distraction from her empty nest in researching family history and genealogy. And it seems that she can put her genealogy-sleuth skills to work, helping her friend Dr. Flo Gadney, a retired professor, track down her own family tree.

Their search takes them to an old graveyard on an island off the coast of Georgia--just as greedy local patriarch Burch Bayard is about to start building sparkly new McMansions all over the island--including the gravesite--a property scheme that would literally bury any local history.

But as they hunt for clues to Flo's past, the two friends soon realize that the islanders are trying to keep Flo's connection to Bayard Island dead and buried along with her ancestors!

The mysterious murder of a combative local confirms their suspicions, forcing the women to embark on a dangerous chase to unravel the truth. Together, Katherine and Flo will dig up more than Georgia dirt, unearthing secrets to the island's history that could make the whole town crumble.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940157064129
Publisher:	NYLA
Publication date:	08/15/2016
Series:	Family Tree Mysteries , #2
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	311,939
File size:	617 KB

About the Author

My folks are North Carolinians but lived in West Virginia long enough to have me and my sister while our preacher dad served coal field churches.

I decided in ninth grade to become a writer and headed to Vassar College for their creative writing program. After college I returned to my folks, who by then were living in Miami, and got a job to earn money for a serious test of my writing commitment. With $750, one suitcase, two coats and a portable typewriter, I headed to a Scottish Highland village where I didn't know a soul, to see if I had the self-discipline to write without professors setting a deadline and if I had anything to say without professors assigning me a topic. Before my money ran out the following April, I had sold one poem, one article, one short story, and a one-act play. Fortified by that major impact on British literature, I moved to Atlanta and started a series of writing-related jobs. In the following years I wrote for religious magazines like Guideposts and also wrote a good bit of educational materials on the subject of hunger. But no matter what I was writing, I was reading mysteries.

One day my husband looked over our budget and demanded, "Why don’t you write a mystery to pay for all the ones you buy?" I immediately knew what I wanted to write though my first mystery, MURDER AT MARKHAM (reissued by Silver Dagger in 2001), took thirteen years to complete.

Since 1988 I have written twenty mysteries, four novels, and five non-fiction books. I am grateful to readers for letting me do what I enjoy most in the world. [Some people contend that writing is not a profession, it's an obsession. They’re right, as my two sons can attest. How many evenings did they stand in my office door asking, "Are we EVER going to eat?”][ Thanks, if you are one of the readers who keeps my fingers on the keys.

When I’m not writing, I work to improve the lives of children, particularly foster children, and serve as an elder in my local congregation. I also plant and replant flowers and shrubs in my yard. But my favorite hobbies are reading and doing nothing.

The rest of what you want to know, you’ll find in my books. The people are different, but the basic stories are true. I always figure why make up anything I can remember instead?