It seems like the ideal job to get connected to the small town and close community. But suddenly one of the family's stories blow up in her face, Zelda St. John's contribution of a racist account of the history of her Rubidoux ancestors. Her twin sister, Fiona Hadley demands the copy of the story as she feels it will destroy her son's political careeer. Though Lottie refuses to release it and Fiona seems to retreate but the next day Zelda found murdered. Along with the story's disappearance valuable historical letters have gone missing as well. Thankfully Lottie kept a copy of Zelda's story and had sent it to her own twin sister, Josie, to analyze, since Josie is a clinical psychologist.
When Zelda's daughter, Judy, insists her Aunt Fiona murdered her mother, Lottie tries to shut down those comments. As campaign manager for Fiona's son, who hopes to be a state senator, Lottie doesn't want the family's dirty laundry aired in the small community. But she wants to help Judy, so provides her with a job at the historical society. To get further insight Lottie volunteers as the town's deputy which gives her more ways to investigate the current case as well as a historical unsolved mystery.
I'm really not much of a fan of historical mysteries but the story was compelling and since I get up not far it was fun to read about a small town and see how an outsider tries to fit in. Hinger does a fabulous job describing the tiedious job of hunting down historical data, it was fascinating. I didn't find the mystery as compelling but the rest of the story was well written and interesting. I'll try one again someday.