A Perennial Problem

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Judy Lenox lies bludgeoned to death in her neatly tended flower bed. She had been the apple of her father’s eye, mayor of Tallahassee, mother of two young children, and a successful businesswoman. Judy’s teenage lawn-boy hated her. Every time he had worked for her, he had walked away humiliated. Three other teenage boys cannot explain what they were doing taking a dead woman’s car for a joy ride. Because of Judy, her former business partner had lost his business and family. She had fired the fair-minded planning commissioner who had served Tallahassee for 24 years. Her older stepbrother, when a young boy, had had to wrap his bed pillow around his head to muffle out his mother’s inconsolable crying. Judy’s mother had stolen his father away. His father had little time for him and his sister after Judy was born. Who else had this popular politician maligned? Detective Bailey McCall, slowly and with southern gentleness, sifts through diverse lives in Tallahassee and finds a crosshatch of motives for Judy’s murder. Did corrupt politics, business dealings, juvenile hormones, or two generations of family dysfunction cause this loving mother to be struck down?