Cruel As the Grave [signed] [first edition]

Maggie McLendon should be at home in Houston, studying for her Ph.D. qualifying exams, but a letter from her great aunt arrives, bearing bad news. Maggie's grandfather, Henry McLendon, whom she has never met, is seriously ill in Jackson, Mississippi. Maggie's father, English professor Gerard McLendon, has been estranged from his family since Maggie was an infant, but now there is perhaps one last chance for the McLendons to be reunited. The family welcomes Maggie and Gerard to Jackson, and Gerard has a chance to reconcile with his father. But a murderer strikes, savagely, and Gerard McLendon looks like the chief suspect. Maggie must sort out decades of family secrets, including the puzzle of her grandmother's death twenty-five years before and its relationship to the present crime, to arrive at the truth. But not before the killer strikes a second time. Could Maggie or her father be next on the list?