Anticipating a much-needed vacation, Judge Deborah Knott travels to Virginia to join her husband and son only to stumble on a murder scene involving one of her colleagues, a situation that is further complicated by growing suspicions that Deborah is a target.

On a quiet August morning, Judge Deborah Knott's father Kezzie makes a shocking discovery on a remote corner of his farm: the body of a man bludgeoned to death. Investigating this crime, Deborah's husband, Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant, soon uncovers a long-simmering hostility between Kezzie and the slain man over a land dispute. The local newspaper implies that Deborah's family may have had something to do with the murder--and that Dwight is dragging...

"Judge Deborah Knott, only days away from her wedding to Sheriff Deputy Dwight Bryant, investigates another murder"--Provided by the publisher.

When Deborah Knott's terminally ill aunt, Rachel, is found smothered to death in her bed at a hospice center, all of her Colleton County kith and kin are shocked. Who kills a dying woman? As Deborah and her husband, Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant, try to find Rachel's killer, they cross paths with the Designated Daughters, a support group for caregivers, not all of whom are women. Rachel's flamboyant daughter, Sally, is a member, and when a con artist...

After a beautiful young cheerleader dies in a car crash that was not an accident, Judge Deborah Knott and sheriff's deputy Dwight Bryant must uncover what really happened before more death further clouds the Christmas season in North Carolina's Colleton County.