Murder Mysteries, Ghost Stories Suspense Novels, Short Stories
Oklahoma City detective Buck McDivit learns he has an aunt in Deception, Texas, an overnight stop on a barely remembered landlocked waterway once plied by riverboats carrying cotton from Jefferson, Texas, to New Orleans. There's a problem. Someone murders the old lady before Buck has a chance to meet her. When Buck investigates he finds a sleepy backwater town where riverboats once reigned and cotton was king, and a century-old murder mystery.
Some things haven't changed. An undercurrent of racial prejudice ebbs just beneath the town's touristy veneer. Also crime, cover-ups and conspiracy. He soon meets the beautiful Lila Richardson, local antiquities expert and heir to the Richardson cotton plantation, and is instantly enamored. There's also the matter of a sunken riverboat filled with Confederate gold and the ghost - a girl murdered more than a century ago. A ghost story and murder mystery with historical underpinnings.
Start with the following ingredients: a ghost, a sunken riverboat filled with gold, and a possible murder. Mix in the town of Deception (which lives up to its name) and a voodoo priestess, and you now have a recipe for a spellbinding novel.
Alice Berger, Berger Book Reviews
Eric Wilder is a gifted storyteller. I was drawn into the book from the first page and the plot led me through every chapter, turning pages to discover what would happen next.
Heather Froeschl, BookReview.com