Death of a Dunwoody Matron (Sheila Travis Series #5)

What does a Dunwoody matron wear to a funeral? Her black tennis dress.

It's no joke, however, when the funeral is given for your high school

buddy's wife, and she has been brutally murdered.

Sheila Travis, successful corporate executive and attractive fortyish

widow, has met Yvonne Delacourt once, at a party. Yvonne is stunning,

ambitious -- and intensely disliked. Under the local residents'

gracious veneer of Southern hospitality, Sheila senses their seething

antagonism to young Mrs. Delacourt.

When Yvonne is found stabbed to death, the police focus on her

husband, Walt, as the most likely suspect. Sheila sets out to clear

the pal of her youth by finding out more about those Dunwoody

residents who loathed the alluring victim. The spirited search

reveals dark secrets more carefully kept than the manicured lawns of

this exclusive enclave -- from a respected matron's double life, to a

retired couple's vile secret, to an arrogant gardener who has no

gardening tools. But the real shocker comes when Sheila, following

lurid hints about Yvonne's slippery past, arrives in the dead woman's

Florida hometown. Horrific discoveries reveal a soul-chilling evil

and elicit unexpected sympathy for Yvonne's killer.

Back in Dunwoody, Sheila finds her emotions stirred by an undeniably

appealing man with a disturbing connection to the crime. Her maverick

investigation startlingly reveals that the biggest secret of all was

Yvonne's.