Kathryn R. Wall Books In Order

In for a Penny

Murder and blackmail amid the ruins of antebellum splendor…
Someone is making a killing in real estate.

Coastal South Carolina…
ancient live oaks, pristine beaches, the remains of antebellum splendor…

Bay Tanner’s world is paradise until she witnesses her husband’s horrific death. Wounded and grieving, Bay retreats to her hideaway on Hilton Head Island. Then a cry for help forces her back to reality. Can she ignore the plight of her old money friends and family whose involvement in a shadowy land scheme may lead them to financial disaster? And what does all this have to do with Rob’s murder? When a body is discovered floating near the ruins of an old plantation house, Bay is forced to confront these questions and admit that one thing is certain someone is making a killing in real estate.

From In for a Penny: the sharp blare of sirens penetrated my half conscious mind. My attacker dropped me, face down in the pine straw, and sprinted away. I had just managed to struggle to my hands and knees when the night was shattered by a blast so loud it seemed to come from inside my head. I had barely a second for the smoke and flame to register on my numbed senses.

Then choking darkness enveloped me.

And Not a Penny More

Bay Tanner is plunged into the world of international intrigue when old school friend Jordan von Brandt returns to South Carolina to bury her mother. Widowed socialite Leslie Herrington is found dead in her South American hotel room. Natural causes, the authorities say. Murder, insists her estranged daughter, who sets out on a campaign to enlist Bay’s help in proving it. Lined up in opposition are Jordan’s brothers, especially Trey, perpetually broke but charming Hollywood hanger on, who desperately needs the estate settled quickly. Bay resists until she accidentally stumbles across a bizarre website that seems to support Jordan’s suspicions. Suddenly she finds herself sucked into a vortex of undercover Interpol agents, the glittering highlife of the moneyed elite, and the twisted mind of a monster, while over all hang the frightening shadows of Bay’s own past and the looming threat of a killer hurricane. All around her, from the beaches of Hilton Head to the fa! bled islands of the Carribean, the storm is rising

Perdition House

From Charleston to Hilton Head, Family matters…
and murder is relative. When a fifth cousin twice removed calls Bay Tanner a young, recently widowed financial consultant from the Beaufort County Jail, it’s no accident. Mercer Mary Prescott spent a lot of time and trouble locating Bay on the family tree, and she needs more than bail out of the relationship. What she’s really after is a secret Bay’s not willing to reveal yet. But when Bay generously takes Mercer back to the family mansion of Presqu’isle, she finds that this distant kin comes with a lot of personal baggage and some very dangerous pursuers. Before Bay can help straighten out Mercer’s problems, the mousy young woman disappears. Bay begins a desperate hunt for her ‘shirttail’ cousin through the twisted alleys of the past, from Civil War days to a plantation called Perdition House, and to one last deadly fight…
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. ‘Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, and Marcia Muller come to mind as the quintessential writers of the modern female private eye novel. Wall, in a quiet and unassuming way, has produced a body of work of equal quality. Highly recommended.’ Library Journal on The Mercy Oak Third book in the Bay Tanner mystery series.

Judas Island

4 in the Bay Tanner Mystery Series

From the depths of a forgotten grave rise the echoes of a deadly conspiracy…

When widowed financial consultant and sometime detective Bay Tanner flees Paris and the collapse of her short-lived affair with Interpol agent Alain Darnay, she finds herself drawn into yet another of the dark mysteries that seem to swirl around her father’s antebellum mansion in Beaufort, South Carolina. No sooner has she unloaded her bags than she senses trouble between retired Judge Talbot Simpson and his longtime housekeeper/companion, Lavinia Smalls. What-or who-has driven a wedge between these two people who have been the bedrock of Bay’s existence since her childhood? And why won’t either of them talk about it? Then a phone call from her partner-in-crime-solving, Erik Whiteside, sets in motion a chain of events that will ultimately expose the dark underbelly of the aristocratic local society in which she grew up.

Erik’s old college drinking buddy, archaeologist Gray Palmer, has uncovered a grave on an obscure island just off the South Carolina coast and hints the bones may be those of a murder victim. But before Bay and Erik can learn the details, Palmer turns up dead himself and in a particularly gruesome way. Spurred on by Gray’s exotic girlfriend and his estranged father’s offer of a sizeable reward, they methodically peel back the layers of deceit and cover-up carefully constructed over decades by those who have everything to lose if the grave injustices of Judas Island are ever brought to light.

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‘Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky, and Marcia Muller come to mind as the quintessential writers of the modern female private eye novel. Wall, in a quiet and unassuming way, has produced a body of work of equal quality. Highly recommended.’
-Library Journal

Resurrection Road

In the South, the past can never be forgotten…
or forgiven.

When Alain Darnay suddenly reappears on Hilton Head, Bay Tanner believes she and her former lover can finally settle into something resembling a normal life. But her tenuous peace is shattered by an innocent looking boy with cold blue eyes who will force her to relive the nightmare of her husband’s murder, to face that terrifying summer of treachery, deceit, and death.

Cart Anderson, a recently orphaned teenager burning with resentment, wants to know how and why his father, Geoffrey, died, and he s convinced Bay has the answers. But shortly after a confrontation with her in the parking lot of a glitzy resort hotel, the boy disappears. His empty car is found splattered with blood at an abandoned fort on nearby St. Helena Island, and suddenly Bay and her lover find themselves the chief suspects. When retired New York homicide detective Ben Wyler enters the case, the web of circumstantial evidence against them begins to pile up.

But what does the ancient black woman, whose ramshackle cottage sits next to the old fort, know about the boy s disappearance? And why is the entire county so willing to believe Bay is guilty? Enlisting the aid of her former partner, Erik Whiteside, and an ambitious local reporter, Bay begins to unravel a plot so intricate, so devious, it could shatter not only her own life but those of everyone she holds dear.

From the gated enclaves of the Southern aristocracy to the dusty, echoing passageways of an abandoned fort, from the secret vaults of an offshore bank to the twisted mind of a vengeful child, Resurrection Road speeds to a deadly confrontation that will alter Bay Tanner s world forever.

Bishop’s Reach

Bleached blond call girls rarely bring good news, especially the one who bursts through the door of Bay Tanner’s struggling inquiry agency and into her already complicated life. Karen Zwilling swears she s been viciously attacked but can t or won t go to the police. With the tragedy of her husband s murder finally resolved, Bay has been yearning for a little tranquillity, but that hope is shattered, both by Karen s plea for help and by the unexpected reappearance of aging playboy Win Hammond, scion of an old Beaufort family, who has been missing for more than twenty years. Why has the prodigal son chosen this moment to return, and what will the consequences be for his sister, Bay s beloved Miss Addie? Add to all this a suspected embezzlement by a local businessman and his questionable relationship with his partner, and suddenly Bay and her young associate, Erik Whiteside, find themselves hip deep in cases and clients. When a disfigured corpse is discovered on the beach at Hilton Head, Bay s longed for peace and quiet are irrevocably washed away on the outgoing tide, and suddenly it s clear that no one is who they appear to be, including Bay s former nemesis Ben Wyler. As the pieces finally tumble into place, the shocking resolution may prove as deadly for Bay Tanner as the treacherous waters of Bishop s Reach.

Sanctuary Hill

Towering live oaks guard old secrets and powerful forces that even the spirited Bay Tanner can t control…
. A freak summer storm has Bay Tanner, sometime private investigator, cooped up with her ailing father at his antebellum mansion near Hilton Head. Desperate for a distraction, Bay recovers a cooler bobbing along on the incoming tide. What she discovers inside will plunge her into a world of ancient magic where the power of the root has held sway since the days of the slave row. Suddenly, mysterious people and strange incidents, including a near fatal accident, force her to realize that she may have unleashed something she can neither understand nor escape.
Meanwhile, her investigation into the simple case of a runaway wife turns deadly. The police are eager to nail the wealthy, prominent husband for murder, but Bay’s instincts tell her there s more to the story. Sheriff s Sergeant Red Tanner, her late husband s brother, warns her off the case, but Bay s never been good at taking orders. Soon she s working full time to defend her client, who may not be as innocent as Bay would like to believe.
Time and again, every trail leads back to a mystical commune in the tangled backwoods of Beaufort County and to one of its leaders, a charismatic woman who believes in the real and malevolent power of the old ways. To find a killer, Bay must travel to the heart of this woman s world and not everyone will escape the spell of Sanctuary Hill.

The Mercy Oak

In the South, family is the one thing worth dying or killing for…
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Things are heating up between young widow Bay Tanner, sometime private investigator, and Red, local sheriff’s sergeant and her late husband s brother. But a new case that strikes too close to home endangers more than just her love life.

An unexpected call from her housekeeper s son hints that a recent hit and run may have been more than an accident. Roberto fears the victim, a local crusader for the rights of illegal immigrants, may have been silenced. But almost immediately it becomes clear that the dead girl was not the intended victim, and before Bay has a chance to launch an investigation, Roberto himself disappears.

Meanwhile, Red and the rest of the sheriff s deputies are working overtime to solve a string of holdups terrorizing local businesses and banks. When Lavinia Smalls, longtime companion to Bay s crippled father, is caught up in one of these robberies, Bay finds herself enmeshed in yet another mystery. What does Lavinia know about this gang of thieves, and why is she so reluctant to share her secret? What clues does her friend, the ancient black man with the intricately carved walking stick, carry in his muddled memory?

Then the strange phone calls begin, and Bay realizes someone desperately wants her off the case but which one? Determined to protect those she regards as family, Bay struggles against the fear that she may be endangering the very people she s come to love in order to bring a killer to justice. Almost too late, she discovers that tempers run hot and prejudices deep when it comes to the growing immigrant population of the sultry South Carolina Lowcountry.

In Kathryn Wall s eighth captivating Southern mystery, Bay Tanner will pay a terrible price to uncover the secrets of The Mercy Oak.

Covenant Hall

Private Investigator Bay Tanner is hired by a young mother desperate to locate her estranged family. Joline Eastman’s daughter is dying of leukemia, and all other sources for a bone marrow transplant have been exhausted. A yellowing photograph and a handful of wartime letters are the only clues she has to offer. But it s what she s not willing to share that may hold the ultimate solution to saving her daughter s life.

Meanwhile, Bay has her own family to worry about. A phone call from Lavinia Smalls, her aging father s companion and caretaker, sends her rushing to the hospital. A few, whispered words, uttered in a moment of semi conscious confusion, shatter her world and launch Bay on a quest that will redefine everything she thought she knew about herself.

Battling time, Bay and her late husband s brother, sheriff s sergeant Red Tanner, search desperately for Joline s missing family, only to discover that an old murder and a haunted woman from Bay s past may hold the key to everything.

Canaan’s Gate

Greed and deception drive the action in this tenth entry in the awardwinning series, set in South Carolina’s sultry Lowcountry When bank employee Cecelia Dobbs approaches Bay Tanner s inquiry agency, Bay has no idea her association with the awkward young woman will lead to murder. Concerned that one of her colleagues may be running a scam on the elderly and very wealthy Castlemains of Hilton Head Island, Cecelia is seeking proof she can take to the authorities. The other object of her suspicion is the couple s caretaker, flamboyant Kendra Blaine, whose interest in teller Dalton Chambers may be more than just as partners incrime. When Mrs. Castlemain dies suddenly of an apparent heart attack, less than twenty four hours after she accepts the case, Bay is stunned. Still mourning the loss of her father, Bay is also trying to adjust to her recent marriage. Since joining Bay s staff, Red has been chafing under the constraints of working for his wife, and Bay finds herself wondering if something deeper is amiss with their relationship. Then Cecelia disappears, and the Castlemains grandson, Washington lobbyist Nicholas Potter, tries to hire the agency to investigate Kendra. He, too, believes she could be dangerous or so he claims. Torn between her unwilling attraction to the charismatic Nick and her growing fears about Cecelia, Bay discovers that divided loyalties can be painful and sometimes fatal.

Jericho Cay

While restoring her Hilton Head home after a brush with a hurricane, PI Bay Tanner reluctantly accepts bestselling true crime writer Winston Wolfe as a client. Arrogant and secretive, Wolfe is researching the cold case disappearance of reclusive millionaire Morgan Tyler Bell from his secluded private island off the South Carolina coast. Adding to the mystery, Bell’s personal assistant vanished as well. But what has Bay s investigative antennae quivering is the apparent suicide at the time of Bell s longtime housekeeper. After viewing the scene inside the millionaire s abandoned mansion on Jericho Cay, Bay isn t so sure she should ve taken the case. Bay s husband and new employee is hot to pursue the inquiry. A former sheriff s deputy, Red would like nothing better than to solve the one case his old boss has never been able to close. But as Wolfe s behavior becomes more and more bizarre, Bay is torn between her desire to earn her hefty fee and her fear that something much more sinister is going on just below the surface. Is Bell dead or alive? And who is the elusive man in the red baseball cap who just may hold the answers to all her questions?While dealing with another tragedy that strikes at the heart of her family, Bay Tanner must dig beneath the lies and evasions that threaten all she holds dear and her own life as well. Jericho Cay is filled with Southern charm and local color, making it a terrific addition to Kathryn R. Wall s sultry Lowcountry series, one of the most absorbing on bookshelves today.