The House that Hate Built: When widowed bank president James Clark wed a second time, to the previously married Margaret Branch, mother of glamourous divorcee Margo Branch, it was a dark day indeed for James Clark’s blue-blooded spinster sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, who made it clear to Margaret Branch that she was beneath their notice socially. Margaret retaliated by having her husband build her a house right next door to the Clark sisters, so that the two women would have to look at that house every single day for the rest of their lives. However it’s Margaret who dies first, viciously stabbed to death in her house–the house that hate built. Suspects in Margaret’s murder are myriad, and it will take all of Monroe sheriff Frank Garner’s wiles to bring the vicious crime–and the ones that follow it–home to the culprit. Said to be partially based on actual murders committed in 1934 among the very most upper crust of society in Demopolis, Alabama–the author’s home town–The House at Hate Built will leave even the most sanguine of readers convinced that marriage can be murder.
The Whip: In Chicago Carla Ives stands accused of the poisoning murder of her diabetic widowed great-aunt and guardian, Mrs. Sarah Willingham, whose every cruelly barbed word was like the lash of the whip to her vulnerable ward. Tasked with determining whether Carla, who has actually confessed to the heinous crime, is criminally insane, idealistic psychiatrist Dr. Mark Sargeant persuades the beautiful young woman to tell him the story of the miserable years which she spent under her cold guardian’s care. What he learns convinces him that Carla could not have been Mrs. Willingham’s murderer–yet who was it, in that case, who killed the hateful old woman? Discovering the truth behind Mrs. Willingham’s shocking slaying proves most perilous indeed for the inquisitive Dr. Sargeant!
Introductions by Curt Evans (http: //thepassingtramp.blogspot.com/).
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