Bloody Lane

A slow-building murder tale but the complicated hero and serpentine wrap-up make it a worthy mystery. - Kirkus ReviewFelix Allaben is a haunted man. Haunted by the memory of his wife gunned down in a mugging gone awry. Haunted by his responsibilities as a single father of a teenage girl. And as Bloody Lane opens haunted by the murder of Curtis Gwynn an ex-cop whom Allaben had known when both served in the Baltimore Police Department. Gwynn is found dressed in the uniform of a Civil War re-enactor on the hallowed grounds of the Antietam battlefield--shot through the head.Allaben is a special investigator with the Department of Justice. He has been summoned by a shadowy official in Washington to get to the bottom of the crime. Working in tandem with the local sheriff Felix weaves his way through a maze of leads lies and dead ends in his effort to make sense of this first death and of others that unexpectedly follow. In so doing he comes up against an armed active neo-Confederate hate group operating out of a local gun club and bent on domestic terrorism.The suspects are many. Among them are an unstable realtor with whom Gwynn was having an affair; her alcoholic hot-headed husband; their son a Civil War enthusiast whos been upset by the unsavory lifestyles of his parents; her brother a rising politician and a retired Navy contractor as well as other members of the aforementioned militia.Bloody Lane is set in and around Frederick Maryland a small city with an intriguing past. The infamous Civil War battle of Antietam fought nearby yielded the single bloodiest day in American history. The conclusion is both violent and unsettling.