Shooting at Loons: 3 (Deborah Knott Mystery)

In SHOOTING AT LOONS we follow Judge Deborah Knott to the states lush Crystal Coast where expensive yachts ride at anchor...and murders wash in on the Down East tide.Asked to sit in for a hospitalized judge in gracious old Beaufort Deborah hopes to spend a restful week at her cousins nearby Harkers Island cottage; but her very first clamming expedition turns up the corpse of a well-known fisherman in the shallow waters. Discovering the body puts her right in the middle of the fight between the locals who have long made their living from the sea and the new tide of well-to-do dingbatters weekenders and land developers who view the coast as their personal playground and gold mine.Deborah soon realizes that the centuries-old way of life in this isolated corner of the South is as endangered as loons and sea turtles and the fishermans murder is clearly tied to the coming changes. On the bench and off she can feel the rage and fear and greed these changes arouse.Even so sipping her bourbon in the fresh salt air proves beneficial for Deborahs soul and life at the beach takes a definite upswing when she meets a game warden whos hunting for loon poachers. Not until a second murder occurs and a lover from her past becomes a suspect does Deborah realize shes up to her own neck in intrigue--and dangerously close to a killer...