Blackman Agency Investigations

When private eyes Sam Blackman and Nakayla Robertson are asked by an eighty-year-old client to investigate the death of her brother, they warn her there is little chance of success. Paul Weaver died nearly seventy years earlier. The only documentation she has is the sole surviving copy of a coroner's report stating his death was caused by an accidental fall while hiking. There's a red flag: Weaver knew every inch of the mountain trails. The returning World War II veteran had enrolled at Black Mountain College, a liberal local school with an international reputation for innovation. The college of the 1940s is currently being portrayed in a film being shot on the site of its former location. The plot is based on a book by a local author. The research behind both may provide a lead in the Weaver case. One is drawn from movie crew member Harlan Beale, an octogenarian mountaineer who knew Weaver. Beale is discovered dead in the Black Mountain College Museum. His murder turns the cold case white hot. When a second killing follows, the question becomes how to separate dark doings in the present from dark days and hidden scars of the post-war past. Nakayla and Sam love their investigations and each other. An interracial couple in the South, they've surrounded themselves with a terrific support team.

In this unusual spin on the classic spy novel, murder strikes from our wartime pasts . . . Iraq War veteran Sam Blackman with his prosthetic leg and his no-nonsense private eye partner Nakayla Robertson love their investigations―and they love each other. An interracial couple in the new South, the Asheville, North Carolina, pair has surrounded themselves with a terrific support team, including an unorthodox lawyer and a veteran cop. They deploy humor both to bind them together and to deflect insults. Plus, it helps deal with the tragedies their work uncovers. Such a tragedy interrupts a meeting between the PIs and the neighboring law office when a body is unearthed from the grounds of the nearby Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute. During the Cold War it monitored developing space programs. Today it plays a vital role gathering weather and climate data. The body has been in the ground a long time. Why would its discovery spark off a new murder in Asheville's mountain music scene, the victim found amid the garbage of dark, dank Rat Alley? She was the fiancée of the man murdered long ago. But surely this case is more than a domestic drama playing out over time . . .

A river gives up its dead, but not its secrets . . . Sam Blackman and Nakayla Robertson, private investigators in Asheville, North Carolina, are hired when a local environmentalist dies while monitoring water quality in the nearby Pigeon River. With no soil or water samples found near the body, his widow doesn't believe his death was an accident. In fact, witnesses reported a public altercation between the environmentalist and local mill heir Luke Kirkpatrick just two days prior. Could Luke or his father, Ted, have committed murder to secure their proposed business expansion? Meanwhile, preparations for a local festival suffer violent setbacks, and the investigators worry the events are related. Can Sam and Nakayla identify the killer and serve justice before Asheville is threatened once again? The eighth book featuring Private Investigators Blackman and Robertson, Fatal Scores is a timely mystery perfect for fans private eyes and anyone with a taste for regional history.