The Legacy — Gary Gusick

Carl Hiaasen meets Lisa Gardner in Gary Gusick's edgy, irresistible Darla Cavannah series! In The Legacy, a college coed's murder exposes deadly tensions tearing through the Deep South.
 
When the governor of Mississippi requests her help, Yankee transplant Darla Cavannah can hardly say no -- even if the timing couldn't be worse. She and her dreamy husband, Dr. Stephen Nicoletti, have just been approved to adopt a baby girl in China, and getting wrapped up in a high-profile homicide will almost certainly complicate, if not derail, all their plans. But as Governor Wilson Burnett relays the details of the case, Darla feels deep sympathy -- and blinding outrage at a promising life cut short.
 
On the campus of prestigious Ole Miss, a young African American student has been found killed just hours after her initiation into a previously segregated sorority. The murder would be shocking under any circumstances, but this student is Caitlin Burnett -- the white governor's adopted daughter.
 
With public outrage building and media coverage intensifying, Darla's partner, Rita Gibbons, proves invaluable. Her deep roots in the community -- or “trailer trash cred” -- helps considerably as the crime-solving pair sift fact from fiction. If this murder was racially motivated, why does the most damning evidence appear to have been staged? As the trail leads from Caitlin's fellow Delta Betas to radical white supremacists and her father's political enemies, the detectives close in on the disturbing truth -- and a devious manipulator pulling all the strings.