The Long Road Home Again

Three women, grieving the loss of loved ones, are guests in a charming bed and breakfast inn in Lily Dale, a historic spiritualist community in upstate New York. Tree Haven is owned by an eccentric ninety- year old former actress who adores animals, bakes delicious lemon butter cookies, and entertains her guests with colorful stories of her days in theater. Shortly after the women's arrival a series of horrific murders befall the scenic lakeside community. The victims are an aging astrologer named Lady Moon; a woman who believes she is the reincarnated soul of Madame Petrona Blavatsky, founder of the Theosophical Society, and a nonagenarian who communes with trees and animal spirits. Inspectors Robert McLeod and Tara Flanagan are in charge of the investigation, but shortly after learning that his old friends, semi-retired inspector Pequod Dyxx and his clairvoyant wife Evangeline are in town, McLeod persuades them to help with the case. The suspects include a drifter who believes he is a messenger of God; a priest who terrorizes altar boys and condemns psychics as satanic; blind twin brothers who are members of a self-mortification group, and an unscrupulous real estate man who wants to build a development in the town's center. A philosophical mystery, The Long Road Home, is suspenseful, thought-provoking, and satiric from start to finish with multiple plots and unconventional characters.