Rating: 2 1/2 stars

Evie Carson wanted to prove that she could go home again. After the end of her 15-year marriage to a successful Chicago prosecutor Evie returned to her childhood home in Hyattville, Georgia. Armed with a healthy sum from the divorce settlement and a strong resolve to start a new life; Evie opened a clothing boutique in town and settled back into her father’s house.

A month since her return and the night of her 40th birthday, Evie went to the giant old oak tree where the scant remains of her childhood tree house still remained. On a self-dare, she climbed up to the platform and was enjoying the peace when suddenly the stillness was broken as Jake, a mentally-challenged local man, emerged from the brush carrying the dead body of a naked woman. Evie watched in fear as Jake dug a grave and placed the body in it. Evie’s fear turned to horror when she saw that the woman was her best-friend, Denise.

What seemed like an open and shut case becomes more bizarre when that same night, Jake is murdered too. Despite the evidence pointing to the sheriff, nothing makes any sense. Evie’s nightmare gets even more bizarre when her ex-husband ends up dead and she finds herself falling for the state trooper investigating the murders—who also has a history with Denise. Not sure who to trust anymore, Evie needs someone to figure it out soon or the next one to die just might be her.

With the usual whodunit plot line, the customary misdirection and the standard subplot of a developing relationship with someone who may or may not be the killer, Dark Secrets of the Old Oak Tree didn’t have anything new to offer. Although I figured out who the killer was before the first chapter ended, the writing managed to motivate me enough to find out why.
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Hardcover: 350 pages
Publisher: Medallion Press (March 1, 2010)
ISBN-13: 978-1605421063