Murder For Love

michael malone

Every small town has its legends. Thermopylae, North Carolina, gave Stella Dora Doyle to the world and then, with little choice in the matter-four husbands, one murder trial, and a European exile later-took her back. For young Buddy Hayes, a boy who has grown into manhood while Stella's fabled beauty has only ripened, his father's assessment of her powerful aura lingers in his mind long past his first glimpse of the woman herself.

Never to have desired Stella, his dad solemnly tells him as they watch her climb the courthouse steps, accused of killing Hugh Doyle, her childhood sweetheart and latest husband, is to have missed out on being alive. Haunted by the memory of this fearful glamor, Buddy is nonetheless equal to the occasion when his path and Stella's later cross.

Acclaimed novelist Michael Malone, no stranger to the mysteries of the human heart, understands that the combination of memory, myth, and sudden violent death is an irresistible one. In addition to his bestselling novels of small-town southern life, he has written two superb mystery novels about Justin Savile and Cuddy Mangum, Uncivil Seasons and Time's Witness. He recently won an Emmy as the writer of the daytime drama One Life to Live.

– O. P.