Locked in the Past

2nd Book of Darius Morefield Mystery Series

by C. Craig Coleman.

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At the turn of the twentieth-century, Southern society basked in the glory of the Victorian age. The landed aristocracy dominated its structured social order like that of the English. Life was refined and elegant if constrained for the elite who modeled life on the 400 of New York.

By 1970, industrial invasion of the South, capitalizing on the cheap labor, had upset that order and challenged it economically. In the twilight of the old South, southern graciousness, style, and refinement were casualties. Times had passed them by for the faster pace and mediocrity that came with industrialization.
Two forgotten matriarchs of the grandest old-money families had battled for dominance in the old order for fifty years. They each hid secrets through those years that kept them frozen in the past like two great elephants, tusks locked and facing the Grim Reaper. This is the story of one tragedy on top of another. A story of lives crippled and wasted by those secrets and the ravages of time itself. And yet, it is a story of redemption in the closing days of a forgotten age.

A Word from the Author

Having solved several murders in the small, Southern mill town, Darius is quite the Higginsville hero. When Myrtle and her mother, Agatha are called to Myrtle’s grandmother’s home in Konnotan fearing the grandmother’s ill health, Agatha’s sister invites Myrtle to bring along her now-famous friends Alex and Darius. During the visit to the grand mansion, the decline of Victorian grandeur becomes evident as times have passed it by. The boys learn of the bitter rivalry between the last two great families from the Victorian era that once dominated society in the town. Then a murder begins to reveal the town’s dark history. Only Darius the sleuth can unravel things long since buried and forgotten.