New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts provides a potent mix of small-town secrets, scandalous romance, and down-home Southern atmosphere as a young woman searching for some bayou R&R finds herself entangled in a serial killer’s wicked web. Burned out and still reeling from a love affair gone bad, world-class violinist Caroline Waverly goes to her grandparents’ home in Innocence, Mississippi, for some much-needed rest and relaxation. Instead she finds herself overwhelmed all over again—first by Tucker Longstreet, a charming local with a sideline in no-strings-attached relationships, and then by a deadlier, more disturbing development. For Innocence is being stalked by its very own serial killer, whose brutal knife blows have pierced the veil of tranquillity in this sleepy Southern town and left a trail of mutilated female corpses in their wake. When a federal agent arrives to investigate, the town’s deepest secrets bubble to the surface and suspicion turns on Tucker as the most likely suspect. After Caroline finds the latest murder victim floating in the murky waters behind her house, she too is inexorably drawn into the path of a crazed killer who may be closer than she could have ever imagined. Old favorite. Bestselling author Nora Roberts grabs her readers from page one. Innocence, Mississippi, isn't innocent for long when a murderer strikes the sleepy town. Concert violinist Caroline Waverly has returned to her deceased grandparents home to escape high-pressured concert tours. She is soon caught up by the irresistible charm of Southerner Tucker Longstreet. The dark secrets of Innocence soon begin to surface and together Caroline and Tucker not only face a murderer but discover secrets from the past. "Roberts is indeed a word artist, painting her story and characters with vitality and verve." -- Daily News of Los Angeles "In the small town of Innocence, Mississippi, days are long, nights are fragrant, and secrets are hard to keep. But when a brutal killer starts claiming the lives of the town's most attractive women, lifelong neighbors are forced to wonder if the culprit is a stranger lurking in the bayou...or someone right next door. Burned out by a whirlwind career, world-famous concert violinist Caroline Waverly arrives in Innocence looking for a little peace and some time to think. She hopes that a stay at her late grandmother's house--the one with a covered porch just made for soft summer nights--will provide the tranquillity she needs. But Innocence has something else to offer Caroline: handsome, charming Tucker Longstreet. Tucker is known for keeping his romances short and shallow. But one look at Caroline, and Tucker realizes that she is unlike any other woman he's met. The coolly reserved Caroline feels an unexpected thrill at his ardent advances. But when she discovers a third murder victim in the murky waters behind her home, her summer liaison threatens to become much more. Because there's just one small problem with her new romance: Tucker is the leading suspect in the killings. Nora Roberts was the first writer to be inducted into the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame. The New York Times bestselling author of such novels as Brazen Virtue, Carnal Innocence, Divine Evil, Genuine Lies, Hot Ice, Public Secrets, Sacred Sins, and Sweet Revenge, she has become one of today’s most successful and best-loved writers. Nora Roberts lives with her family in Maryland. Summer, that vicious green bitch, flexed her sweaty muscles and flattened Innocence, Mississippi. It didn't take much. Even before the War Between the States, Innocence had been nothing but a dusty fly-speck on the map. Though the soil was good for farming--if a man could stand the watery heat, the floods, and the capricious droughts--Innocence wasn't destined to prosper. When the railroad tracks were laid, they had stretched far enough to the north and west to tease Innocence with those long, echoing whistles of pace and progress without bringing either home. The interstate, dug through the delta nearly a century after the tracks, veered away, linking Memphis to Jackson, and leaving Innocence in the dust. It had no battlefields, no natural wonders to draw in tourists with cameras and cash. No hotel to pamper them, only a small, painfully neat rooming house run by the Koonses. Sweetwater, its single antebellum plantation, was privately owned by the Longstreets, as it had been for two hundred years. It wasn't open to the public, had the public been interested. Sweetwater had been written up once in Southern Homes. But that had been in the eighties, when Madeline Longstreet was alive. Now that she and her tosspot, skinflint of a husband were both gone, the house was owned and inhabited by their three children. Together, they pretty nearly owned the town, but they didn't do much about it. It could be said--and was--that the three Longstreet heirs had inherited all of their family's wild good looks and none of t