The Murder of Amos Dunn

A small business owner, Amos Dunn, has been found murdered in the lowcountry town of Morgan, South Carolina. The initial reaction of the local police is that the robbery of Dunn’s convenience store got out of hand resulting in the owner’s death. The robbery and murder receive token coverage in the local and regional press, which is not uncommon. But nothing is what it seems.

Tillie James, the housekeeper for Professor Sidney Lake, a retired professor of English Literature at Morgan College, doesn’t believe it and convinces Sidney Lake that something is very wrong. Enlisting the aid of a new black police officer and a recently arrived county assistant coroner, they band together to seek the truth. And so begins a wild ride though the politics and changing culture of a small, quiet lowcountry town that endangers all of their lives as they seek the truth.

The story of Amos Dunn’s murder and its aftermath will forever change the way the town of Morgan views itself as it is thrown into a spotlight it has tried to avoid. This is a town where big city problems aren’t supposed to exist. A quiet family place where the local churches are still the center of life and Wednesday night suppers and meetings in church education buildings are a mainstay of its social fabric.

Tim Holland’s weaving of the story through common everyday events in Morgan brings the town and its people to life. Everyone from Professor Lake and Tillie James to tourist, pastors, policemen and especially Mrs. Micawber, Sidney Lake’s Labrador retriever find themselves entangled in a web they thought could only be woven by the decadence of a large city. This is one you won’t want to put down.