By Blood Possessed

When Pat Montella receives a letter notifying her that she may be the heir to a large estate called Bell Run near Fredricksburg, Virginia, she's sure her ship has finally come in. Trapped in a boring day job as a business consultant in southern Pennsylvania, she's more than willing to overlook the strange circumstances surrounding her inheritance, including her 91-year-old benefactor Miss Magnolia Shelby's requirement that Pat stay at the old family home during the first week of May. After Pat arrives and learns that Shelby is a legendary history teacher, the request doesn't seem so odd. Pat is the only surviving member of Gabriel Bell's prosperous Confederate family. A stickler for historical justice, Shelby has decided to leave the property to its rightful owner. It's no secret that Bell Run is a developer's dream, however, and local real-estate shark Flora Shifflett wastes no time in making her services available. And Shifflett isn't the only one after the property; a notorious busybody wants the manor house restored for her beloved Historical Society; a rebellious teenager wants the land preserved to safeguard the local environment. As these competing demands plod along a desperately predictable course, the Bell family's dark past slowly comes to light. Before long, ghosts, voodoo dolls and death threats are headed Pat's way. Things take a serious turn when someone shoots at Pat with a rifle and her only rival for the inheritance turns up at the bottom of the nearby river. First-novelist Santangelo writes an atmospheric, entertaining tale, and has created an appealing heroine in Pat Montella. She's often only a hair shy of imitating Nancy Drew here, though, and never quite pulls off the Southern accent so central to the book. (Nov.)