American Alana Eastwood is researching her family tree. Remarkably, Alana traces her Eastwood lineage to an African child, living at Wortley Hall Manor on England's 1801 census. The boy is known as Otobong.

Alana believes Otobong to be her earliest traceable ancestor and plans to visit her distant relatives still living in Nottingham. Discovering he was connected to a homicide in 1835 sets Alana on a mission to prove his innocence.

Then the body of a man turns up on a beach in Mississippi, eerily close to where Alana's father was born. When the police identify the corpse as her estranged cousin, Sigmund Griegg suspects foul play and gets involved.

From an Arabian stallion shipwrecked off Africa in 1798, to a mysterious death at a posh English estate in 1835, to the Renahta Plantation as President Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, the international intrigue surrounding Alana's pedigree does not disappoint.

The sleuthing team you've come to love knows murder never gets old . . . motives like revenge, greed, and passion are timeless. As Alana untangles the matters engulfing her family for generations, she comes to appreciate just how much family matters.