Part of Sweet Briar’s lore is based in the tradition that during the Civil War Yankees burned the town to the ground and the towns people rebuilt it from nothing. Now, local author Colby Calhoun has debunked that myth, saying that the fire was actually caused by a moonshine maker, whose descendants still live in Sweet Briar. Needless to say, the town is up in arms and Colby and his family are being shunned and receiving threats, making it hard to live normal lives.

When Colby disappears, and his wife Debbie and Tori find blood in the kitchen, they fear the worse.Because the town is so angry with Colby, no one makes an effort to begin to look for him and Debbie fears he is dead.  Eventually the town rallies and begins looking for Colby to no avail, while Tori follows her own leads looking for the one person who hated Colby’s accusations to do him harm.

  Tori has begun to settle into her new life, little by little, and is not as exuberant as she was in the first novel, though she is still go-go-go, especially where the library and her new friends are concerned.  Tori has formed an unlikely friendship with twins Margaret Louise and Leona, and has a special relationship with Margaret Louise’s granddaughter Lulu.  Since she is new to the town, she is able to view Colby’s report with an unbiased eye and tries to get the town to realize that the truth isn’t so bad, including her own boyfriend Milo. 

It is a little unbelievable when Colby disappears and the police don’t launch an all out search, and the telling clues to what happened to Colby are easy to pick out, leaving readers to wonder why no one else has caught on.  The town is full of eccentrics; Margaret Louise and Leona keep Tori busy with a bet that Leona can’t learn to sew, and Margaret Louise perfecting her sweet potato pie recipe so she can be featured on the cover of a Southern cooking magazine, making Death Threads a light, fun mystery with Southern charm and an energetic heroine.                                                  

--Jennifer Monahan Winberry