Blake and Todd’s fraternity brothers are gathering at the Brew Crew for a reunion on St. Patrick’s Day and before it is over, one of the brothers, Graham, is shot in Todd’s office and Blake and Todd are found standing over the body.  Both men’s fingerprints are on the gun, no surprise since it is Todd’s gun, and both men find themselves in the Tallulah Falls jail charged with murder. 

Both men proclaim their innocence and Sadie and Marcy believe them, though Marcy is pretty sure they are hiding something from the women and from the police.  When Sadie goes back home the night the pair is arrested, she finds her house has been broken into, though the only things she sees that are missing are Blake’s college yearbook and his alumni annuals.  Feeling pretty sure that they will have to go back to school to find the answer to who murdered Graham, Marcy begins to revisit the quartet’s glory days in college only to learn that one of their classmates Tawny, who has seemed to vanish off the earth, may hold the key to the mystery. 

Amanda Lee neatly weaves the pasts of four friends with their present and creates a sad story that has the possibility of breaking families apart, as well as creating new families.  Marcy has recovered from her life as an accountant in San Francisco and has mended her broken heart.  She has caught the eye of both Todd and Ted and recognizes that both may be keepers, but that she isn’t ready to make a choice or commitment to either yet.  Marcy learns things about her friend Sadie’s past during this investigation that will test their friendship when she reveals them. 

Marcy is a good friend and hates to hurt Sadie, but she also has a strong sense of right and wrong and realizes certain things must come out in order for justice to be served.  Adding a light-hearted touch to the story is the birth of her friends’ Riley and Keith’s first daughter.  Information about the Irish art of Mountmellick embroidery adds to the St. Patrick’s Day festivities and gives embroiderers another new form to be on the lookout for. 

-- Jennifer Monahan Winberry