Bloody Kin

Description for BLOODY KIN by Margaret Maron:

In the South, they like to keep it in the family... Even murder! -- When Jake Honeycutt died in a hunting accident, his wife, Kate, hoped that moving to his family farm in North Carolina would help heal her grief and provide a home for their unborn baby. After all, in Colleton County, anecdotes about people dead a hundred years are not uncommon, and blood kinship stitches you into the community... doesn't it? But Jake's death was no accident and Kte soon realized that she's still a Yankee outsider.

Then a second body turns up, one of Jake's former army buddies. From antebellum mansions to humble tenant houses, Kate's new neighbors soon supply her with clues that point to the jungles of Southeast Asia and to an old alliance that has left a killer roaming.

This is the Prequel to Deborah Knott Series.