Deadly Declarations

It's modern day in the New South City of Charlotte, North Carolina, when three retirees at the Independence Retirement Community, a/k/a The Indie, team up to investigate two mysteries related to the death of a 96-year-old resident. Why was his manuscript about the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence missing when they found his body? And why did his handwritten will dated the day he died disinherit his beloved granddaughter (his only heir), and leave his $50 million fortune to Sue Ellen Parker, the most despised resident at the Indie?

At the urging of Chuck Yeager Alexander, an optimistic soul who loves historical conspiracies, and Harriet Keaton, a former businesswoman with an extreme dislike of Sue Ellen Parker, Craig Travail, a trial lawyer recently ousted from his law firm after 40 years, reluctantly goes to court to challenge the dead man's will for the granddaughter. This decision sets in motion a series of dangerous events that could lead the threesome to discover the answer to a colonial mystery that has evaded historians for more than two centuries.

Landis Wade is a recovering trial lawyer, host of Charlotte Readers Podcast (where he has conducted more than 300 author interviews), and author of books and stories whose third book—The Christmas Redemption—won the Holiday category of the 12th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards, and was the 2018 Holiday category Honorable Mention in the 10th Annual Readers' Favorite Awards. He won the 2016 North Carolina State Bar short story contest for "The Deliberation" and received awards for his nonfiction pieces, "The Cape Fear Debacle" and "First Dance." His short work has appeared in Writersdigest.com, The Charlotte Observer, Flying South, Fiction on the Web, and in more than six anthologies, including by Daniel Boone Footsteps. He lives in Charlotte, Durham, and Watauga County, North Carolina, where he writes and podcasts, visits his grandchild, and fly-fishes. His love of history led to the novel, Deadly Declarations: www.landiswade.com.