Death in the Great Dismal (Will Rees Mysteries Book # 9) by Eleanor Kuhns

Finding themselves in a slave community hidden within the Great Dismal Swamp, Will Rees and his wife Lydia get caught up in a dangerous murder case where no one trusts them.

September 1800 , Maine . Will Rees is beseeched by Tobias, an old friend abducted by slave catchers years before, to travel south to Virginia to help transport his pregnant wife, Ruth, back north. Though he's reluctant, Will's wife Lydia convinces him to go . . . on the condition she accompanies them.

Upon arriving in a small community of absconded slaves hiding within the Great Dismal Swamp, Will and Lydia are met with distrust. Tensions are high and a fight breaks out between Tobias and Scipio, a philanderer with a bounty on his head known for conning men out of money. The following day Scipio is found dead - shot in the back.

Stuck within the hostile Great Dismal and with slave catchers on the prowl, Will and Lydia find themselves caught up in their most dangerous case yet.  (Summary via Goodreads)

Death in the Great Dismal is the ninth book in the Will Rees Mystery series written by Eleanor Kuhns and this one will have you scratching your head ....

In Death in the Great Dismal Will is asked by his friend Tobias to travel to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia to help bring his pregnant wife back to Maine.  Will knows that he shouldn't go because he and his wife Lydia are having marital problems and he really needs to deal with that.  But Lydia surprises him by telling him he needs to go but she is going with them.

Once they get to the little village where Ruth is living, things do not go as planned at all.  Shortly after arriving one of the men from the village is found dead in the woods, murdered, shot in the back.  It seems that two of the villagers, Jackman and Aunt Suke, are the ones that are in charge and when they ask Will to find out who murdered Scipio he cannot say no.  

Besides the murder delaying their departure, it seems that Ruth is not sure if she wants to leave with Tobias or stay in the village.  Will and Lydia try to help the couple out but they are also trying to work through something within their marriage .... but they never seem to find the time to talk about that.

Will is going to have a difficult time trying to find Scipio's murderer seeing as he knows nothing about the people in the village and the members of the village do not trust him at all.  

Readers cannot help getting pulled into this book, or any of the others in this series.  You will fall in love with the characters and even though this story takes place somewhere new and completely outside of anyones's comfort zone, you will be turning the pages as fast as you can to see what happens next because you never know what Kuhns will throw out there .....