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.
Earn by promoting books
Earn money by sharing your favorite books through our Affiliate program.
Become an affiliate
Deadly Declarations is a feast of good reading. Landis Wade has mixed it all together with a writerly touch that will have you licking your chops. Delicious, funny, suspenseful.
-Clyde Edgerton, author of Walking Across Egypt and Raney
This is a novel rooted in history and mystery and imagination-a crackling good book.
-Frye Gaillard, American historian, and author of A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s
Deadly Declarations is what you'd get if National Treasure and The Firm had a book baby. Deliciously un-put-downable. Two thumbs up!
-Tracy Clark, multi-nominated Anthony, Shamus, and Lefty Award finalist and winner of the 2020 Sue Grafton Memorial Award for the Cass Raines Chicago Mystery series
Landis Wade combines the precision of a lawyer with a natural storyteller in this historical thriller. A page turner brimming with North Carolina history - and fun!
- Scott Syfert, author of The First American Declaration of Independence? and Eminent Charlotteans
A sizzling combination of historical mystery, courtroom drama, and warm, burgeoning friendships in a retirement community. I tried to stop reading Deadly Declarations. I simply couldn't put it down.
-Dannye Romine Powell, author of In the Sunroom with Raymond Carver and Parting the Curtains: Interviews with Southern Writers
Landis Wade is a master of the light-hearted legal thriller. And, if you're not careful, you might just get a history lesson. There's so much life in these pages!
-George Hovis, author of The Skin Artist
Humor, a good puzzle, a peek inside some artful legal maneuvering, engaging characters-all the absolutely perfect ingredients for a mystery.
-Cathy Pickens, author of Charlotte True Crime Stories and the Southern Fried Mystery series
In Landis Wade's capable hands, what starts off as a challenge to a perplexing will becomes a heart-pounding race to discover the truth.
- Heather Bell Adams, author of Maranatha Road and The Good Luck Stone
The plot bursts with danger, complications, and intrigue right until the last page. A terrific page turner-you won't be able to down. May this be the first of many.
-Webb Hubbell, former U. S. Associate Attorney General and author of When Men Betray and The Eighteenth Green.
