The Town That Inspired a Murder...

When Vicki's Key is released in a few short weeks, it will launch the beginning of the Black Swamp Mysteries series. The series is set in a real town: Lumberton, North Carolina. A town I just happen to live in.

I moved to Lumberton in 2004. I was a Big City Girl, having been born in Washington, D.C. and I spent most of my life in the D.C. suburbs. So when I moved to Lumberton, it was quite different from anything I'd experienced before.

The Historic Area of Lumberton is filled with wide streets, sidewalks, and majestic trees that often reach across the road to touch one another with their broad branches.

It's an area filled with wide porches, sleepy porch swings, azaleas and birds chirping.

It's a step into yesteryear where one can walk out their front door and down the street to the Plaza, where free outdoor concerts are held throughout the summer... Where City Hall and the County Courthouse are just a few blocks away... Where the historic theatre known as the Carolina Civic Center shows movies and conducts plays in a setting one might have thought was long gone. And where the library sits nestled among brick buildings and behind gently waving trees.

It's this street where the main character of Vicki's Key, Vicki Freeman Boyd, moves after leaving her job with the CIA. In fact, the real houses shown above are the homes of Vicki's neighbors. Just about ten blocks further to the north is the house Brenda Carnegie lived in Exit 22.

It's this street that Vicki sees Dylan Maguire as he walks toward the Carolina Civic Center, where she sees one of many ghosts that haunt the theatre to this day.

And within walking distance of this street and these homes is the black depths of the Lumber River, a lazy, narrow river that winds its way through the heart of Lumberton before snaking off into the countryside. When the rains come heavy and sudden, the river overflows its banks... And when the rains stop and the waters recede, it often leaves behind a thick black swamp, impenetrable in some places...

The Lumber River is the perfect place to hide a body.

And nestled between these historic old homes and the picturesque village-like quality of the town are many places where secrets are hidden...

Welcome to the Black Swamp Mysteries series...

And to the real town of Lumberton, North Carolina...

Vicki's Key is scheduled for release on March 17, 2012. You can pre-order the book from www.pmterrell.com or on www.amazon.com. Look for it in all fine book stores in March. And be sure to mark your calendars for Tuesday, March 27, when p.m.terrell will speak at the Carolina Civic Center in beautiful downtown Lumberton about Vicki's Key!