When Cicadas Cry has everything I love in a good mystery and much more. It is Southern fiction at its best. It doesn’t mince words talking about racial tensions and injustice in the past or the present but at the same time it shows us how far things have come and the hope for the future. It is a legal thriller with a lot of emphasis on how both sides try to use the law to their advantage in a high profile murder case. It had characters I loved, down on his luck criminal defense attorney Zach Stander and his private investigator and girlfriend Addie Stone. And, best of all, even though the killer was talking to the reader throughout the entire book I was taken totally by surprise. I sure hope there will be more Zach and Addie in the future.