Mike Latta can't forgive himself for the death of his daughter. It was a freak accident, but fathers should protect little girls from the bad things that can hurt them. He didn't, and a descent into divorce and the bottle has gotten rid of every happy ending he ever hoped for.A year of solitude on an island in northern Hollow Lake, away from the booze and the reminders of grief, may be the last chance he has. There's more than peace and quiet on the lake though, because the ghosts of a long-ago murder haunt Echo Island. If Mike can't figure out what the ghosts want from him, it may cost another little girl her life.

During the summer of 1946, a group of children play a kissing game behind a general store in rural Georgia. It's just kids having fun, until one innocent kiss leads to the brutal beating death of a ten-year-old boy. The horrific hate crime shakes an entire town. It spawns a series of murders, and a secret that is hidden for generations.Mike Latta follows the story back into the heat and humidity of a sixty-five-year-old Georgia summer, back to dirt roads, wooden bridges, and muddy-water fishing holes, back to a single kiss that has killed, and killed again. It's a kiss that has slept for decades, but now it's awake. Learning its secret may cost Mike his life.Fiction inspired by the real life Emmett Till murder, Deadly Kiss is the story of loves that won't stay lost and ghosts that just won't sleep.