Hardcover - ISBN: 1-57072-107-6 Trade Paper - ISBN: 1-57072-123-8 Silver Dagger Mysteries Willi Taft, a feisty studio singer in Nashville, is bored with her life. More excitement than she wants comes her way when a local P.I. lands her in the middle of a murder investigation. Soon she suspects the killing is related not only to a twenty-year-old crime, but to her own past as well. When bullets and rumors start to fly in her direction, she finds herself abandoned by friends, shunned by business associates, and targeted for murder. But why? For the answers, Willi must walk alone down the thin line between life and death, where past and future meet, the Midnight Hour.

Click Here to read an excerpt from Mary's first novel, Midnight Hour "Great voice.... One of the best first novels I've read since Hank went to Jesus." -- Kinky Friedman "In the crowded world of detectives, Nashville studio singer Willi Taft is a unique and appealing character--how could you not like an ex-smoker whose dog hides packs of cigarettes and has to be bribed to sniff them out in an emergency? Seeing backstage Music Row through her eyes is great. I'm looking forward to her next outing. -- Susan Dunlap Midnight Hour is the debut of a really appealing new voice in Southern mystery fiction! Willi Taft is ascerbic, fast on her feet, and with an attitude that makes me love her and laugh. Welcome to the party, Mary Saums! -- Steven Womack, Edgar Award-winning author of Dirty Money "Midnight Hour is an impressive debut for Mary Saums. Willi Taft, Nashville backup singer, is a warm, intelligent woman with a fierce temper that erupts, volcano-like, when you least expect it. Willi is brave and tenacious, and when her boyfriend finally figures she'd make a good private eye, the reader can only applaud. Saums clearly knows her Nashville and her characters are surprising and fascinating, with truth at their core." -- Charlaine Harris