The second murder mystery in Ginny Friedlander Fite’s dark trilogy, No Good Deed Left Undone, is now available at booksellers nationwide. The novel again follows detective Sam Lagarde, a member of the West Virginia State Police based in Jefferson County, as he solves the grisly murder of Grant Wodehouse, found in the barn of his Shenandoah Junction farm with a pitchfork through his heart.

It’s easy to understand why Wodehouse is murdered. Between the volume of women he’s bedded and discarded, business partners he’s swindled, and children he’s ignored, who wouldn’t want him dead? Fite deftly weaves scenes from the victim’s life with the present day investigation by Detective Lagarde, inviting readers to make their own guesses and come to their own conclusions before revealing the answer.

“I was driving slowly through Shenandoah Junction, searching for the house to which I’d been invited,” recalls Fite. “It’s a beautiful ride-typical for the area-winding and hilly roads, long stretches of woods, beautiful farms with barns and horses and an abundance of ‘no hunting’ signs posted.

“Out of the blue, as if the words had blown by my peripheral vision, I thought, ‘What if one of these folks was stabbed to death with a pitchfork in his barn early one morning?’ It’s a dark thought, but behind it was Detective Sam Lagarde telling me another story of murder and mayhem in the bucolic West Virginia Eastern Panhandle where I live. Like Lagarde, I am driven to figure out who the killer is and how the deed was done. So I follow him, word by word, until he wraps up the case.”

Fite adds, “There are no perfect people in No Good Deed Left Undone, no clear heroines or heroes. Everyone is flawed and very human and has something to hide, including Lagarde, who uncovers something about himself from every case he solves, and loses something of himself in the process. As I wrote the novel, I wondered what would eventually happen to Lagarde and I answered that question to my satisfaction, for this novel at least.”

With only one more book in the series to go, readers will have to wait for the release of Lying, Cheating & Occasionally Murder, to see how Lagarde’s story ends.

Fite is an award winning writer and editor. Cromwell’s Folly, the first in the trilogy, was published in October 2015 by Black Opal Books, receiving solid praise. Fite previously published a collection of short stories about love and karma titled What Goes Around, non-fiction essays titled I Should Be Dead by Now (And Other Postmenopausal Lamentations), and two poetry collections, The Pearl Fisher and Throwing Caution. After penning Cromwell’s Folly, she found representation by the Loiacono Literary Agency, which also sold the second novel in Fite’s series, No Good Deed Left Undone, released on Sept. 10.

Her diverse career runs the gamut in journalism and communications. She served as lifestyle editor of The Herald-Mail in Hagerstown, Maryland, editorial manager of DiscoveryHealth.com (part of Discovery Communications) in Bethesda, Maryland, executive editor for women’s health for Phillips Communications in Potomac, Maryland, editor of the Gazette Newspapers in Frederick, Maryland and contributor to Frederick Magazine and The Arundel Observer. She also founded Writercizing, a creative writing program she taught at Frederick Community College. She served as media director, director of internal communications and director of publications for General Dynamics Robotic Systems in Westminster, Maryland, press secretary for Barbara Mikulski, deputy press secretary for a Maryland Governor Harry Hughes (the first female to serve in that role), director of public relations for Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, and assistant director of public relations for Loyola College in Baltimore.

Fite’s next public appearances include Four Seasons Books in Shepherdstown on Oct. 2 at 2 p.m.; 100 Thousand Poets for Change at the Timber Frame Folly at 301 Big Oak Drive in Shepherdstown on Sept. 24 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Charles Town Library on Oct. 13 at 5 p.m.; St. Andrews Mountain Community Center Library in Harpers Ferry on Oct. 15 at 11 a.m.; and The Christmas Marketplace at Charles Washington Hall on Nov. 26 and Dec. 3 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Updates can be found online at ginnyfite.com or her author page on Facebook.