Praise for Southern Lies and Homicides by Susan Lehmann

Susan Lehmann is that rarest of private investigators, and storytellers—one driven by curiosity and dedication and a powerful, perhaps nameless compulsion to dig as deeply as necessary, peeling away layer after layer, through complication after complication, to get at something like the truth—no matter how painful in the end. From her start in the business as a Sue Grafton-reading PI wannabe, to her years-long work on complex cases as a death-penalty mitigation specialist, Lehmann has maintained not only her investigative tenacity, and the skills to match, but also her deep and abiding sense of humanity, all of which she explores in this must-read collection of true tales of her lifetime in the business. Lehmann’s memoir reads at times like the best PI procedurals, and at times like a literary genre of her own making—a meditation on family, and caring, and fear, and loss, and what can be salvaged from all the lost souls among us—including, at times, our own.

This book is a powerful and deeply personal journey through the world of criminal defense investigation and mitigation, as experienced firsthand by the author. Set against the backdrop of the South—primarily Alabama and Georgia—these stories delve into the lives of death row convicts and individuals caught in private crises. With unflinching honesty and compassion, the author brings to light the humanity behind these often-overlooked lives. It took tremendous courage not only to engage with these difficult realities but also to share them so openly. This work stands as a testament to the author’s resolve to ensure these voices are heard.

Susan Lehmann’s collection of in-the-field case stories is an entertaining and candid peek behind the curtain at the real work of private investigations. With a former journalist’s storytelling instincts and a detective’s eye for the perfect, telling detail, Lehmann offers a fascinating highlights reel of her investigative life, describing the daily tediums, human dramas, case-breaking discoveries, and alarming confrontations that make up a PI career. Interspersed with thrilling action sequences are flashes of empathy and insight, as Lehmann illuminates the complicated human lives at the heart of her cases. Southern Lies and Homicides is part memoir and part field guide to process service, surveillance, and mitigation investigations. It’s an essential read for rookie PIs, anyone considering this profession, or spy-curious civilians.

Read Southern Lies and Homicides. In the second part of the book, the author leads the reader through several of her investigations of death penalty appeals. Besides entertaining writing, you will find yourself questioning our justice system. A rare book that entertains and provokes thought.

From completing her first assignment to knowing what to do when a client lies, private investigator and author Susan Lehmann never disappoints in the riveting accounts she’s collected for her new book Southern Lies and Homicides. Lehmann includes in this reader-friendly and personalized book the varied cases that made up a PI business that began with serving legal papers, meeting lawyers and their assistants and befriending the secretaries and gatekeepers who became essential to her success. Her background as a reporter on the crime beat in a Florida newsroom provided the foundation for her expert sleuthing. Every scenario includes Lehmann’s personal dialogue exchanges and thoughts about these intense cases. She offers sound advice along the way. “Never, ever purchase a house that’s down the street from your former spouse.” And this to describe sorting through garbage to gather evidence. “One man’s trash is the plaintiff’s treasure.” Lehmann handles all these cases with finesse and grace. What unfolds in this excellent volume is a non-stop read that will have readers turning pages faster than her ability to locate her clients and capture the culprits.

The lucid stories in Susan Lehmann’s Southern Lies and Homicides are deceptively forthright. and move along at a steady pace holding one’s interest and sparking imagination. Whether recounting tangled lives pursuing the coldly determined ruin of others or the convoluted journeys to tragically inevitable resolution, Lehmann’s narratives are devoid of sentimentality, or the purple language invited by the often unseemly facts. Yet gradually, a humanity emerges built upon the salient details that fleetingly, but movingly expose deep sorrows and lifetimes of never having a chance. It’s not always the guilty who stand convicted in the more poignant stories. Profound and longstanding poverty, a justice system that layers itself over a community’s life, compounding harm rather than relieving it, people living almost next door to redeeming possibilities that never materialize, like ships in the night, these are the elements in her more compelling stories. Each tale is a brush with some forlorn aspect of Americana. We can count ourselves lucky to be on the outside looking in.