The most important party of the Savannah Christmas season ends with a bang when affable host Jim Williams shoots a man to death. The party is over; the investigation begins.

When the affable host of an elegant Christmas party shoots a man to death, his friends discover secrets that make them less eager to help with his courtroom defense.

In charming, beautiful, and wealthy old-South Savannah, Georgia, the local bad boy is shot dead inside of the opulent mansion of a gay antiques dealer, and a gripping trial follows.

"Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty, early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative reads like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction. Berendt skillfully interweaves a hugely entertaining first-person account of life in this isolated remnant of the Old South with the unpredictable twists and turns of a landmark murder case." "It is a spellbinding story peopled by a gallery of remarkable characters: the well-bred society ladies of the Married Woman's Card Club; the turbulent young redneck gigolo; the hapless recluse who owns a bottle of poison so powerful it could kill every man, woman, and child in Savannah; the aging and profane Southern belle who is the "soul of pampered self-absorption"; the uproariously f

Affable Jim Williams is hosting one of the most important parties of the Savannah Christmas season. John Kelso is a magazine reporter who finds himself amid the beautiful architecture and odd doings to write a feature on the party. He is intrigued by Williams from the start, but his curiosity is piqued when he meets Jim's violent, young and sexy lover, Billy. Later that night, Billy is dead, and Kelso stays on to cover the murder trial. Between being Jim's buddy, cuddling up to a torch singer, meeting every eccentric in Savannah, participating in midnight graveyard rituals and helping solve the mysteries surrounding Billy's murder, Kelso has his hands full.