Tidewater Blood

As a maiden voyage into the choppy waters of suspense, this virtually seamless 11th novel from the acclaimed Hoffman (Follow Me Home) is a rousing success. The abused, outcast youngest son of an arrogant Tidewater, Va., patriarch becomes the unwitting fall guy for the macabre bombing assassination of his oldest brother's entire family on the occasion of the clan's 250th anniversary celebration. Falsely accused, broke and friendless, black sheep Charles LeBlanc flees injustice for Montana but soon discovers there's no place to hide until he clears his name. Following a tenuous trail back to his roots (half-literally, in the family's once prosperous but long abandoned coal mines in the wilds of southeastern West Virginia), he stays a half-jump ahead of his pursuers as he is befriended by an ancient mountain woman and a brassy, one-eyed publican with a heartbreaking past of her own. As the net closes around him, LeBlanc uncovers the moldy notebook of one of his father's employees, and the serpentine trail leads back to the bomb-charred ruins of the baronial Virginia mansion. Murky family secrets, long-festering bitterness and diabolical vengeance swirl to the surface in a satisfying denouement. No doubt about it, Hoffman's honed literary skills serve him well even when he lets plot do the driving. (Apr.)