A Legacy of Vengeance (1994) is the first novel by John Armistead, a Baptist preacher from Tupelo, Mississippi. Tension develops between whites and blacks in a Mississippi hill community when four murders appear linked to events of thirty years ago.

Another first novel is Dark of the Moon (1999) by P.J. Parrish, the pseudonym for a writing team of two sisters. When a hunter uncovers the bones of a lynching victim, a cop with a mixed-race heritage sets out to uncover the truth.