Do you remember "I've Got a Secret?" It was a popular TV program that premiered in 1952. Celebrity panelists tried to determine a contestant's secret: something that was unusual, amazing, embarrassing or humorous about that person. That’s what I thought while reading “Bless Your Heart,” the first-time thriller written by Leigh Dunlap. The only difference is that all the characters in the book (except possibly one) have a secret.
While I’m usually able to determine the “guilty party” in most novels, I didn’t see this ending coming. Don’t make the mistake of skipping to the last page. Read “Bless Your Heart” and imagine which actors or actresses might play the roles if the book becomes a movie.
A native of Los Angeles, Leigh Dunlap studied screenwriting at the University of Southern California. She was the screenwriter for “A Cinderella Story.” Leigh also wrote a film script called "Smash" about a teenage tennis romantic comedy that formed the basis of “16-Love.”
"Bless Your Heart" revolves around two Atlanta Police Department detectives working to solve the death at Chastain Park of financial adviser Anderson Tupper, a handsome, charismatic Little League coach and a member of one of Atlanta's richest families. Additional pressure is being placed on the detectives to solve the death quickly because there is a campaign for Buckhead to secede from the city of Atlanta and take its tax revenue with it.
Who might be responsible? Was it the old-money queen of Buckhead? The mysterious new writer in town? The drug-dealing trophy wife? The former Georgia football hero and Heisman Trophy winner? This book has plenty of likely suspects with motives ranging from greed to jealousy to marital discord. The question isn't so much "Who would want Anderson dead?" The bigger question is "Who didn't want him dead?"
Wealth alone cannot buy true happiness for these "Buckhead Betty" characters, who either came from money, married into money or, in the case of Venita, shepherded their husband's career path into wealth. An unhealthy focus on wealth can lead to harmful choices. Was that the motive, or was it something else? Are there other unlikely suspects and a different motive? Get prepared to be surprised.
Leigh Dunlap currently splits her time between South Carolina and the United Kingdom. She told attendees at a recent Buckhead Heritage Speaker Series program that the twin catastrophes of the pandemic and the writer’s strike led her to write her debut novel “Bless Your Heart.”
Leigh said every city of any size has the equivalent of a “Buckhead Betty.” Having lived in Buckhead with children long enough, every character in the book is, in a way, a reflection of her experience here.