Flying Shoes by Lisa Howorth

The author of this book took the adage of write what you know very seriously.  Her stepbrother was raped and killed when she was a child, and she is now an adult--that is the exact situation in this book, where a murder in the distant past has shaped the life of the central character in the novel, Mary Byrd, as well as her family's. 

Mary Byrd is an adult in the book and she is contacted about new information in the murder of her stepbrother and summoned back to Virginia to meet with the detectives on the cold case.  Her half brothers were small children at the time of the murder, but within a few minutes of meeting them it is very clear that the murder shaped their childhood--lots of anger there many years after the event.  The book goes from the present in Mississippi, where Mary Burd lives amongst a group of misfit friends, her time in Virginia, and going back to the time of the murder.  Make no mistake, this is not a murder mystery.  It is a story that includes a murder.