Series with a sassy heroine

"In Syracuse, New York, a tough-talking, shotgun-toting, ex-debutante gets in over her head in a twenty-year-old murder investigation"

Second in the series Tough-talking former debutante Madeline Dare navigates the darker side of her tenure at a boarding school for emotionally disturbed teens, questioning the school head's credibility and forging an unlikely alliance with a small group of rebels.

Ex-debutante Madeline Dare is a fallen WASP with a stinging wit. The one-time newspaper reporter seems to find murder and mayhem wherever she goes. The mordant Dare discovers, in a New York cemetery housing her ancestors, the remains of what was clearly an abused boy. What cruel soul could have beaten three-year-old Teddy Underhill to death? High on the suspect list are the boy's deadbeat mother, Angela, and her equally unsavory boyfriend, Albert, who claims the child wandered off while he was taking a nap. Madeline finds herself immersed in the case, while her husband, Dean, spends his days working for Christoph, a neo-Nazi businessman. This one I especially enjoyed because of the author's family connection to the story...