THE THREE MISS MARGARETS by Louise Shaffer, 2003.
If you enjoy the likes of Fannie Flagg, this may appeal to you. Set in a small town in southern Georgia, the  main part of the story involves a dark secret buried for years. Laurel Selene McCready, a white trash reporter for the local paper, starts digging around after meeting an out of town writer working on a book concerning a former resident, Vashti Johnson. Miss Peggy, Dr. Maggie, and Miss Li'l Bit, who have known each other for years, are solid citizens of Charles Valley, Georgia, and thirty years before, they helped do a terrible thing--they hid the truth about a murder in order to protect someone close to them. In so doing, however, other lives were affected in various ways. When Laurel starts poking around and asking questions, old memories are stirred up and loyalties tested. These women must decide whether it's the right time to reveal the truth about what happened. Enjoyable, suspenseful, with plenty of quirky characters, strong regional flavor, and humor. It's partly a mystery, but it's mostly about friendship, loyalty, righting wrongs, and forgiveness.