The chief of police of Jarrett Creek, Texas, doubles as the town drunk. So when Dora Lee Parjeter is murdered, her old friend and former police chief Samuel Craddock steps in. He discovers that a lot of people may have had it in for Dora Lee the conniving rascals on the farm next door, her estranged daughter, and her live-in grandson. And then there s that stranger Dora Lee claimed was spying on her. As Craddock digs to find the identity of the killer, the human foibles of the small-town residents their pettiness and generosity, their secret vices and true virtues are also revealed."

"She was a dangerous girl and people think she'll be a dangerous woman."
Nonie Blake is back home from a mental institution where she has spent the last twenty years, and people in Jarrett Creek are worried. Maybe too worried, for within a week of her return, Nonie is murdered.
Chief Samuel Craddock thinks the only possible suspects are members of her tight-lipped family. Ever since Nonie tried to kill her sister when she was fourteen and was sent away to the institution, the family has kept to itself.
Clues are scarce and Craddock is stumped. So he checks with therapists at the...