Stories From the Sheriff’s Daughter is a beautifully written short novel that follows the life of a nine-year-old girl who moves to a small-town Texas county jail when her dairy farmer father is elected sheriff. In these engaging episodes, sometimes funny, sometimes tragic, days in small-town Texas in the 1950s and 60s spring to life. The family’s house is only separated from the jail by a carport, so the sheriff’s daughter grows up in the jail’s environment of lawmen, prisoners, and politics. She bumps up against some of life’s worst tragedies, including murder, rape, and suicide,...