In this award-winning debut mystery novel, the chief of police of a small town is also an unreliable drunk. So when Dora Lee Parjeter is murdered, her old friend and former police chief Samuel Craddock steps in to investigate. 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 Jarrett Creek's residents—their pettiness and generosity, their secret vices and true virtues—are also revealed.