A Killing at Cotton Hill: A Samuel Craddock Mystery

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.

Terry Shames is the Macavity Award-winning author of the Samuel Craddock mysteries A Killing at Cotton Hill, The Last Death of Jack Harbin, Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek, and A Deadly Affair at Bobtail Ridge. She is also the coeditor of Fire in the Hills, a book of stories, poems, and photographs about the 1991 Oakland Hills Fire. She grew up in Texas and continues to be fascinated by the convoluted loyalties and betrayals of the small town where her grandfather was the mayor. Terry is a member of the Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime.

ISBN: 9781616147990
Format: Paperback
Pages: 240
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Published: July 16, 2013

WINNER! Macavity Award for Best First Mystery

FINALIST: Strand Magazine Critics Awards, Best First Novel

FINALIST: Left Coast Crime Award for Best Novel

“There may be no protagonist in our genre today as decently compelling as Samuel Craddock. And there may be no better chronicler of the character and complexity of small-town America than Terry Shames."

—WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER, author of the Cork O'Connor Mystery Series