The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake: A Samuel Craddock Mystery

Nonie Blake is back home from a mental institution where she has spent the last twenty years, and people are worried. Maybe too worried, for within a week of her return, Nonie is murdered. Police 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 mental hospital to see whether they can add anything useful to his investigation. But he discovers that she has not been there for ten years. Now Craddock has to find out where Nonie has been all this time. Soon Craddock finds himself dealing not only with murder, but layers of deception and secrets, and in the midst of it all—a new deputy, one Maria Trevino, sent by the sheriff to beef up security in the small town of Jarrett Creek.

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: 9781633881204
Format: Paperback
Pages: 255
Publisher: Seventh Street Books
Published: January 12, 2016

FINALIST: Left Coast Crime Award for Best Novel

“In small towns, secrets won't stay buried and the past is never dead. But murder, however necessary it might seem, is still against the law. The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake is another fine outing for police chief Samuel Craddock, with all the finely observed details of small-town life and quirky characters that readers have come to expect in the novels of Terry Shames, and it’s sure to win her even more fans.”

—BILL CRIDER, author of the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series

PRAISE FOR THE SAMUEL CRADDOCK MYSTERIES

“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."