A Deadly Affair at Bobtail Ridge

February 9, 2015
In Shames’s winning fourth Samuel Craddock mystery (after 2014’s Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek), the laconic Texas lawman takes up a case based on the incoherent mutterings of a dying woman, Vera Sandstone. It’s not really a case as such, since Vera cautioned that her daughter, Samuel’s longtime neighbor and county prosecutor Jenny Sandstone, might be in some kind of mortal danger. At first, he doesn’t take Vera’s warning very seriously, and neither does Jenny, but when attacks are made on Jenny’s beloved horses and then on her, he’s inclined to keep a closer eye on things. However, the more he presses Jenny for details—especially about her mysteriously estranged brother, Eddie, whom he suspects might be a person of interest—the more she withdraws. Craddock moseys among the locals, following his keen instincts and sorting clues, until reaching a satisfying resolution. Agent: Gail Fortune, Talbot Fortune Agency.

February 1, 2015
A semiretired lawman helps a friend and finds a murderer. Samuel Craddock lands the job as acting chief of police when his Texas town is too broke to hire anyone else. His friend county prosecutor Jenny Sandstone is a very private person whose privacy is shattered when her mother, following a stroke, asks Samuel to find someone named Howard and protect Jenny from unspecified danger. Jenny doesn't want to talk to Samuel about it, even after her mother dies. In spite of her silence, he discovers that Howard was the father who walked out on her family years before. Jenny also refuses to discuss her estranged brother, Edward, even when he shows up claiming their mother left her home to him and only its contents to Jenny. Meanwhile, someone's harassing Jenny by attacking her beloved horses, first letting them out of their pasture, then putting a rattlesnake into one of the stalls. When Samuel gets a friend to look after the horses, he's attacked. Digging into Jenny's old cases and her closely guarded past, Samuel finds a dangerous meth cooker and his son, who have a grudge against her. When Jenny's run off the road, Samuel steps up his investigation in an effort to discover who's trying to kill her. Although you may beat the detective to the solution in Samuel's fourth case (Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek, 2014, etc.), getting there is a heck of a ride.

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March 1, 2015

Though he's semiretired, Samuel Craddock is still the law in his small Texas town of Jarrett Creek. When good friend and neighbor Jenny Sandstone tells him that her mother is at death's door, Samuel visits Vera Sandstone at the hospital in nearby Bobtail. Although barely lucid, Vera is clear when she warns Samuel that Jenny may be in danger and gives him a cryptic message about locating a long-lost woman from the family's past. When Vera dies, Samuel, worried that the already private Jenny will retreat even further, discreetly starts looking into her family history. Things get dicey when Jenny's estranged brother, Eddie, shows up unexpectedly, claiming that Vera changed her will at the last minute to include him. Determined to both preserve his longstanding friendship with Jenny as well as uncover the hidden knowledge in her past, Samuel must balance his role as law enforcer and concerned friend. VERDICT Shames wonderfully evokes small-town Texas life and Samuel is a slow-talking but certainly not slow-witted hero squarely in the Walt Longmire vein. This emotional fourth installment (after Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek) from the Macavity Award winner will surely satisfy series fans.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2015
A tiny town in Texas wouldn't seem to have much in common with an English village early in the last century. Just as aging lawman Samuel Craddock, with his bum leg and his pickup truck, wouldn't remind you right off of Miss Marple. Still, both sleuths are deceptively low-key while alert to the little detail that doesn't fit. They're insiders, part of the milieu they're investigating. They interview witnesses over cake and coffee in polite parlors. And Jane Marple would recognize the situation here: an old sin that should have been confronted years ago was covered up. Now it's emerging and turning deadly. Craddock's aged friend Vera Sandstone, near death, asks him to protect her daughter. He has no idea what she's talking about, but menacing things start to happen and Craddock must limp about asking questions. Gentility, Marple and Craddock know, makes for pleasant surfaces but also allows things to fester in the dark. Shames' restrained prose is the perfect vehicle for a story about secrets that were kept secret for too long.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)