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Category: Mystery/Crime
Description: SBI Agent Logan Hunter ends up just north of Luck, on the trail of a sociopath. Can she stop the bloody killing spree? In the mountains of North Carolina a high school custodian is found suffocated in plastic. A music teacher is beaten to death a few weeks later. Agent Hunter is already in the area working on another case when she's assigned to help Moss County detective Chase Railey track down the killer. Logan rents a room in the home of art teacher Taryn Kosterman, in the community of Trust. Over the next few months she deals with quirky characters and frustrating dead ends. As she spends time getting to know Chase she also has a chance to experience some unusual local festivals, and her first taste of love. Murders of school system personnel continue and get increasingly gruesome. Evidence is hard to come by but soon Logan has enough to search the main suspect's home. After a wild chase a mudslide dumps Logan and the killer into the French Broad River--only one of them will walk away?
eBook Publisher: L&L Dreamspell/L&L Dreamspell, 2009 Spring, Texas
eBookwise Release Date: September 2009

1 Reader Ratings:

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Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [290 KB]
Words: 59473
Reading time: 169-237 min.

"Just south of sanity!" Genevieve Harris, Apex Reviews; "?weaves a tale that leaves us breathless?" Sylvia Dickey Smith, author of the Sidra Smart Mystery Series; "?Whitfield has created a unique supporting cast of Appalachian characters..." Maggie Bishop, Murder At Blue Falls; "Just North of Luck is a murder mystery in a beautiful Appalachian setting. The characters are real, the action and pace fast and smooth, the murders bloody...with just the right amount of humor." John Foxjohn, Cold Tears.

He hurled his coat into his camo truck and lit a cigarette. Dr. Janah Zack, the Dulcimer High School principal, gave him five minutes to get off the school campus. She'd fired him for peeping at girls in the locker room. He sneered. He'd been doing it for years, those firm asses just begging to be watched. High-school girls had such good-looking hard bodies in little skirts with bright colored thongs showing where their tops didn't meet. They didn't mind advertising their assets. Smart enough not to touch them, he sure did enjoy looking, envying the high school boys who didn't even know how good they had it.

Where he'd made his mistake today was stepping on the tip of that damned broom, sending the handle over to hit the janitor's closet door with a loud bang. The sound spooked the girls, and one darted to the office while two others opened the closet door to reveal him.

I should've run.

But that wasn't his style. He figured he could talk his way out of it, but Dr. Zack didn't buy his story, and the school's deputy detained him while she and the assistant principal went to check the closet--unlocked, a violation of the Madison County Safe Schools Policy. Zack found tiny holes in the door large enough to peek through. They'd been bored with a drill bit, sealing his fate since he always carried his tools, including a drill and bits, in his truck.

He stomped out the cigarette and opened the truck door. John Roman, the head custodian, approached with his self-righteous attitude and puppy-dog eyes.

"I warned you about messing with those girls. Dr. Zack called the superintendent. She wants your school keys." He ignored Roman's outstretched palm and walked around the truck, kicking each tire as though he were checking the air in them, taking his time with the demand. Roman followed.

He stopped and lit another cigarette, blowing smoke in Roman's face before he dropped the keys on the steel ring in the janitor's callused hand and climbed into the truck, not uttering a word. He cranked it and drove off, dropping down the steep drive where the sixteen buses were parked, past the school mascot sign with the stupid-looking moose, and read the words on it as he drove out: Dulcimer High School of Distinction--Succeeding with the ABCs. He could come up with his own meaning for the ABCs, he thought with a grin. No one knew about his other set of keys.

Git out from behind that thar chair and git in the bed. It'll all be over in a few minutes and you can cry your pussy face to sleep.