A DEADLY AFFAIR AT BOBTAIL RIDGE

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.