Blood on the Branding Iron

The chairman of the Black Hollow Creek centennial committee is dead in the livestock pavilion, and the murder weapon is a branding iron from Josie Vance's own store. Her brother is in county lockup, the sheriff isn't looking too hard at anyone else, and the Vescari family owns most of the land, most of the judges, and most of the secrets. Marco Vescari is the family's lawyer, a man who left Black Hollow Creek at eighteen and came back to keep his uncle out of prison. He walks into Josie's feed store and offers to help. Together they uncover forty years of forged deeds, one dead clerk, and a sheriff who's been taking money to look the other way. Josie solves the case with town gossip and a hidden land grant. Marco solves it by turning in his own blood. In Black Hollow Creek, justice and family are the same word. This time they mean it.