A Writer's Ending

Jeb Nelson, a struggling writer, is killed the morning after attending a Fourth of July party at Bishop Bone's cabin. Another high-profile case the sheriff is anxious to close quickly, he asks Bishop to investigate. Bone soon learns Nelson was a 'ladies writer' who was used to the ladies swooning over him - and had been more than happy to oblige their desires. But according to his fiancée, Carrie, those frolics were in the past. Still, there were several husbands having an axe to grind with Nelson who made Bone's list of suspects. Also suspect was another writer who claimed Nelson stole his idea for a book. And Nelson's recently fired agent and his publisher who Nelson had recently confronted. Some of Nelson's books were considered blasphemous by two prominent country preachers who damned him to hell, but surely they wouldn't have killed him...? Bone's investigation is almost more than he can manage as he follows numerous dead-end leads, defends himself in an attack, dodges being shot, and barely avoids falling victim to an old fashioned 'shell game.' In the end, it's an odd habit of one of his neighbors that helps him find Nelson's killer. And in the process, also gives the murdered writer's career, which had been going nowhere, a well-deserved boost.