Description:

Street-smart and straightforward police chief Cuddy Mangum and his refined homicide detective Justin Savile V are determined to keep their town's cultural, political and racial divisions stable...even peaceful. But when a young black activist is murdered while in the process of fighting for his brother's freedom from death row, the lines keeping Hillston, North Carolina, in balance start to crumble. Thrust into a dirty political campaign and torn between his morals and his love for the wealthy and beautiful wife of an up-and-coming politician, Cuddy must uncover the secrets that lie in his own backyard. From high-powered and elegant country club ballrooms to dark and dangerous bar room corners, Malone weaves a mystery of plot and place where the difference between good and evil and right and wrong sometimes become indistinct. ** ### From Publishers Weekly Malone, who in Handling Sin emerged as one of the most entertaining portraitists of the new South, has penned another leisurely, winning chronicle, this time placing two murder investigations against a backdrop populated with dozens of sharply drawn characters. Narrated by "Cuddy" Mangum, the enlightened redneck police chief of Hillston, the novel unfolds as a tale of multilayered injustice. As protesters seek to win a retrial for a black prisoner slated to die for shooting a white cop, the inmate's brother, a local activist, is slain by a drive-by sniper. Mangum's investigation turns up slime under every rock, quickly growing to encompass his own department, white supremacist hate groups and even the race for state governor. It's an intriguing plot, and Malone doesn't rush it; everyone from a drunken hillbilly to an aristocratic daughter of the Confederacy gets a turn in the spotlight. What keeps the tale from seeming aimless, aside from Malone's deft observations and anecdotes, is his hero, as engaging a tour guide through this peripatetic narrative as anyone could ask. Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. ### About the Author Michael Malone is the literate and compassionate voice of the new American South. Critically acclaimed as one of the country's finest writers, his great gift for crafting remarkable and enduring comedies, as he did in Handling Sin, Dingley Falls and Foolscap, is matched only by his ability to deliver riveting suspense and mystery. Now, after a long absence, Michael Malone has returned to the scene of the crime. He has also come home to the South. He now lives in Hillsborough, North Carolina, with his wife, Maureen Quilligan, chair of the English department at Duke University.