The Necessary Murder of Nonie Blake: A Samuel Craddock Mystery

In Shames’s engrossing fifth Samuel Craddock mystery (after 2015’s A Deadly Affair at Bobtail Ridge), the return of Winona “Nonie” Blake, who was sent to an institution near Dallas 20 years earlier, at age 14, after she tried to hang her younger sister, has the town of Jarrett Creek, Tex., talking—especially when Nonie is soon after found dead. When Craddock, Jarrett Creek’s police chief, investigates, Nonie’s uncooperative relatives attempt to keep some mysterious family secret hidden. Maria Trevino, a brash young deputy sent from Houston, provides Craddock with valuable assistance and teaches the affable old lawman a thing or two about modern police work. The discovery that Nonie was released from the institution 10 years earlier, not recently as Craddock was assuming, raises the stakes. The authentic small-town ambiance, a cast of meticulously developed characters, and Craddock’s easygoing, first-person narrative should more than satisfy series fans. Agent: Janet Reid, FinePrint Literary Management. (Jan.)