Burying the Lede

In the chilling opening chapter of LeValley’s promising debut, an unnamed hired killer breaks into an isolated farmhouse in Orney, Iowa, and shoots to death Jerry and Anne Ennis in their bedroom. The hit man plants a bag containing methamphetamine in the kitchen, and leaves the couple’s two young daughters to find their parents’ corpses. Hints suggest that the murderer may be one of the first responders called to the crime scene. The authorities are stymied, until a check of firearms owned by locals connects the bullets that killed the Ennises with a rifle owned by Ralph Wells, whose own sister says that he’d threatened Jerry for having cheated him in a drug deal. Wells is convicted, but enterprising journalist Tony Harrington isn’t satisfied, and pursues the case to get to the bottom of what really happened. LeValley draws on his own experience as a newspaper reporter to give the mystery an authentic feel. Fans of reporter sleuths such as Bruce DeSilva’s Liam Mulligan will be pleased. (Self-published)