The Last Death of Jack Harbin: A Samuel Craddock Mystery

In Shames’s absorbing second Samuel Craddock mystery (after 2013’s A Killing at Cotton Hill), best friends and high school football stars Woody Patterson and Jack Harbin pledge to go into the Army together. Their plans go terribly awry when Woody is rejected and Jack is forced to face the horrors of combat in the first Gulf War. Fast-forward to present-day Jarrett Creek, Tex., where Jack is a broken, tormented veteran and Woody is happily married with children. The suspicious death of Jack’s father, who is also his caretaker, unleashes a series of events that exposes the seamy side of the quiet football-loving town and its clean-living residents. When a second death—the brutal slaying of Jack—turns Jarrett Creek upside down, former sheriff Craddock investigates. A methodical thinker with his own dark side, Craddock once again wins the reader over en route to a satisfying conclusion. Agent: Gail Fortune, Talbot Fortune Agency. (Jan.)