Billie Jo

It was love at first sight when an Oklahoma farm boy named Troy met Hettie Elizabeth Lamar. Pearl Harbor had been bombed six months earlier, and a pretty Mississippi belle had arrived in Oklahoma, her parents hoping that a change of scenery might help her recover from the trauma of having recently lost a brother somewhere out in the Pacific during the early days of World War II.
Within a year, Troy and Hettie were happily married, and within another year a beautiful baby girl had come along. The light of her daddy's life, Billie Jo was a bright, normal little girl, full of fun and promise.
From all outward appearances, this was the perfect family. A successful young farmer, a beautiful Southern belle, and a delightful daughter. What could possibly happen to change all of that?
The mystery unfolds against the backdrop of a small Oklahoma farm community, providing an excellent depiction of life in the rural South during the 1940s and early '50s, an era remembered by only a few today. Grissom's true-to-life characters are so real that the reader will be left thinking he actually knew them.
A chilling tale with literary devices that remind the reader of Alfred Hitchcock.