Contrary Blues

This exceptional first mystery combines humor and menace in Contrary, West Virginia

When a colleague dies on assignment, Federal Department of Transportation inspector Owen Allison is assigned to finish the job: investigating a scare that centers on the bus system in a small coal-mining town. The wisecracking townspeople are a welcome change from the bureaucrats back in Washington -- until the local gadfly is killed on a back road, and Owen becomes a suspect and a target in a place where smiles can hide deadly secrets.