After a crossbow killing at a cheap roadside motel, Ozarks police
chief Arly Hanks finds herself investigating her first murder case.
Her marriage over and career gone bust, Arly Hanks flees Manhattan for
her hometown: Maggody, Arkansas. In a town this size, nothing much ever
happens, so Arly figures she's safe as the town's first female chief of
police--until the husband of one of the local barmaids escapes from
state prison and heads for town. And that's not all. An EPA official
with ties to polluting the local fishing hole has suddenly vanished off
the face of the earth.
As if two manhunts aren't enough to contend with, a body has been
discovered at the pay-by-the-hour Flamingo Motel, shot clean through the
neck with an arrow. For some reason, Maggody's residents--all 755 of
them--have gone tight-lipped, stonewalling Arly's investigations, and
Arly hasn't a soul to trust but her half-wit deputy. Now, as Maggody's
finest, she'll have to show a little muscle and a lot of cunning to
curtail the inhospitable mountain malice that's overtaken her town. And
she'll have to watch her own back every step of the way.