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Amazon
Kindle
Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Kindle
ISBN-10: 1499375646
Type: Fiction
Pages: 358
Copyright: Feb 2 1984
ISBN-13: 9781499375640
Mayfield is a small town in southern Georgia where brotherhood and trust abounds. Mayfield a perfect place to grow up, marry, and raise children. That is, until a horrible series of events began to turn the town and all its residents completely upside down.
Mayfield is a friendly town where everyone else knows everyone. Complete trust abounds, and the residents share a common pride in their collective belonging.
Winds of change are signaled by the brutal, senseless slaughter of twenty three cattle in an open pasture for apparently no good reason other than to signal the foreboding in what is yet to come.
There is but one clue. One that is very disturbing indeed because it points to the scion of the town's most wealthy and influential family.
The task of unraveling the mystery falls to the local sheriff. A man who must have that family's support to continue in his job. The sheriff is left with no choice but to investigate. Equal to his discomfort is the delight it brings to not too intellectual chief deputy since he has a personal grudge against the suspect. Shortly after the investigation begins, a well-known alcoholic, who is a personal friend of the sheriff, is ritually murdered.
Almost nonexistent clues lead back to the scion once again, but he has an airtight alibi. Having spent the entire night in the arms of a beautiful prostitute, and has a multitude of witnesses to verify his claim. Still, doubt remains.
The only person who can clear the matter up completely is the prostitute herself. But before the sheriff is able to question her, she, and a local hobo, is brutally murdered. After they are dead, the murderer paints their faces as beautiful, grotesque clowns.
Concrete evidence begins to form indicating the chief deputy might have been right all along. But at the same time, the people of Mayfield begin to believe they have visited by some horrible, unspeakable evil in the form of a man. But before the facts can be fully assembled, a missed assignment, and an unsuccessful knife attack on the sheriff sidetracks the investigation. The picture is further complicated as the usually docile, law abiding citizens of Mayfield rise up to take the law into their own hands in the face of the carnage that is seemingly impossible to stop.
Excerpt
I'm sorry, Rudy, of course you know a homicide when you see one. Where did you find the body? Dumped in the creek?”
“No, sir, this one wasn't dumped. The body was left right here where we are now. And not too long ago either, if my guess is right.”
The sheriff began to mentally prepare himself and began to formulate a plan of action before arriving at the scene of the crime. Already dreading the answer, he asked, “Rudy is the victim a man or a woman?”
“It's a man, Sheriff.”
“Do you recognize the victim?”
“No, sir, I don't know who it was, Sheriff, and nobody down here does either. All I can say for sure at this point in time, is the victim is definitely a male.”
“I take it the victim was a stranger to Mayfield.”
“Sheriff, I really don't know if the victim was a stranger or not.”
“Rudy, I thought you said it wasn't long since the crime happened.”
“I did indeed say that, Sheriff.”
“If that's the case, Rudy, why the hell can't you tell me if the victim was a stranger or not?”
“Because, Sheriff,” Rudy answered and paused momentarily to build the drama, “the body ain’t got no head!”
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