The Last Death of Jack Harbin

November 11, 2013
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.

December 1, 2013
A retired sheriff takes on a tricky case of murder. Jarrett Creek is one of those East Texas towns where most people know your business and football is king. The locals are in a bad mood when their team loses the first game of the season after the popular coach inexplicably benches the star quarterback. Former star quarterback Jack Harbin is a regular at the games even though he's blind and lost a leg in the Gulf War. He and his best buddy, Woody Patterson, had enlisted together, but when Woody was turned down, he married the lovely and popular Taylor, who'd never been able to make up her mind between them. Although Taylor's now remarried to a lawyer, Jack still isn't talking to Woody. Abandoned by a mother who left town when she couldn't take the strain, Jack's been cared for by his father, Bob. When Bob suddenly dies of an apparent heart attack, various townspeople join Jack's veteran buddies to help out until Jack is viciously stabbed to death. Since the sheriff is a drunk who's currently drying out, the town council asks former sheriff Samuel Craddock to find the killer. Atop his list of suspects is Jack's brother Curtis, who lives with his wife, Taylor's sister, and their children in a compound near Waco peopled by paranoid crazies. Curtis, who never liked his brother, stands to inherit a large sum. But Sam, whose skills are sharp as ever, starts to uncover some strange things in Jack's past and finds $10,000 missing from Jack's bank account. Shames' second (A Killing at Cotton Hill, 2013) is a nifty whodunit whose broad range of characters successfully captures the flavor of small-town Texas.

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Starred review from December 1, 2013

Right at the height of football season, Jarrett Creek, TX, turns out to be a hotbed of crime. Retired police chief Samuel Craddock is asked to investigate the shocking death of disabled (blind and wheelchair-bound) veteran Jack Harbin, right on the heels of Harbin's father's (who was Jack's primary caregiver) sudden death. People want to blame Jack's estranged brother, but Samuel keeps unearthing details that point him elsewhere. Meanwhile, high school football coach Boone Eldridge has been acting strangely, and now he's missing. Boone's wife fears the worst. Then the parallel stories intersect, creating a whoosh of excitement that's guaranteed to keep readers up all night. VERDICT Shames's sophomore series entry (after A Killing at Cotton Hill) highlights her comfortable storytelling style. The lead's folksy tone belies astute detecting, and the plotting will dazzle readers. Consider for fans of Margaret Maron, Steven Havill, and Bill Crider--all "regional" writers with universal appeal.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2013
Don't be misled. Shames' novel is set in a Texas country town and peopled by folks named Lurleen and Marybeth and an aging lawman with a cane for his bad knee, who calls a murder scene a dreadful sight. But know that you're not getting a sampling of the wisdom of simple souls. This is a perceptive look, written with style and tight discipline, into a hermetic society in which everythinga night out gone bad, a high-school football gameassumes colossal proportions. Jack Harbin is a blind, one-legged Vietnam vet brutally murdered for no apparent reason. It's for Samuel Craddock, a retired lawman pressed into service because the current police chief is a boozer, to limp around asking questions until the truth comes out. The details are mundane, going from disability checks to bottles of cold medicine, and for all the interlocking small-town dramas, the solution to the mystery hinges on the sudden appearance of two out-of-towners. They look different. They don't belong. Getting involved with outsiders was the killer's major mistake. A gritty take on small-town crime.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)