Showing The Freshour Cylinders by Speer Morgan

Winner of the American Book Award. Perfect vacation mystery.

Tom Freshour needs a vacation. It's the dusty, hot summer of 1934, and he'd like to escape both the heat in western Arkansas and his cases at the county prosecutor's office for the calm and solitude of a fishing trip. But his old Ford won't start, and while it's being repaired, an eccentric and enigmatic collector of Indian artifacts is brutally murdered.

It doesn't help matters that the executor of the collector's estate is Rainy Davis, a beautiful, intelligent young archaeologist who's uncertain why she was appointed to oversee the estate of a man whom she'd met only once.

Nor does it help that the most formidable county judge has asked personally that Freshour take the case. But Freshour agrees, drawing himself into a tense and violent investigation of murder, political scandal, and some very private affairs.

In this suspenseful literary mystery, Speer Morgan takes us back to the events surrounding the discovery and destruction of the Spiro Mound, the most significant pre-Columbian temple mound ever found in North America. Weaving history with the compelling story of murder, broken hearts, and greed, Morgan gives us one of the most engrossing, sexy, and suspenseful reads of the year.

“…[a] memorable, riveting read.”
— Wally Lamb

“Morgan’s narrative has a taste of hard-boiled detective flavor and is enlivened with chase scenes and revenge, secret passages and steamy romance. Its campy setting is richly portrayed and its sleazy politics are sadly familiar…. Both ambitious and canny, Morgan’s book is also good old-fashioned fun.”
— The Seattle Times

“The sense of place envelops and immerses the reader, creating a verisimilitude that is honest, appealing and original. Morgan also peoples this intense landscape with some of the most well defined, realistic and memorable characters that I have come across in recent years.”
— ForeWord