Dead Wrong is the story of a brutal murder and a lawman's struggle against powerful forces to keep his job, his family and his belief in himself while tracking down the one clear suspect. Arrayed against him are a political and personal enemy, an adversarial press, and the tight-lipped medical and forensics experts who lead him to conclusions that time and again turn out to be dead wrong. Can the obvious suspect be the killer if his blood type does not match the specimen found on the body? Could the simple-minded cab driver who found the body be clever enough to act so dumb? Why are the parents of a suspect with virtually no evidence against him shielding him from even routine questioning if that would clear his name? With his department budget cut to the bone, Sheriff Walker Whitlow must rely on a single deputy, an aged jailer with failing eyesight and hearing, and a local housewife's gossip grapevine in an investigation that culminates with a slam-bang car chase through a traffic jam to capture the killer. "The clues are hidden where readers will never see them--right before their eyes."
From the Author
This story grew from an actual murder in my hometown many years ago, but as I look at the book now, I realize it is much more about the mystery of people than about events to be untangled. Why does a poorly paid public servant like the sheriff in this poverty pocket of southeastern Ohio dedicate himself to pursuing justice when county commissioners and his own wife make clear they think he is wasting time, when psychiatrists at a VA hospital make many times more money but can do little more than play word games when he asks for help? Where does the impulse come from that causes one person to murder another who embodies beauty and kindness? I think a glimpse of the answers to these questions shows through in "Dead Wrong".
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