"Carolyn Banks has a sense of style and wit." --The New York Times BEAD, TEXAS, IS A DEAD END. Little white houses, the yard-of-the-week competition, new hanging files in the insurance company--that's about it for Bead. Not even the hit-and-run death of the editor of the Bead Weekly rouses this Texas backwater from its torpor. But nosy newcomer Robin Vaughan, hunting for a place to board her two cherished horses, sniffs trouble in this tumbleweed paradise. While her husband, Jeet, settles in as the new editor of the newspaper, reckless Robin asks incautious questions. Why is a famous equestrienne, a star in the exclusive world of dressage, holed up on a rundown farm? Who's the lurking local clone of Norman Bates in Psycho? Is it senility that makes old Boone DeWitt claim he's oil rich? Who killed nice Townsend Loving and why? Before she knows it, Robin's headed for a dead end of her own. . . . "Banks's technique . . . is as sharp as any killer's knife blade." --The Washington Post "Crisply flip dialogue is her métier." --Los Angeles Times