First In Flight — T.R. Pearson

When itinerant lawman Ray Tatum's quick visit to the North Carolina Outer Banks is complicated by a homicide, Ray gets hired to help track down the killer and finds himself locked into a winter at the shore. A string of barrier islands that's two hundred miles from tip to tip, the Outer Banks might be a tourist mecca in the summer, but it's a frigid, wind-ravaged trial more often than not in the off season. Graveyard of the Atlantic indeed. Fortunately for Ray, the seaside desolation suits him right down to the ground. Wry, sour, corrosively funny, Ray Tatum is made for a winter at the beach. Better still, he's a steady, solid cop and a capable addition to a Kill Devil Hills PD in what is surely their worst hour. T. R. Pearson is one of the few truly odd and original voices in American fiction --Esquire