Cruel As the Grave — John Armistead

The killing of Naresse Clouse, mother of four, was the stuff of nightmares.  The pretty restaurant hostess was shot, stabbed, and left hanging in a rural barn, where some said she was meeting a lover.  Three years later her killer has not been found, but no one in Sheffield, Mississippi, has forgotten her, including Sheriff Grover Bramlett....

Bramlett loves his wife of thirty-seven years, down-home cooking, painting watercolors, and his job.  He keeps tabs on the country roads of Chakchiuma County, rich folks as well as poor, and the hot emotions that have sirens screaming in the night.  But when a middle-aged salesman is gunned down, Bramlett is surprised to find the man had been asking about Naresse.  That link sends Bramlett back over ground he'd covered before, unearthing a dirty little secret, digging deeper into witnesses' memories, and heading for the dangerous territory where race, passion, and hatred meet and a ruthless killer waits.