Murder in Texas

When John Fordman, millionaire oil man and leading citizen of the west Texas town named in his honor, is discovered dead from a bullet wound to his head inside his luxury Isotta-Fraschini limousine during the shooting of the latest local gusher, Joan Shields, society page editor of the Fordman Daily News, deems the shocking slaying a welcome diversion, as she would much rather be spending her time investigating ballistics and bloodstains than chronicling the convivial activities of the good ladies of the Laff-a-Lot Bridge Club. With the not overly bright local sheriff finding himself utterly baffled by this heinous murder in a small town, Joan calls in Dick Fields, her private detective pal from her recent days in New York, to help solve the crime. Joan and Dick soon have on their hands a veritable ten-gallon hatful of suspects, including journalists, town fathers and even a reputed mistress or two. How many more murders will take place in this torrid Texas town before a daring and resourceful killer is brought to justice?

Drawing on her own life and work in Big Spring, Texas, journalist and physician Ada E. Lingo (1908-1988) brings a town to life–and death–in Murder in Texas, a prime example of a regional mystery from the Golden Age of detective fiction. Murder in Texas was first published in 1935. This reprint edition includes a biographical introduction by Curtis Evans.

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