In her second year as Canton Circuit Court Clerk, Kit Babcock faces new challenges when a local rich kid gets charged with murder, and a special judge from nearby Sanders County, Jed Grimes, gets appointed to try the case. Rex Roberts, defense counsel, and Priscilla Clewes, the newly-appointed Canton County Commonwealth Attorney, constantly argue. And Pris argues as much with her new assistant counsel, Bonita Blackburn, as she does with defense counsel. Judge Grimes and Roberts, who is also from Sanders County, seem to hate each other and do little to hide their contempt. And then the air conditioning in the courthouse goes on the fritz—in the middle of a heat wave—putting everyone in a bad mood. And it certainly doesn’t help Kit’s mood when she finds out that her former boyfriend, Deputy Sheriff Brett Harlan, is apparently going out with Pris, Kit’s rival since childhood. Even one of the jurors becomes a problem. Coy Logan balked at serving, claiming he had better things to do since he was in the middle of a nasty divorce and was having problems running the marina at the state park. He is late practically every day to court. One morning, Logan again fails to appear. But rather than show up late, he never shows and can't be located. The trial continues with an alternate juror taking Logan's place on the jury. Judge Grimes issues a warrant for Logan's arrest, but the authorities can't find him. Until the next day. Logan's body washes up at the very same place where two jury views of the purported crime scene took place: a bridge over an inlet called The Devil's Crossing. And the death was no accident. Plenty of people hated Coy Logan. His estranged wife, Judith, moved out of the house she shared with him and moved in with Louisa Logan, her mother-in-law. Years earlier, Coy essentially evicted Louisa from the home she had shared with Coy’s father for half a century. And in the short six months since Judith left, Coy had sought comfort in the arms of two girlfriends. And as if dealing with snotty attorneys, a lack of air conditioning, and a dead juror weren’t enough, Kit discovers that there are about eighty files that are due for destruction—old files which belonged to lawyers who abandoned their practices or died. The clerk's office has to make efforts to contact all those clients, and report everything to the Clerk of the Supreme Court. And all of that has to be done right in the middle of the murder trial, despite Kit and Liz McBride, her chief deputy, taking turns as the bench clerk, trying to keep the jurors happy, and dealing with the courthouse's temperamental air conditioning system. When another person connected with Coy Logan turns up dead as the trial nears its end, Kit begins to worry that the two deaths are somehow connected… DEVIL AT THE BRIDGE is the second novel in the Canton County Chronicles Mystery series. Approximately 78,000 words.