Sam McCain, an impoverished young lawyer in 1950s Iowa, is summoned from his grief over the death of Buddy Holly to investigate an uxoricide

In September 1957, the Edsel made its long-awaited debut in Black River Falls, Iowa. The local Ford dealership was hosting a baton-twirling celebration to welcome the car of the future. But the future can't be taken for granted—a fact made all too clear by the discovery of Susan Squires' body in the trunk of one of the brand-new autos. Now P. I. Sam McCain is trying to find out who killed the wife of the win's most prominent lawyer—before the guilty party hits the road...

The acclaimed Sam McCain series continues - with another case of murder in America's mid-century heartland. In this charming, expertly crafted new mystery set in the twilight of Iowa's 1950s, fledgling lawyer Sam McCain is dancing to a different tune when he discovers that the beautiful blonde who's been tracking him in her black Ford convertible is interested in more than his red ragtop. She's Lila Leigh Mulchaey, and McCain's in love. Two problems, though, darken McCain's Lila is pregnant, and Philip Mulchaey, her father - an outspoken advocate of left-wing causes who'd been fired from his job in the State Department during the McCarthy trials - stands at the center of the political storm surrounding the upcoming visit of Nikita Kruschev to Iowa. Then Philip Mulchaey turns up dead. That he was murdered for his politics, everybody, including McCain's sometime employer, the imperious Judge Esme Anne Whitney, assumes. McCain, however, is not so sure. Murder's usually more personal in Black River Falls.

Preparations for a visit from presidential candidate Richard Nixon become chaotic when Reverend John Muldaur, who has been stirring up the town with anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic circulars, is murdered, forcing Judge Esme Whitney to enlist the help of her friend Sam McCain to catch a killer. Reprint.

There is a body in a gazebo, and the chief suspect is not long for this world Small-town lawyer and private detective Sam McCain is enjoying a cocktail party, dancing with a lovelier specimen than his five-foot-five-inch frame usually attracts, when the hostess confronts him with a problem the likes of which Good Housekeeping has never seen. There is a corpse in the backyard gazebo, and the party is definitely over. The murdered girl was the twenty-year-old daughter of the town’s Cadillac dealer, a troubled young woman with a self-destructive streak. The police focus their investigation on her drag-racing boyfriend, local bad boy David Egan, whom McCain agrees to defend. When Egan dies in a freak car accident, the case seems closed. But examining the hot rod shows a cut brake line—and a motive for a killing far more complicated than good girl gone bad.

At the height of the Cold War, a dead woman turns up in a bomb shelter Black River Falls used to be a boring small town, but at the pinnacle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, nowhere in America can be boring anymore. As the country awaits nuclear annihilation, Iowa gubernatorial favorite Ross Murdoch has a crisis of his own: There is a dead woman in his bomb shelter. Murdoch tells his lawyer, Sam McCain, that the corpse was planted there by his enemies in the local police force, and begs McCain to clear his name before Election Day. The dead woman was mistress to four of the town’s most powerful men—any of whom might have wanted her dead. As the nation’s nuclear paranoia reaches a fever pitch, McCain searches for a killer and learns that there are certain kinds of disaster for which even the finest bomb shelter is no match.

MURDER...AND JUSTICE FOR ALL Summer 1963. In suburban Black River Falls, Iowa, there's more than just politics behind a troubled judge's decision to have private investigator Sam McCain probe a blackmail scheme involving a powerful senator's daughter, Lucy, and David Leeds, the black student she was dating. When the blackmailer, a shady photographer named Richie Neville, and David are found murdered, local cops assume it was racially motivated. Sam suspects, after finding wads of cash and damaging photos of other victims, that perhaps the only intended victim was the extortionist shutterbug. Racial tensions leave no shortage of suspects, and Lucy's bigoted ex-boyfriend, a racist motorcycle gang and Richie's scheming brother all fit into the puzzle somewhere. Sam probes beneath the serene simplicity of an Iowa town in the sixties to find the darker motivation that drives a killer.

1965: America’s favorite small-town detective must solve the murder of two old friends against the backdrop of America’s cultural revolution. For small-town Iowa lawyer Sam McCain the year 1965 is not a sweet one. His father is gravely ill. His elitist boss is just now coming out of rehab. The brilliant lawyer he'd hoped to start a relationship with has gone back to her husband in Chicago. And first young soldier from Black River Falls returns home from a strange place called Viet Nam. In a coffin. Against this background McCain tries to enjoy himself during the long Labor Day weekend party the town sponsors every year, reuniting with several old friends who appeared throughout the first six novels. Now that they're all in their late twenties some of the old grudges and rivalries seem silly―until two of them are murdered for what seems to be a motive buried in the past. With the Beatles, Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan irritating those over thirty―and the boys in long hair and girls wearing blouses without bras irritating people even more―Sam McCain is forced to realize that his old world, along with the entire country's, is about to end forever.

The murder of a wealthy young woman sparks a backlash against the hippie commune that has recently arrived in Black River Falls. A hippie commune has invaded Black River Falls. While the majority of the townspeople believe that the bohemians have the right to stay―despite how bizarre some of their ways can seem―as always, there is a minority that constantly accuses them of everything from criminal activities to Satanism. As usual, lawyer and private investigator Sam McCain finds himself in the middle of the controversy, especially when the teenage daughter of Paul Mainwaring, one of the town’s wealthiest men, is found murdered in the commune’s barn. A deeply troubled young man (and Vietnam vet) named Neil Cameron is immediately charged with the crime, but Sam has serious doubts. In this lively and poignant new novel, Ed Gorman offers readers his richest portrait yet about Black River Falls and its people.

Sam McCain investigates the murder of a friend involved in an anti–Vietnam War group in this thrilling series finale by the Shamus Award–winning author. Iowa, 1971. When we last encountered Sam McCain, in author Ed Gorman’s “absorbing mystery” Ticket to Ride, he had been drafted to fight the war in Vietnam (Booklist). But Sam’s military career ended in boot camp when he was accidentally shot in the head and forced to spend three months recovering at a military hospital. Now Sam’s back in Black River Falls, where he works as a lawyer and investigator, just in time to witness two of his oldest friends come to blows. Veteran Steve Donovan savagely beats his friend and fellow veteran Will Cullen when Will joins an antiwar group. Then Will is found murdered and Steve becomes the primary suspect. But there are others in Black River Falls with reason to want Will dead. And Sam suspects he’ll discover even more before his investigation is over.