In shock and found clinging to a tree branch, Bethany Richter is pulled from thrashing floodwaters that have decimated the town of Garnett, Texas and killed a dozen others. Six months after solving the murder of a local waitress, Annie McIntyre is working as an apprentice P.I. when she's handed her first solo case: uncover the identity of the man who rescued Bethany before he was swept downriver. When Annie's search turns up a different victim-shot...

In segregated High Cotton, Texas, in 1964, the racial divide is as clear as the railroad tracks running through town. It's also where two girls are going to shake things up. This is the last summer of thirteen-year-old Corky Corcoran's childhood, and her family hires a Haitian housekeeper who brings her daughter, America, along with her. Corky is quick to befriend America and eager to share her favorite new "grown-up" novel, To Kill a Mockingbird....

On the outskirts of the town of Mustang Flat is Sean O'Neil's longhorn ranch, the Running-S, one of many small spreads across Texas's western plains. Competition between cattlemen is fierce but friendly--until Colonel Lance Kincaid begins to expand his operation. He pays handsomely to those willing to sell their land and livestock. Those who refuse find their lives under fierce attack--with deadly consequences. Sean O'Neil is not a man easily intimidated....