The small town of Jarrett Creek went bankrupt due to mismanagement by former mayor Alton Coldwater. Current mayor Rusty Reinhardt called an emergency meeting to discuss how the police force was going to be paid, but before he could get that far Gary Dellmore, son of the city’s bank owner, took over the meeting.

The next morning Dellmore’s body was discovered outside the meeting place, he had been shot. Also, the police force resigned rather than work without pay, and an emergency meeting was held to announce that former police Chief Samuel Craddock agreed to return as police chief for a dollar a year. Part time officer Bill Odum was the only member of the police force to remain.

It didn’t take Craddock long to realize any number of people could have had a reason to murder Gary. Not only was the married man fooling around with other women, he also made bad investment decisions, took kickbacks from loans he procured, and spread around banking information of people who had accounts at his dad’s bank.

The deeper Craddock got into the investigation, the more he realized the murder was planned ahead of time. He also found a growing number of people who wanted Dellmore dead. Ties to a failed water park, a rundown resort, and missing exotic animals forced Craddock to dig deeper into the affairs of the small town, the bank, and the men and women involved.

A number of possibilities as to who wanted Gary Dellmore dead keep the Sheriff, Odum, and readers, wondering who killed the banker. Craddock decided if he could figure out why someone shot Dellmore, he could probably figure out who was guilty of his murder.

Further deaths put pressure on the acting police chief to solve the mystery as soon as possible.

Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek was written by Terry Shames, author of the first two books in the Samuel Craddock Mystery series. The debut A Killing at Cotton Hill was followed by The Last Death of Jack Harbin.

Shames set a steady pace throughout the complicated investigation, all the while managing to keep track of numerous characters, many of them new to the series.

The recurring citizens are beginning to feel like old friends, while others come and go. The familiarity feels like readers are a part of the action, listening in during private conversations, and thinking about who could have killed Gary.

It will be interesting to see what role Craddock plays if further books in the series are written.

A special thank you goes to Terry Shames for sending us a complimentary copy of this book for our review. You can pick up any of Terry’s books including Dead Broke in Jarrett Creek at Amazon.com..