P.M. Carlson: Gravestone (USA 1994)

From the Publisher:
Marty Hopkins, feisty Deputy Sherff for Nichols County, Indiana, has her hands full with a nine-year-old daughter, and an even bigger kid of a husband. Still, she responds quickly to a predawn call that uncovers the grisly murder of a local musician, David Goldstein... and a charred cross that is the unmistakable calling card of the Ku Klux Klan. Much to her chagrin, and despite her head start on the case, the overprotective Sheriff steers Marty instead to a routine investigation -- the ailing, incoherent Judge Denton's claim that someone's trying to kill him.

But when the addled judge insists that his stalker is his own daughter -- missing since she was thirteen -- Marty can't dismiss his ramblings easily. A cryptic hint from the judge's wife, along with even stranger tips from an eccentric biologist, direct Marty to a cave deep in the Indiana limestone. There she makes a shocking discovery that doubles back to the still-unsolved murder of David Goldstein. When the community is rocked by another brutal, racially motivated killing, and a grandmother is kidnapped from her home, fear begins to mount that the KKK is making plans for the final conflagration. And Marty, drawn inexorably back to the caves, is plunged into a harrowing confrontation, trapped under the earth in utter darkness... alone with chilling fears and shattering secrets that cannot bear the light of day.

P.M. Carlson: Gravestone. A Marty Hopkins Mystery. Pocket Books, ISBN: 0671769758 (June, 1994), 328 p., $5.50.

P.M. Carlson: Gravestone (USA 1993)

From the Publisher:
Acclaimed Edgar Award nominee P.M. Carison "wins more fans with each new book," says Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine. With GRAVESTONE, she launches a brilliant new series and creates a feisty new female sleuth ready to make an indelible mark on the genre. Twenty-nine, mother of nine-year-old Chrissie, more or less married to a hand-some, wayward charmer, Deputy Martine Hopkins works for the Nichols County, Indiana, sheriff's office. Sheriff Wes Cochran is a trifle overprotective, but he can't keep Marty out of trouble for long...

GRAVESTONE
A pre-dawn phone call reporting a brush fire leads Marty to a shallow grave... to charred bits of a wooden cross and a corpse that had once been David Goldstein. Goldstein, a musician, was married to a black woman, and Marty is afraid the killing means the Ku Klux Klan is on the prowl again in the southern Indiana hills. She wants to follow up on the case-but the sheriff has other ideas for his old friend's little girl.

He wants her to investigate Judge Denton's claims that someone is trying to kill him-and since the judge is dying from natural causes, a series of brain tumors that have made him all but incoherent, Marty feels she's been fobbed off on a politically motivated dead end. But then the judge indicates that the threat comes from his long-lost daughter, Phyllis, who disappeared when she was thir-teen. On a cryptic hint from the judge's wife, Marty seeks help from Professor Wolfe, an enigmatic biologist specializing in cave fauna.

From their first meeting, she gives Marty a unique perspective... startling insights into cycles of deep time and the nature of things that live in darkness. Wolfe's answers direct Marty to a cave, deep in the indiana lime-stone, where a shocking discovery reveals links to the still-unsolved murder of David Goldstein.

Then another brutal, racially motivated killing takes place; and a grandmother is kidnapped from her home. As Marty follows the tangled threads of the Denton family's business, and Sheriff Cochran puzzles over a Kian that has been dormant in the county for more than two decades, the Night Hawk, personal emissary of the Klan's Great Titan, is making plans for a final conflagration. And Marty, led inexorably back to the caves, is plunged into a harrowing confrontation, trapped under the earth in utter darkness... fighting man and nature for survival.. alone with chilling fears and shattering secrets that cannot bear the light of day.

P.M. Carlson: Gravestone. A Marty Hopkins Mystery. Pocket Books, ISBN: 067176974X (June, 1993), 328 p., $20.00.