In the 1980s, a small North Carolina town is thrown into turmoil when the sheriff discovers a dead body and a crashed plane. When Sheriff Winston Barnes is awoken by a loud noise in the middle of the night, he gets out of bed to investigate at the local airport. But what he finds there surprises him--an empty plane and a dead body. Now Winston, in the middle of an election against an entitled younger man named Bradley Frye who wants power more than he wants to be sheriff, has to figure out what was on that plane and who shot the man. As Barnes investigates the case, he's drawn deeper into the anger and resentment that bubble just below the surface in his small North Carolina beach town. The man who was shot, Rodney Bellamy, is Black, and now the White Bradley Frye and his friends are terrorizing Bellamy's family--driving through their neighborhood with Confederate flags, breaking their windows, and threatening them. In addition to the racism in his town, Sheriff Barnes is also dealing with his daughter, Colleen, who's back home and grieving after losing her child. Cash skillfully balances three points of view--those of Barnes, Colleen, and Jay, Rodney Bellamy's 14-year-old brother-in-law, who bears the brunt of Bradley Frye's racist attacks. Through the eyes of these very different characters, Cash creates an exquisitely detailed world that feels real and lived in. Sheriff Barnes is an easy character to root for as a man trying to do his best while living in a town that's fighting against him. Although the plot alone is compelling enough to keep readers turning the pages, this is also a quietly moving look at how realistically flawed characters deal with the tragedies life throws at them. A gripping mystery with characters that will linger in readers' minds long after they turn the last page. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The trouble for Sheriff Winston Barnes, the upstanding hero of this leisurely whodunit set in 1984 from bestseller Cash (A Land More Kind than Home), begins when he drives late one night to the tiny Oak Island, N.C., airport, where an airplane has crash landed. On the runway near the plane, which is empty, lies the body of Rodney Bellamy, who's been shot to death. Rodney went to school with Winston's estranged daughter, Colleen, and was the son of one of the county's leading civil rights advocates. An FBI investigation into the mysterious plane, which may have been carrying cocaine, threatens Winston's image as a capable cop--and his chances in a tough re-election against rich boy Bradley Frye. Racial tensions escalate as Frye's crew of thugs threaten Rodney's widow and her 14-year-old brother. Meanwhile, Colleen is in town from Texas to figure out her law career and marriage after the death of her baby. A surfeit of background exposition and multiple tangential story lines slow the momentum of the murder plot. This rich character-driven tale works best as a social portrait of a community and an era. Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber Assoc. (Sept.)

A plane flies in low over Oak Island, North Carolina, in the middle of the night, and after it crashes on the island's one scanty runway, Sheriff Winston Barnes discovers the bullet-riddled body of Rodney Bellamy on the ground nearby. With the wreckage missing both pilot and cargo, everything points to a failed drug heist, except that Rodney, a local Black basketball star and son of a beloved high-school teacher, had no known connection to that world. With his re-election days away, solving Rodney's murder and the mysterious plane crash would go a long way toward guaranteeing Barnes' victory. But his rival, Brandon Frye, a hot-shot land developer with a violent racist streak, capitalizes on the unsolved crime to paint Barnes as an incompetent buffoon. And maybe Barnes is distracted. His wife is dying of cancer, and his married daughter has suddenly returned home after the stillborn death of her first child. Writing with clarity and grace, best-selling Cash (The Last Ballad, 2017) is a gem of a storyteller, combining the solitary journey of a young mother's grief and a community's relentless battle against racial injustice. The result is a tightly crafted whodunit with true depth that readers will simultaneously want to speed through and savor.

When a low-flying aircraft wakes Sheriff Winston Barnes in the middle of the night, he rushes to the tiny Oak Island, NC, airport, imagining a plane in distress. Instead, he finds an abandoned plane, wiped clean of fingerprints, and a murdered Black man on the runway. While he has served for decades as sheriff, Barnes isn't sure he can manage this murder investigation given what is already on his plate--he believes he is on the brink of losing his re-election bid to a wealthy racist land developer, his wife is battling cancer, and his married daughter has just arrived back home after a stillbirth. It is the mid-1980s, and the racial tensions that were already simmering below the surface come to a boil when white residents decide the plane crash is connected to Black members of the community smuggling drugs into town. Cash's (A Land More Kind Than Home) prose is the highlight of the novel, and veteran narrator J. D. Jackson's rich voice and steady pacing allow listeners to savor the lyrical writing. Jackson also smoothly manages the narrative shifts between Barnes, his daughter, and the teenage nephew of the murdered man, helping to bring their separate stories into a cohesive, powerful exploration of the devastating effects of racism. VERDICT Recommend to listeners who enjoy character-driven literary fiction.--Beth Farrell, Cleveland State Univ. Law Lib.