Fire at Will

"Hampton County detective member of firing squad at military funeral where elderly lady was accidentally shot." This was the nightmare headline Jim O'Neill envisioned for the next day's newspaper after the unfortunate woman's demise. It was a mighty embarrassing situation. Jim tackled the case with understandable zeal, but a series of humorous domestic complications hampered him somewhat. Then past events in the Ellery family history made the case even tougher—a suicide that happened years ago, a still talked-of elopement and an unsolved family mystery. Even the lethal weapon in the case was hard to determine, since the guns involved ranged from rifles, Lugers and Berettas to a small water pistol. Brilliant deduction on Jim's part retrieved the case from its inauspicious beginning, uncovered a startling secret, and exposed a murderer. Fire at Will is a shrewd picture of the devastating effects of murder in a small town.