The Branson Beauty

Touches of sly humor add appeal to Booth’s standout debut, a mystery set in Branson, Mo. Hank Worth, the new sheriff in town, faces his first real case after leaving the Kansas City police when a showboat owned by powerful businessman Henry Gallagher, the Branson Beauty, runs aground in an Ozark lake. Hank spearheads the resources needed to get more than a hundred stranded people off the boat safely. What he wasn’t expecting to find was an incoherent captain, Albert Eberhardt, at the wheel and a murdered teenager, Mandy Bryson, in a locked room, and this is just the beginning of a tangle of surprises and deceit. Hank and his highly competent deputies search for answers, especially when more crimes come to light. The pieces come together slowly, but, when they do, there’s more than one aha moment for Hank and the reader. Betrayals from within the sheriff’s department and issues left unresolved hint at much more to come in what promises to be a most engaging regional police series. Agent: Jim McCarthy, Dystel & Goderich Literary Management. (July)