Muddy Waters

First Place Winner

of the Carrie McCray

Memorial Literary Award



"Candace Carter has fashioned a brilliant who-dun-it story with enough clever clues and shocking twists to satisfy even the most ambitious amateur sleuth!"

-Nicky Flowers, Indies Today



Range detective Henry "Whispering" Smith returns to his North Carolina hometown to be best man at his uncle's wedding. After years of tracking livestock rustlers in the desolate Colorado Plateau country, Henry still isn't prepared to face the two things that drove him away-a pig-headed father he doesn't like and an unfaithful ex-girlfriend he does.

When a close friend is murdered, Henry's plan for a brief visit falls apart. Local police suspect cattle theft gone wrong, but it doesn't add up. When police ignore his suspicions, he's determined to use his own detective skills to hunt down a killer. Struggling with reconciling his past, can Henry follow a trail that leads too close to his heart?