Innocence Lost

"An unforgettable portrait of youthful corruption in the heartland" from the award-winning New York Times–bestselling author (Jonathan Kellerman).

Undercover officer George Raffield's job was to pose as a student in the small town of Midlothian, Texas and infiltrate the high school drug ring. When Raffield's cover became suspect, word spread through a small circle of friends that the young officer would pay with his life. No one stopped it. On a rainy fall evening in 1987, Raffield was lured to an isolated field. Three bullets were fired—one unloaded into his skull. The baby-faced killer, Greg Knighten, stole eighteen dollars from Raffield's wallet, divided it among his two young accomplices, and calmly said, "it's done."

With chilling detail, Carlton Stowers illuminates a dark corner of America's heartland and the children who hide there. What he found was an alienated subculture of drug abuse, the occult, and an unfathomable teenage rage that exploded at point blank range on a shocking night of lost innocence . . .

"Stowers takes us beyond a murder story to expose the dark, drug-infested, violent side of the superficially serene life in a small town . . . disturbing . . . scary." —Associated Press

"Stowers is rarely judgmental, yet spares nothing in describing the horror of the execution-style slaying and the flawed psyches of those involved." —The Houston Post

"A disquieting story told in a splendid narrative style that matches the whispery, Southern drawl of its author . . . chilling." —The Los Angeles Daily Journal